Well, here I go again...

charlies_tribe

Well, here I go again. Maybe we can get to the end of this diary actually out of debt and not just because I've forgot to post on it and it's lost somewhere. March 22 was the last time I updated my last diary.

There's still a few diaries about with names I recognise.

I need to check what we owe to get accurate amounts as we did balance transfers at the beginning of the month as deals were up but its around 10k left. We've only been paying minimum amounts over the last year as the mortgage has gradually gone up over £200 a month over the last 18 months, then food prices etc.

We are a household of 6. 3 adults, 3 teens. We have a DD who has left home and a DGD. We have 3 very elderly labs and a yappy poodle. We need to switch over to universal credit this month so January will be extra tight.

We desperately need a new roof, it's niw Charlie bucket style, but as I don't think we can save up for it on universal credit as will be over the savings, I'm hoping to pay off the cards as quick as possible with the 'roof savings' and then might have to get the roof on the card.

charlies_tribe

Last night I started going through the bank accounts and writing every bill down. There's still some missing as need to charge the other phone, could never transfer the account to my new phone (over 3 years ago). I've already seen a few places I could save money. I'm trying to find all totals ready for the 1st January.

I'll do the food through January to try and get an average as we spent so much in December doing little shops every couple of days and buying more than normal for Christmas. I have joined the grocery challenge already as this is probably well over £800 a month, I struggle to keep the weekly shop to £200.

charlies_tribe

Well I've noted down the main bills from December and looked back for the yearly bills. I've not got acurate figures for food and fuel as there was so many small transactions last month. I'll try and lower as much as i can but DH doesn't see the problem and wont let go of any of the entertainment bits. There was other things like car repairs,  vets bills, prescriptions, bus fares etc that aren't included here.

Main bills
Mortgage 707.31

Council tax 143.00 over 10 months
Gas and elec 190.51 spend more £260 a month
Pet insurance 30.61
Dh Glasses 26.73
Tv licence 13.25
Bt 45.66
Water 76.70 over 8 months
DH Mobile 24.89
My Mobile 13.50 sim only

Entertainment 
Now boost 2.00
Netflix 17.99

Now cinema 4.99
Now entertainm 3.99
Amazon music 9.99

Kids
Dance 90.00
Online School 17.00
Ixl (online maths) 12.99

My hobbies
Creative fabrica 10.79
Cricut 7.49

Total bills                       1449.39

Debts
Creation 17.11 306.42 BNPL
Next 56.00 Now paid
Mbna 35.83    3584
Barclaycard 150.79 6700
Klarna 28.31 56.50
Creation 659 BNPL DUE FEB or 43.38 pm
288.04/331.42

                   1737.43/1780.81 with the new BNPL

Yearly bills and monthly amounts needed
*MOT 40.00 (3.34)
*Amazon prime 95.00 (7.92)
*Car tax 320.00 (26.67)
*Twinkl 70 (5.84)
*Car insurance 380 (31.67)
905 yearly = 75.44 monthly

Other

Food 800?
Fuel 120?
Christmas and birthday 250
Holiday 100

Total monthly out 3082.87

Income
DS1 board 160
Esa 518
Child tax 1251.46
Child ben 223.20
Wages 1076
3222 every 4 weeks/3490 if divided monthly 
Left pm 139.13 if 4 weekly/407.13 if monthly

DS2 Pip 691
**Swim lessons 150.00

notes: ill get credit card amounts when dh gets up. The amounts posted are from the December statement but will have balance transfer fees on top now.
Gas and electric never went back up to normal bills after they took the government payments off. We were in credit but that has now almost, if not all this month, gone. I've kept the payments to one side so can add that to the account. 
DD2 is home educated due to school trauma and her ASD so the educational things have to stay.
My hobbies can definitely be looked at, I just don't get time or have the energy.
I am currently on ESA due to my anxiety, depression, agoraphobia... too scared to claim Pip and them turn it down.
DS 2 gets Pip, he's currently attending college and needs to be taken/collected as can't leave the building unattended. He gets free bus fare but I still have to pay bus/fuel for whoever collects him. Now he's 18 and leaving college in the summer I'm trying to keep his money separate. He has 1-1 swimming for his muscle tone.
DD2 has ASD and an eating disorder. She stopped going to school completely in the spring and has been attending a college, when she can. So fuel/ bus fares to here 2 days a week too as she has to be walked to/collected direct from class due to her anxiety. The only place she is remotely happy is dancing and this costs a fortune and takes up so much time as the school is 10 miles each way, 4 days a week. Her ASD means we can't move her to classes closer as just talking about it makes her cry.
Dh does overtime when he can but as you can see, he has his hands full with us.
Hopefully I've covered everything there. Looking at tge numbers it's possible to make a huge dent if we don't spend on rubbish. Now it's all written down I can work through things 1 at a time.

katsu

Great start. Hard to work out the picture from your layout instead of the standard MSE one but here's some ideas/questions...

