10 years later yikes

1stTimer

Well it’s been a weird few months, I am back to changing my mind on how to tackle things daily but although debt wise there has not been huge changes, it has still been going down so yay!
The reason why it hasn’t gone down as quick as maybe possible is because for the first time ever I focused on saving and what a difference that was. I’ve realised that even if I do clear the debt down it’s still going to be sitting on my credit file for another 3 years so why the rush!

with all the overtime and surveys, extra side bits I was doing I had managed to save for the first time ever £10k in savings!
This was a blessing at the beginning of the month when my car finally gave up on me😃 I have to say handing over £6.5k for a 10 year old car took huge effort considering it would have been so much cheaper a few years back, but with ULEZ and cost of living I swallowed it and now have an amazingly quiet car with no whistling or rattling and it has working air con!

The point I’m trying to make is it took a completely different mindset to hand over ‘my money’ for the first time ever and I’m extremely proud of myself🥳

1stTimer

I’ve never in my life had savings but in the past 6 months I have not only had savings but also been able to purchase a car without any credit…that’s incredible!

so anyway I’m sticking to paying the debts minimal and now I have 4K saved in emergency fund so will continue to build on this until I change my mind again.

Sarahwithlove

If they aren't charging interest and will be on your file for 3 years anyway I would work on saving and getting the most you can from your money. It's always tempting to pay them off but why should they get the benefit of your money they already have had enough in the past. 

1stTimer

Sarahwithlove said:

If they aren't charging interest and will be on your file for 3 years anyway I would work on saving and getting the most you can from your money. It's always tempting to pay them off but why should they get the benefit of your money they already have had enough in the past. 

Totally agree, plus from what I have read they haven’t even paid that much themselves for the debt from the original creditors!

Today I have the day off so will be doing some surveys and housework. Can’t believe we are nearly in October already 😱

1stTimer

Back to work today and was quite a shock walking the dog in the dark this morning. On the plus side I am not good with heat so to see winter coming is a relief.

Does anyone here use YNAB? For some reason I keep being drawn to it but not sure if I can justify the fee, one of my issues with my debt is I am terrible at updating and using spreadsheets for finances. I’ll spend hours tweaking it and once it’s complete I love to see the data but really struggle to stay on top of it.

joedenise

I still have an old version of YNAB - I bought it outright for about £60 back in something like 2014.  Unfortunately it's no longer supported by them so when it packs up I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and pay for the current version.  So personally I'd go for it as it certainly got me thinking more about my finances and love tweaking it and it's got to the stage that we actually have savings and money put away for everything that it needed throughout the year including holidays (which are very important to us).

You do need to input anything you spend and it will take a while to input all your regular outgoings and incomings to start with but once it's one it becomes automatic and you just need to input what you spend when you shop etc.  

Give the free trial a go and see how you get on with it - you get 34 days to try it and you should be able to decide in that time if it's for you or not.  There are also online classes and a forum to help you so might be worth having a look at those too.

kiss_me_now9

I used to use YNAB but if I'm honest my brain really struggled with the concept and I'd often be caught saying "I have £x in my bank account, why shouldn't I go and buy Y even if it's not budgeted for? I'll just take from a different category". I wish it worked for me, it is a pretty good tool. 

1stTimer

kiss_me_now9 said:

I used to use YNAB but if I'm honest my brain really struggled with the concept and I'd often be caught saying "I have £x in my bank account, why shouldn't I go and buy Y even if it's not budgeted for? I'll just take from a different category". I wish it worked for me, it is a pretty good tool. 

Oh that’s interesting and I can see my going down the same path if I’m not careful….thanks for the heads up
I got the renewal for dog insurance through today £150 a month! I had a knee jerk reaction and cancelled it straight away but over the course of day I have found myself regretting it and have just called them to reverse the cancellation lol
it sounds a lot but I will not compromise his health just to make my balance a bit healthier each month. He is covered for life and we’ve already been through 2 operations so I think we have still received more than we have paid.

kiss_me_now9

1stTimer said:

kiss_me_now9 said:

I used to use YNAB but if I'm honest my brain really struggled with the concept and I'd often be caught saying "I have £x in my bank account, why shouldn't I go and buy Y even if it's not budgeted for? I'll just take from a different category". I wish it worked for me, it is a pretty good tool. 

Oh that’s interesting and I can see my going down the same path if I’m not careful….thanks for the heads up
I got the renewal for dog insurance through today £150 a month! I had a knee jerk reaction and cancelled it straight away but over the course of day I have found myself regretting it and have just called them to reverse the cancellation lol
it sounds a lot but I will not compromise his health just to make my balance a bit healthier each month. He is covered for life and we’ve already been through 2 operations so I think we have still received more than we have paid.

Something to watch out for! I am good at keeping hold of an amount of money but very bad at budgeting and compartmentalising money. 

1stTimer

I decided to give YNAB a swerve for now, I have downloaded moneyhub today and have been being playing with that. Time will tell and hopefully I have plenty of that.
I'm just chugging along this week trying to complete surveys etc to boost savings but I want to really re-evaluate my goals next month. I am going to set myself a weekly spend budget and set weekly goals for spending and earning extra.
i think this will keep me updating this diary and also a week of challenges is so much better than waiting a whole month for payday and then having that one day to update everything.