Diary of a 30-something idiot

dawnybabes

I know you’ve said your ‘DH’ doesn’t want to work but could he list stuff on Vinted to at least Bring something in? £500 for the monh is going to be tight and it’s going to be tight every month going forwards.  You can’t live like this for the next 19 years - you will have had a nervous breakdown 

foxandflowers

@dawnybabes You are right - I feel almost certainly headed for one if things carry on. I will be getting another £230 in child benefit/maintenance and £150 from Stepson for rent, so not entirely dire, BUT, I have £100 of bills to come out, £160 to buyback in Cash Generators, & the van approx £80, and the back to school supplies shop budgeted at £60. So I have about £120 a week to manage off of, but at least I have a few more days of groceries, and I have my monthly bus ticket.

Have been playing with snowball calcs, and if I can find another £59 a month, or like £15 a week towards the debts, it would go from being 234 months to 169 months, which is about five years. It's also how much my CIPP will cost for the next five months, so once that's 'over' maybe I can just pretend it isn't, and shove that money towards paying stuff off.

Mr Fox doing Vinted would be v helpful. I shall mention it on our Sunday catchup chat.  

stymied

I don’t think you should start overpaying the debts until you have a good emergency fund behind you so you can avoid borrowing more and wait for full & final offers in the future.

If your Switch keeps getting pawned would it be better just to sell it privately to maximise the value and avoid the interest payments?

MFWannabe

foxandflowers said:

@dawnybabes You are right - I feel almost certainly headed for one if things carry on. I will be getting another £230 in child benefit/maintenance and £150 from Stepson for rent, so not entirely dire, BUT, I have £100 of bills to come out, £160 to buyback in Cash Generators, & the van approx £80, and the back to school supplies shop budgeted at £60. So I have about £120 a week to manage off of, but at least I have a few more days of groceries, and I have my monthly bus ticket.

Have been playing with snowball calcs, and if I can find another £59 a month, or like £15 a week towards the debts, it would go from being 234 months to 169 months, which is about five years. It's also how much my CIPP will cost for the next five months, so once that's 'over' maybe I can just pretend it isn't, and shove that money towards paying stuff off.

Mr Fox doing Vinted would be v helpful. I shall mention it on our Sunday catchup chat.  

I think you need to get yourself in a better position of having an emergency fund to fall 
back on instead of endlessly going round in circles pawning stuff to enable you to pay bills and put food on the table 
I’ve said it before and it needs looking at again; the monthly subscriptions all need cutting; build yourself an emergency fund so you can breath 
Im not sure where all your wages go tbh as you have no mortgage or rent to pay; are you able to pinpoint where the money has gone this month? 

You really need to be tough x It’s all on you and your salary 

Jellytotts

Back to absolute basics and get a SOA drawn up based on the last few months, not on “ifs bits and maybes” but actually figures.  Forget the debt, you’re using a debt charity, let them do their thing and just make the payments they say, do not start worrying about full and finals or overpayments, you cannot deal with those until you learn to budget your monthly income and expenditure.

One account for all your bills, work out how much they are, make sure you get all the direct debits to come out the day after pay day and pay them all each month before anything else.  And by bills I mean council tax/electric/gas/house and car insurance and any contracts you cannot get out of.

Move your grocery spends budget into a separate account, do not use it for anything other than food….not take away but actual cook at home food/cleaning supplies.  Back to basics here too, beans on toast is an acceptable meal once a week.

Aside from clothes that are necessary for your daughter you probably don’t need to spend on yourself of DH.  

If you have tech stuff that you are pawning to get through the month then either sell it and use the money to get straight or stop pawning and use it.

The van seems to be costing a lot each month, factor this in to your monthly bills.

Trinkets and souvenirs from holiday are not a good use of your money, holidays aren’t a good use of your money, I’m not saying don’t have fun but you really need to grasp your income versus outcome totals and not spend outside them.  Until you’ve got that sorted you’re just in a vicious circle.  Have a look locally to see if there are any financial support courses/help and advice that can help you draw up a realistic budget.  Once you’re up and running with that regularly then you can look at how your debts can be tackled.  

