What Not to do When You Move House

enthusiasticsaver

meerkatpie said:

enthusiasticsaver said:

Well done on making some changes to your food shopping habits. 

I use my local zero waste shop for spices. Costs pennies now rather than £1.50 a jar. 

Menu planning, batch cooking and bulking out meals or doing more veggie meals will bring down cost. Check out old style forum for tips. Downbrand and maybe cut back on treat stuff like alcohol or only buy when on offer. 

Good idea to move away from credit if you struggle to be disciplined on spending. 

Goodness that is such a good idea! I never even thought of my zero-waste store! And I was given a spice rack as a moving in gift which meant I literally exchanged spices from one to another. A definite waste! I've done some Googling and my local store is only a 10 minute drive away so that is certainly where I will be heading at the weekend! 

And I shall do, thank you! I had a treat this week for a bottle of wine, but I made sure to pick the one which was on a Clubcard offer rather than my usual and it was just as nice! I am not a heavy drinker so it is a bit of a one off, but nevertheless things such as that are certainly not essentials and I need to look out for the offers. 

And I think so too, it's happened one too many times now so it is evident that I have an issue with the control. Once the credit card is used it will be closed. I am not sure whether to reduce my limit as time goes on? I have a Santander credit card for emergencies (which I genuinely don't use), and that has a £2,000 limit. My Barclaycard is much higher and I am tempted to slowly cut the limit down each month. It may impact my credit score as my utilisation will go up, but it is less of a temptation to spend and now I have the house and don't need any new credit for the foreseeable, I am not sure it would be a bad choice? But if anyone has any advice on that it would be great!  

There is a school of thought which says that credit utilisation has an impact on your credit applications so maybe hold off on reducing the limits unless you really cannot trust yourself not to use them.  Can you put them away somewhere so they are not with you  all the time?  Having a credit card for the S75 protection is sensible so I would suggest you keep at least one once they are cleared.  

meerkatpie

enthusiasticsaver said:

There is a school of thought which says that credit utilisation has an impact on your credit applications so maybe hold off on reducing the limits unless you really cannot trust yourself not to use them.  Can you put them away somewhere so they are not with you  all the time?  Having a credit card for the S75 protection is sensible so I would suggest you keep at least one once they are cleared.  

That is a good point, maybe best to hang off. I think I will not use it now that it is away and I don't carry it with me any more so I shouldn't just be spending!  

I'll definitely keep my Santander card open with the lower limit and I have turned off limit increases on that card It'll be there for big purchases that I can afford to pay off in full!  

meerkatpie

Monday Update

Another week, another step closer to Christmas. I cannot believe it is next week, honestly! It seems to have been such a while in coming round and now the days are speeding by.

Given the big day is looming, I thought I’d provide a run-down of where we are at so far.

In my spending pot, I have £86.12. I spent a bit of money over last weekend as I visited the Christmas Market with some friends. A lot of it was overpriced rubbish, but still, it was nice to be out and I had a hot chocolate.

My Tesco order does need to come out of that, it’s a nice even £50 through click and collect again this week, so that’ll leave me with £36.12. My car has enough fuel to get me through to the New Year now (I got a refund on some clothing and a returned parcel which nicely paid for my top up for me). 

This weekend my partner and I have lots of free things planned, we’re going to go for a walk, make a curry together and do some Christmas crafts with bits we have in the house. I have a little bit spare so I’m tempted to get some cheap bits from the shop and do Christmas cookies too but we will see what the weekend brings.

Still need to wrap everyone’s presents, but at least I have them in the cupboard ready!

Payday is next Thursday, I think this month may be a little less as I have had some time off, so I really need to be on it in January so that I can make those pounds stretch.

I’ll be bringing out the Tesco stamps next week for the big Christmas shop so at least food is covered… we shall see how this week goes!

meerkatpie

Hello Everyone!

I hope you have all had a fantastic and merry Christmas!

I can certainly say I did, was a bit of a chance to (conservatively) let my hair down a little and a very welcome time to see the family! 

We exchanged gifts and even though I didn't buy too much this year, everyone was very appreciative and I certainly put some thought into people's presents. Just goes to show you don't need to spend a lot to put a smile on someone's face! 

I'm still plowing my way through the chocolate gifts I received but I'm planning and looking ahead for the New Year. 

I previously turned off most marketing emails so I have not had to worry too much about being enticed by the sales, very much a case of I would only get something if I needed it anyway. 

My leftovers have also been repurposed so my food shop was £25 this week. Doing some exciting things with the leftover meats and vegetables, a few bits were turning but I have made a nice soup to get the last out of them rather than things wasting. 

