Diary of a 30-something idiot

foxandflowers

londoner2019 said:

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

£807.19 exactly.
Which is a solid £31,000 less than I spent on the other van. I actually think around £1000 a year maintaining a vehicle of that age is not that bad! My budget for it is £70 a month, so assuming the pot was fully funded, I would actually be under budget  

Bluegreen143

I think £125 on subscriptions and £70 on phones stands out to me as too much for your income and debt level. I’m guessing you’re still in contract for your phones, but it’s worth considering going SIM only - I pay £8 a month on giffgaff. 

I notice you haven’t allocated any money in your budget for whatever your priority “wants” are - whatever that is to you, whether it’s taking little Fox out, getting decent clothes, hobbies or seeing friends. 

All the wants money you’ve allocated is to subscriptions, eating out and vaping which total £300 between them. But I think most of us would find it very hard to stick to a budget where there is no money for things you want and value. I’m not surprised you rebel by ordering clothes and other things you can’t afford. It’s obvious that £10 a month clothes budget won’t work for you and little Fox (does it include DH or step kids too?) - there’s no point putting yourself in a position where you’re doomed to fail. 

curly_moose

Fox, it might be worth looking at whether there’s an apprenticeship alternative for your CIPPs course (off the top of my head there are a couple of payroll related options). I’d be shocked if the council isn’t a levy paying employer, and then it could be fully funded by them. Your work’s L&D team should be able to help you with this if you wanted to look into it. 

Moneywhizz

Have been reading along and just popping in to offer some ideas, although I know you have had lots of good advice already. The thing is, the way you are living, running out of money every month, is really damaging to your mental health and it is time to take it in hand and sort it out once and for all. You have a good income, are mortgage free, and should be able to manage without having to borrow every month. You need to set a much more realistic budget that covers all your expenses. For example, £50 a month for christmas and birthday gifts is not really all you are going to spend. You need to honest about your monthly commitments and also include a repayment to your friend who currently isn't getting anything. You are lucky to have such good friends. If you do this I think you will see that you cannot afford all of the subscriptions, vaping, expensive mobile contracts, £450 for groceries, van expenses etc. You would need to prioritise what is most important to you and cut out things that you can do without. I think you would also see that, although you are earning well, supporting a family on one salary nowadays is almost impossible unless you are all willing to live a very frugal lifestyle. Two salaries coming in would make a huge difference to your health and ability to enjoy life with your family. 

Sarahwithlove

foxandflowers said:

londoner2019 said:

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

£807.19 exactly.
Which is a solid £31,000 less than I spent on the other van. I actually think around £1000 a year maintaining a vehicle of that age is not that bad! My budget for it is £70 a month, so assuming the pot was fully funded, I would actually be under budget  

It's not bad if it was your only vehicle and you weren't in debt. Right now it's a luxury and you seem to have a lot of them as a family with only one income to maintain them. 

SuzeQStan

Sarahwithlove said:

It's not bad if it was your only vehicle and you weren't in debt. Right now it's a luxury and you seem to have a lot of them as a family with only one income to maintain them. 

I am probably wrong but I thought the van was Foxes only vehicle

foxandflowers

Yes the van is the only vehicle.

Got some post yesterday and a random Vodafone debt has been assigned to Lowells who manage another one of my debts, so had my contact details. I knew it was lurking out there somewhere, but I couldn't remember any of the details for it. I'm sort of glad they "found" me but now I'm very much disheartened, because it means that my debt "paid off" has gone from 11.2% to 9.29%. 

Now I have to ring Stepchange again and add yet another debt. I feel like I am never going to move past this. I am sick of being asset rich and day to day poor. 

Cherryfudge

Oh, it must be disheartening to find the totals have to shrink a bit - but you've still paid approaching 10%, which is awesome.

And another thing: that's a debt that's no longer lurking. If you know or suspect there may others, why not add a projected amount to your total so that if they turn up, you've allowed for it? And of course if it turns out you don't owe something, it's a nice surprise. I find the unacknowledged things at the back of my mind are heavier on my mental health than I realise, till they are in the light of day, named and faced. Once you can quantify something, you have a hold over it.

stymied

Will you proceed down the DRO route for Mr Fox? That would be a massive chunk gone.

Elisheba

foxandflowers said:

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 - I wouldn't worry about saving anything until you have broken even for 3 months straight and can honestly say you have the money to spare.
Loqbox: £20
Vehicle Maintenance: £70 - So £840 a year to cover all repairs, MOT and service.  Seems a bit low for a van.
Christmas/Gifts: £50 - £600 a year for birthdays and Christmas is probably too low when you have kids 

DEBT = £200 - Don't worry about the outstanding amounts or the debt free date just now.  Just get on top of your budget
Stepchange: £110    (£32,586.32 outstanding)
Friend One Loan: £71     (£7236.00 outstanding) 
Friend Two Loan: no current repayments     (£2000.00 outstanding) You need to set up a payment plan for this or it will never happen - I suggest you premium bond and Loqbox money
Credit Card: £19     (£297.74 outstanding) ?
Ramsdens: £276         (due in full on 1st November) Have you put money aside for this?
Cash Generators: £158.40    (due in full on 12th September) 

BILLS = £1350.50
Council Tax: £199
Water: £46
Gas & Electric: £180 - while this looks about average for a family household there might be some economies you can make
Internet: £40 - you can get fast broadband cheaper.  When your contract is up again I wouldn't go about £25
Mobile Contracts x2: £70 - That is a huge amount.  I guess you are locked in at the moment but at renewal time, if you can't afford to buy a phone outright, you can still get contracts for less than £20 that have 100mb of data and include decent handsets.  
Van Insurance: £73 -  Wow, £876 is a lot of year.  Do you absolutely need to run a van?  Could you not get a cheap runaround instead - that would save you a lot of money.
RAC: £22 - There are cheaper breakdown contracts out there. I don't know how it works with vans, but I paid £65 for a year for my car, including pretty much everything
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 - I'm sure you have seen on these boards, but there are lots of ways to reduce this a bit.

EXPENSES = £225.00
Spotify: £20    ------- family plan, used by us and kids. I would say either YT Premium or Spotify, not both.
Cloud Storage: £5.  Go through and delate some photos and you shoudl be able to reduce this to a cheaper plan
Ring Doorbell: £8 - Do you really need this?  I have no idea what it isezactly, but is it worth £96 a year for someone to answer your door or whatever?
Playstation: £15. If the older ones paying rent are using this, can they contribute to it?
Amazon Prime: £9 - In the interests of saving money perhaps either Netlix or Prime?
Netflix: £18     ------ family plan, used by us and kids.
Clothes: £10   -------- anything extra to be supplemented by selling on Vinted. This isn't realistic.  £120 a year on clothes' for a family?  Get rid of some of the subscriptions and add the money to the clothes pot.  
Vaping: £50.  This is a lot.  Have you tried getting a proper vape like an Aspire Pockex, and buying cheap liquid from 88Vape for it?  Even with 2 of you vaping, I can't see it coming to £50 a month that way.
Eating Out: £50     ------ work lunch once a month, one meal out or takeaway. I know you need to have fun, but this isn't really something you can afford.  Can you try alternatives like HM pizza, or a picnic in good weather.  At the end of the day its about quality family time, not how much you spend
illumicrate: £37   -------- skipped most months, so closer to £12 a month. I don't know what this is, but doesn't sound like you need it if you skip most months. 
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.  

Hi FoxandFlowers.  I have just started following your diary.  I hope a pair of fresh eyes might be of some help.  I have added some comments to your spending above. Hope you find them helpful.