I feel the chaos through your diary or your thoughts and financial crisis and you need some real support to get it under control.  

slm6002

I agree with the others, until you can get through a month or more without pawning items or borrowing off your friends you need to forget paying any extra off your debt.  There is a reason they have set the amount to the level that it is, and that is so you can afford the things you need each month without getting further into debt.

At some point in the future when maybe more than 1 income is coming in and there are possibly less mouths to feed, you can then work on paying off the debts.  You need to be in the here and now and worry more about paying into the emergency fund ready for the time that you need it.  Also this fund is big emergency costs like the boiler breaking down rather than coming to the end of the money and needing a takeaway.  It sounds harsh but until the budget is under control then you need to go back to the basics and stop living like there is more money somewhere. 

Most of us have been there so know how tough it is to have the debt.  But it is the learning to live within your means that is the goal at the moment rather than paying off the debts.

Bluegreen143

I’m another voting for not overpaying on your debts until you have a properly balanced budget and some savings behind you. No point OPing if you’re turning round and borrowing more the next week.

foxandflowers

Thank you all for bringing me back down to earth - it was needed.

I was feeling really low last night, combined with monthly visitations, so stopped at Co-op on the way home to get snacks, and a nicer dinner than we had planned with a bottle of wine. Feel terribly guilty about that this morning, although it was only £20 and much cheaper and nicer than a takeaway. Decided I will use September 1st as my target to have everything arranged and then work on low spend September/October with plenty of decluttering to work towards building my Emergency Fund. Starting with a low target of £300 set aside, plus £120 in the loqbox account, and aiming for £400 in premium bonds by the end of the year. Looking at my budget if nothing goes wrong (aka famous last words) in a low spend month, I should be able to put aside £270 a month, in addition to the £45 that is currently going into loqbox/premium bonds. Obviously that is absolutely best case scenario and does include the next 5 months of CIPP fees... If I can manage half of that I will be a happy bunny.

The snowball calculator reckons 14 and a half years to be debt free if I change nothing. I was going to post a formatted SOA but I can't access the sites for some reason, so I will lay it out below. 

INCOME = £2212
Salary: £1780
Child Benefit: £102
Child Maintenance: £130
Rent: £200

SAVINGS = £165
Premium Bonds: £25
Loqbox: £20
Vehicle Maintenance: £70
Christmas/Gifts: £50

DEBT = £200
Stepchange: £110    (£32,586.32 outstanding)
Friend One Loan: £71     (£7236.00 outstanding) 
Friend Two Loan: no current repayments     (£2000.00 outstanding)
Credit Card: £19     (£297.74 outstanding)
Ramsdens: £276         (due in full on 1st November)
Cash Generators: £158.40    (due in full on 12th September) 

BILLS = £1350.50
Council Tax: £199
Water: £46
Gas & Electric: £180
Internet: £40
Mobile Contracts x2: £70
Van Insurance: £73
RAC: £22
Monzo Plus: £7  ------- have more than made this back in using the free railcard.
Home Insurance: £13.50
Public Transport Costs: £90
Fuel: £160
Groceries: £450

EXPENSES = £225.00
Spotify: £20    ------- family plan, used by us and kids.
Cloud Storage: £5
Ring Doorbell: £8
Playstation: £15
Amazon Prime: £9
Netflix: £18     ------ family plan, used by us and kids.
Clothes: £10   -------- anything extra to be supplemented by selling on Vinted.
Vaping: £50
Eating Out: £50     ------ work lunch once a month, one meal out or takeaway 
illumicrate: £37   -------- skipped most months, so closer to £12 a month.
Youtube Premium: £13 


For the first two months my "extra" is going to have to go towards reclaiming my Switch / rings, and buying school shoes, then Christmas. So from January, I guess we can see if I can make 4 months worth of saving £250 a month, and then when everything goes up again in April we can re-evaluate, perhaps with £1000 in savings as a cushion.

It looks like my Child Maintenance is not due to be paid in September and I cannot figure out why. That will be today's phone call.  

Sarahwithlove

Are you any closer to your OH helping out financially? Dif you have a chat about him selling things? You still have a lot of extras as a family that are all being paid for by you. I know you love your van but I do wonder whether you'd be better off selling it and saving those costs until you have a better budget and more financially stable. 

londoner2019

Seconded on the van. Can you calculate how much you've spent on maintaining/repairing it over the last 12 months?