I'll provide another update soon as my bills go out between now and next Wednesday so we shall see what I am left with afterwards. 

For a lot of us our pounds will need to stretch further in January so I am remaining grateful for all the I have had and not letting frivolity get in the way of sensibility. I have a determination for 2023 which even I haven't felt before so I am absolutely ready to do this. 

In advance, I have put away a little into my emergency fund, once this reaches £1,000 I shall begin to hard-core tackle the debt. I've also signed up for extra shifts and overtime so I shall see the benefits of that work from around February. 

Finally, I have already started planning for Christmas 2023 with £25 a month going into a Monzo pot. If I can keep that up it should certainly help with the shopping next year... it's an expected expense so why not plan for it now!

Nevertheless, I hope everyone has an amazing New Year in advance! Please do take care  

meerkatpie

Good Evening Everyone!

Happy 2023. I hope you are all feeling good about this New Year!

I am certainly doing my best to stay positive. My payments went out yesterday and this month I have paid £486.90 off of my debts with £310 towards my Barclaycard and my regular payment of £176.90 towards my loan. 

At the moment I am paying my maximum I think I can afford towards my credit card, which is the one I would need to clear first before the 0% runs out. 

However, at the end of the month I am scheduled to take on some extra work which will mean me working some evenings. It's a sacrifice of my social life on some occasions, but overall it should be able to bring me in around £150-£200 more after tax. 

I want to pretend as though this is not there and send it straight to the Barclaycard before I even see it, so I will throw every extra penny over my base budget to the credit card. 

My other cards have been hidden away and removed from my online and Apple Pay. 

It's strange that even just not having it on my phone to fall back on makes me much more reluctant to spend money. It really takes away the temptation.

To cut back on my budget, I've cancelled my bin and window cleaners. To try and help me spread my payments, I have put all my Monzo spending money into a pot on the app and I now give myself a weekly budget to help me get through the months, rather than having it all in one place. Hopefully that will help me see through the months. 

Fingers crossed I can get some more overtime where possible and add those pennies, but it will be a few months before I see the full benefit. So for the time being, it is belt and braces, adjusting to budget life again and living within my means. So far I am getting there but still much more can be done!  

Humdinger1

@meerkatpie you are doing brilliantly! I'm sure you'll make huge inroads very quickly and sending extra earnings straight to ccs is fab.  Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

meerkatpie

Humdinger1 said:

@meerkatpie you are doing brilliantly! I'm sure you'll make huge inroads very quickly and sending extra earnings straight to ccs is fab.  Onwards and upwards love Humdinger xx 

Thank you very much! 

I am doing everything I can and throwing every penny I can towards breaking free from these shackles! 

meerkatpie

Mindset

I appreciate I am in this position due to my own choices. I also understand people may be in worse or better situations than me, but I must say throughout this whole process I feel overwhelmed with a sense of dread. 

There seems to be a voice inside my head which constantly makes me worry about making my payments and concerned of the hold this debt has on my life. 

When I think of the disposable income I could have and that all of it needs to go towards what I pay, I can't help but feel a sense of shame. 

Does anyone have any tips to help combat this? I can't explain whether it's now having the responsibility of a mortgage payment, but I feel worried all the time and any advice would be much appreciated to help alleviate the weight! 

Humdinger1

@meerkatpie can i start by saying that this is normal at the start of a journey to shed debt? Yes you have debt but it's nowhere near as bad as it might be; imagine if you'd gone blithely on and only started when everything was maxed out and bouncing? It might be an idea to post your SOA again so that we don't have to go back to the very start of your diary and get confused flicking between pages.  You can do this love Humdinger xx 

astrocytic_kitten

I felt a lot of shame during my debt payoff @meerkatpie, outwardly I had a good career and flat and was a successful adult and I just felt like I had this horrible big shameful secret, and constantly worried about what would happen if I lost my job etc. I’d also gone through a few rounds of debt build up then repayment and felt like I should know better. Especially as my debt was built up via emotional spending and frivolous purchases.

What probably helped most for me was sharing with friends that I was paying off debt and didn’t have much money, and asking to do free or cheap things instead. I was still too embarrassed to share actual figures, but a surprising number of friends said they were in a similar situation and very enthusiastically entered into free plans. I remember one of my closest friends in particular who I’ve always considered pretty sorted in life (and far more grown up than me), and it turned out we had very similar feelings about our situations.

Other than that, as @Humdinger1 says, it should settle down as you get into the rhythm of things and it becomes more routine. You’ve done it before, you know you can do it again, and just be gentle with yourself.