Reducing Debt, Saving for that Rainy Day

enthusiasticsaver

It sounds like you are both on the same page with cutting out  unnecessary spending so that will help a lot.  There is loads of wriggle room in your budget should you really want to get rid of the debt quicker.  

I don't understand the £100 you are paying to your friend to support her business?  Are you saying you pay her but you no longer have a dog to walk?  Surely that £100 could go towards your debt?

If you are putting £1000 into joint savings a month and currently only have £500 then that presumably means a lot of those categories are overspent considerably.

Can you get some cheaper freezer meals for when you are busy?  It takes no time at all to put some oven baked fish and chips in the oven and it will be cheaper and certainly no less nutritious than takeaways. Stir fries are really quick and easy and even roasting a chicken and having it with salad/veg takes little time or effort. 

SarahSaves

Sorry no - we pay her £100 a month to walk the dog, which is the £5 a day (£25 a week) - we still have the dog and have just continued to use her after she established her business.  We could stop using her, just with not knowing our office working days it is convenient to know the dog is sorted.  

We are overspending massively - on food, and social.  Those are good ideas, thank you and I also have a slow cooker I could use too.  And alot of the time I am working from home so could prep things in the day I need to be MUCH more conscious of this and organised because as you've rightly pointed out there are some super quick and easy meals we could be having with minimal effort.  We could also make more of a meal so we have one ready in the freezer.  I've been terrible with managing the food stocks sometimes I'm throwing away (or feeding the dog) out of date chicken breasts or salmon fillets which is madness.

The wiggle room has to come from my own budget because it's my own debt so if we can reduce the joint expenditure down and have comfortable savings or find a way to rebalance and reduce the contribution we both make (£1500) then this saving will be able to go to my debt repayments.  I've listed on FB marketplace today some gym equipment I brought from amazon months ago but was going to cost me courier fees to return and its just sat in the box in the hall all this time.  

I have given myself this £10 spending allowance per day to just have some control over my expenditure but I can also reduce this down definitely - any underspends will get sent to the credit cards.    I did this to limit my spending but I could half this definitely.  

SarahSaves

I've just been on Dave Ramsey's snowball calculator because I made an additional payment to my Barclaycard today but I really wanted to send it to MBNA but the interest was higher on Barclaycard.  Anyway he actually recommends paying the smallest debt off first regardless of the interest rate.

Step 1: List your debts from smallest to largest regardless of interest rate.

Step 2: Make minimum payments on all your debts except the smallest.

Step 3: Pay as much as possible on your smallest debt.

Step 4: Repeat until each debt is paid in full.

I wish I read this before lol so I will focus on clearing the smallest debt first - MBNA credit card!!  

enthusiasticsaver

I think starting with the smallest debt is a good idea to motivate you.  The only exception is if the interest rate is a lot more on one of the other debts so it depends on how much higher the rate on the Barclaycard is.  Dave Ramsey has some good suggestions but don't feel you have to follow all his rules.  Whatever works for you is fine. 

Menu planning is the key to sorting grocery spends.  When I do my food shopping and planning I always choose ingredients for quick meals a few times a week as I know that there will be some days I will be late home and my husband will only cook quick easy meals. 

I have roughly the same personal spends as you per month so £300.  Out of that I pay for hair, nails, clothes, hobbies and personal socialising.  I tend to divide it into weeks and if I have spent less than £75 I move the difference over to savings.  You could do the same with your debt so if you spend less than £75 one week make an extra debt repayment.  You will be surprised how the little amounts add up. 

Thanks for explaining about the dog.  Personally that is one thing I would forego and just fit the walk around your office hours  or get the kids to walk the dogs when they get back from school or college or whatever but if it comes out of joint money I don't suppose it will make much difference to your debt anyway. Ultimately though if you bring down the £1500 contribution you will have more available to repay the cards. It does not really make sense to have a lot of joint savings when you have high personal debt. This needs to be a discussion to have  with your DH though. 

MatyMoo

I aim to cook once and eat at least twice so things like stews, casseroles, chilli, spag, curries I at least double and then freeze in reasonable sized portions. This has really helped me to reduce food waste & takeaways. 

It means that a lot of the time I only need to cook rice/pasta/potatoes and heat whatever is going with it. 

Have you also looked at PADding? This is where you make a payment a day so, for example, if you only spent £2 of your £10 a day allowance you would PAD the other £8. I find that works better for me than trying to save and make a bigger payment once a month as the money always gets spent if it’s in my bank!

SarahSaves

Just checking in - I've been spending absolutely nothing which is unheard of and quite addictive.  My DD went to my virgin credit card.  I've managed to sell the gym equipment (pending collection later today) which is only an extra £25 I'll add to the 'surplus for debt' pot.  Thanks mattymoo I will try the payment a day because I wouldn't want to dip into any unspent allowance.  I want it to all go on debt.

I worked onsite yesterday and I did get up a bit later than I had hoped but I was really good and made some porridge in a flask, and grabbed a frozen chicken lentil curry that I found at the back of the freezer as we have a microwave at work. 
We froze some pulled pork a couple of weeks ago when I was starting to stress about having a plan to clear my debt, and we had that last night because I was at work until late.  We topped some nachos with them with some salsa and fresh red onion and coriander.  It literally took 5mins and it was really good!  

We have a busy weekend this weekend but with train strikes happening we have cancelled our pre booked trains and we will drive, so we've had a nice refund into the joint account.  This is going to be a long road, but I do feel more in control of my debts rather than the other way around.  And I know just little things like eating from the freezer, or the payment a day will all add up... because that's how my debt escalated, with a little bit here and there!  

[Deleted User]

I am a little confused by the two income and expenditure lists. Are you saying you have two incomes?

SarahSaves

[Deleted User] said:

I am a little confused by the two income and expenditure lists. Are you saying you have two incomes?

No, the debt is mine personally and I've posted my income and expenditure including the transfer to my joint account with my husband of £1500.
I have then listed the joint account income and expenditure. 
I am managing two budgets, and two cashflows.  The debt is not joint.

[Deleted User]

I think I get it now. So you earn £3577 a month? Looking at your expenditure there is certainly scope for lots of savings. To be honest why are you putting £200 a month to savings for the children? Their pocket money already seems very generous.

SarahSaves

The savings is more recent and we're trying to build up enough to fund their cars, there's two of them.  Pocket money is a bug bear to be honest.  We increased it on the basis that they helped more and they don't!!  Its £12.50 a week