I shouldn't feel skint ...

Grumpelstiltskin

Popping out to the pub or for a coffee shouldn't cost anywhere near £200 a month, so hope you are not paying for others drinks on a regular basis.

If you only go into the office 2 or 3 days a week you should find you have more than enough clothes to see you through at least 1 year, even royalty reuse their clothes on a regular basis,

kimwp

Hiya! Please don't feel ashamed, it's super easy to fritter money. It's great that you've realised that you need to sort the situation out.

There's things you can do to cut back on costs, as others have said above, but the key thing is to understand where your money is going. You need to start tracking everything you are spending. If you put everything on card, it's pretty easy to go back through your statements. If you use cash a lot, you'll be better writing down spends as you go.

An emergency fund is a good idea. Once you know what your real spending picture is, you can build up your pot to a good amount and then start throwing any excess at your debts.

chemteacher78

Thank you!

Another question. What would you suggest using to track your spending and debt pay-down? I currently have the Emma app - but it’s clearly not made enough of an impact (!). Can anyone suggest a simple spreadsheet or tracker?

I am thinking about starting a diary thread to track progress and make this my project for 2024. Looking at my figures I think I should be able to shift at least my credit card debr next year. 

13thlegion

I'm in, or have been in, a similar position. Decent income but always still skint like before I had the decent job. 

I've found the best thing for tracking spends, debt, and budgeting is actually 2 things.
First a spreadsheet on excel. I didn't get on with any apps personally. Made sure to include everything. All income and deductions, bills, debts, spends, saving goals. Took a few months to nail down but the biggest impact was the start as it made me intentional with my money. Any category like 'entertainment' or 'spending money' has a sub list with each individual purchase on it (eg Asda big shop Tuesday 12th £45.73, Old Griffin Friday evening £16.78) that adds up in the main list. I start a new sheet one each payday and have just been able to total up the whole year. I've also set out my debts against months in the future and can see exactly how much will be paid off by any given date until they're gone. If you want a template to start the MSE one is not bad and free.
Second is having a bank account with the ability to have separate 'pots' or categories (Monzo, chase, and others have this). On pay day I put what I want into each category (e.g. £100 into car fuel pot, £200 in food) and then keep the account I spend from empty. If I go shopping I transfer the amount I need / want to spend to the spending account. That way what is left is always visible and it creates another layer to stop frittering it away. Anything leftover can be used to make an extra payment towards a CC balance (then adjust the total in the spreadsheet). Super nerdy when getting into but has worked.

I'd also like to second haggling on breakdown. I got my AA to go from £144 a year to £72 with home start on the phone at renewal.

Please do start a diary, I'm about to start one as well for the same reason to track my progress and from what I've seen here it is a really supportive community.

Floss

I run 2 bank accounts, one Nationwide where my salary goes & my bills are paid from, and Monxo which has my pots & day-to-day depending. I also have a spreadsheet with tabs for each month, savings & debt repayments that are set up with links to update each other.

kimwp

chemteacher78 said:

Thank you!

Another question. What would you suggest using to track your spending and debt pay-down? I currently have the Emma app - but it’s clearly not made enough of an impact (!). Can anyone suggest a simple spreadsheet or tracker?

I am thinking about starting a diary thread to track progress and make this my project for 2024. Looking at my figures I think I should be able to shift at least my credit card debr next year. 

Personally I think simple and manual is best, particularly when you are starting out. I use a spreadsheet where I've created my own categories and I simply enter each spend against those categories for each month. I've refined it as I've gone to try to reflect how I want to live and also have macro-categories based on how much I can influence the spends. I've a meeting soon, but I'll post my categories later. 

I also use an app called fudget if I want to keep close tabs on my spending. It's super simple, you just enter an initial total and then add each spend and it will show how much you have spent and how much you have left. The fact that it's so simple means you can decide how you use it- you could set up a monthly budget, a weekly one, one per spend category etc.

A diary is a good idea, it will help keep you accountable and also provide encouragement when you are finding things tough.

LegoHead

set your main bank account up so you only have fixed items going out every month.

set up a seperate card for food spending. Not a credit card. Pay yourself from your main bank account weekly a fixed amount. When it runs out you do not spend more on food.

setup a seperate card for fun things. I used to give myself £50 a week while clearing my debts to spend on anything I want guilt free. Again this is a budgeted item from your main account. When it runs out, you do not spend any more!

If you have items that need to be paid throughout the year on odd days setup a standing order to send 1/12th of that cost every month to another account.

This will be an ongoing process as you identify more things you spend money on. I cleared my debts and was still working on the budgetting for a while after, but eventually your goal should be to fully automate your finances so you dont need to get a calculator out to figure out if you can buy something.

One thing to add is dont focus on what you were spending each month on food, drinks etc.. all the stuff that can be cut back on. Decide an amount you want to spend each month going forward and stick to it. 

Forgive yourself too. You came here for help like I did a long time ago and you are now moving in the right direction.

in_need_of_direction

legohead makes a lot of sense.  The only thing I’d add is that I used pen and paper to track spends initially.  I found that writing things down and totting up resonated more with me than typing things into a computer.

kimwp

My categories -

1. Bills, savings - things that you periodically look at to see if you can improve eg when you are coming to the end of a contract, but otherwise can't do much about. Probably min debt payments go in here too.

2. Low adjustability/non-optional/more variable spend - maybe you could do something about (eg buy a car which is cheaper to run), but have low control of at the time of spending - for me:
2.1 house and car repairs, insurance, MOT, tax
2.2 vet bills
2.3 medical - opticians appointment, dentist, prescriptions
2.4 petrol/travel for work commute (see notes below re holiday and socialising)
These come out of an annual "pot" because they are less regular spends (I WFH most of the time)

3. More adjustable spends
3.1 Food - non-optional obviously, but this can vary a lot with where you shop, what you buy and how you cook
3.2 non-essential goods - gardening tools, things I just want eg kitchen gadgets. Stuff I don't really need, but is more for hobbies and DIY projects
3.3 socialising - spends with friends - eating out, parking costs, in theory petrol though it's difficult to separate out so I often don't bother. I've separated this out because I think it's important to socialise (though obviously this can be done with low spend)
3.4 wellbeing - gym, exercise equipment, language classes, massages - things that are good for me and make me feel good.
3.5 clothes, shoes, haircuts
3.6 takeaways, junk food - I include where I buy food when I could have easily prepared it more cheaply. This has it's own category because I want to reduce how much I spend in this area.

NB, I don't have a category for big house projects, that comes out of savings.

Everyone will have their own ideas about these categories and where to put the spend, eg would contact lenses go in non-optional medical or is that more of a optional spend. The good thing about a basic spreadsheet is you can easily tailor it to you and how you want to live your life. I'd advise on lumping together costs that you can do less about so you can focus on drilling into the areas that you can/want to do more about.

Re your church donations- literally everything outgoing should be accounted for. 

Little_bit_taller

Well done on posting your SOA! How quickly do you want to get this sorted? My 1st thought is what do you have to sell i.e. do you have lots of stuff knocking round your house that would make you a few quid and make you feel better for a declutter? This money can be used to pay off some of the highest % debt. Just a thought