£250 a month for birthday and Christmas. Every month? I would cut that back. 

For the entertainment... ask your DH to look through the budget with you and see if that changes their mind? 

charlies_tribe

Thank you Katsu.
I'll try and give the MSE one a go but I always struggle with it as I have no clue for a lot of it.

Yes, 250 every month. This was £200 each for Christmas and birthday for 5 children, and now SoniL and DGD,  small gifts for 3 sets of parents and 19! Nieces and nephews. It's possibly not as bad as it seems as they don't have any pocket money etc and any clothing/Trainers are mostly bought with it as well, mainly June birthdays so works well for the clothes. I did use some from the pot for holiday spending money this year and told the adults they were limited to £100 each this Christmas. I still bought pjs, smellies, chocolate etc so they ended up with about £150 each anyway. Anything in that account was moved to the main account at the beginning of December and anything left on Sunday will be moved over to the house/emergency account. So the Christmas/birthdays starts empty for Jan.

As we haven't used the credit cards for years and they are going down he won't budge I don't think. Disney + is paid in tesco points and I try to keep the others on deals where possible.

I've cancelled cricut and took a years subscription for CF at 56.60 making it 4.70 a month. Saving 13.58 a month on my hobbies already. 

Been looking at the broadband and virgin looks the best option at the minute. Prices after the deals end are a bit scary though.

katsu

Maybe if your DH can see what the interest cost is on the debts and think about how paying another say £25 a month reduces your time in debt it might help?  It is hard to change someone else's mind for sure. 

On the MSE budget planner, nor knowing what you spend on things means you've a great opportunity to work that out. Can you go through your bank statements for 2023 and allocate your spending to categories? 

Might your family be interested in a version of a secret santa for the 19 nieces and nephews? Maybe discussing it now when there's a year to go and everyone knows cost of living has gone up will make everyone receptive to a chat? 

For the adults, maybe think about sticking to £100 instead of £150?  It's just that if you are spending £3,000 a year (which the 250 a month says you do) then you are using nearly 1 month of your income on gifts/celebrations and you have to live for 12 months on 11 months of income. 

Congrats on the hobby saving. That's nearly 1 adult covered for Christmas

For the broadband, can you just switch at the end of the deal and get a new deal with someone else or are you locked in for longer? 

I hope this helps and please don't feel I'm trying to be a Grinch on your Christmas. It's just ideas from a stranger. You must do what is right for you. 

charlies_tribe

Thank you for taking the time to reply.  He's been at work so I'll go through it all with him tomorrow.

I definitely need to stick to the planned amounts this year for Christmas etc. 

I've been doing save the Change for a year and as it's in the same account as the mortgage I've paid 140 off that. It's in 2 parts, there's the big part and then a part that's just £500, so paid it off that. 

Looking at the bank it looks like there's about £700 to roll over to the house account on Sunday. I think I might use it to pay off the 2nd BNPL before the interest starts.

With the broadband I just don't want them to get used to much faster speeds but I'd definitely have to switch when it ended.

Floss

If you were to reduce that Christmas/ birthday spending by half, you could clear the small debts and pay a chunk off the MBNA, and the monies saved each month could be put towards reducing the MBNA & Barclaycard debts quicker. And that is still a chunk of cash as a present for everyone and eases pressure on your budget too.

charlies_tribe

Thank you. Definitely going to try and reduce the amount spent. I'll try to keep a better track of what it's spent on this year, what part of it is for clothing/shoes etc what's spent on the children, family members....

There's enough from the christmas/birthday fund left over to pay off the BNPL (washing machine as ours packed up) that's due to start in February. 

I've just looked at a statement from November, before the BTs and the Barclaycard is actually below 5k. I tried to work it out from the payment being 2.25%. Once DH gets up I'll get accurate amounts for going in to 2024 (they're in his name).
ETA: it looks like the min payment is possibly 3% on BC not the 2.25 I thought it was.

When we got the government fuel thing, they reduced the direct debit by the amount. When it stopped they never put the direct debit back up. I continued to leave the rest in the account as I know we would use so much more than they were taking money from. Just logged in and checked it and there's £782 in there! Once I've put readings in tomorrow and I know we're still in credit, I might use some to pay off the 1st BNPL (completely forgot about it, first payment came out in November, id actually got enough to pay it off).

Floss

So there's a good start straight away by paying those off 😁

charlies_tribe

Thank you Floss.

Okay, logged in to CCs and I now have accurate amounts. Deleted Next as realised the returns have cleared it.

Creation             306.42

Mbna               5083.64
Barclaycard    3708.28
Klarna                  56.50
Creation            659.00

Total   30/12/23 = 9813.84

Slightly lower than i thought. I'll add it to first post when I remember so I know where it is to look back on. I'll have some to pay off it when I sweep the accounts tomorrow.