Overhauling for the second (and last) time

overhauler

Just a quick one, 

made another additional payment to sent 1 of £10. Remaining balance is now £80 

overhauler

Realised my math was wrong and I have done 6 steps since starting not 4, how I went wrong so early I don’t know 

double checked and by making 2 steps per month my debt free date is November 2028 so 4 years from now

i am hoping to half that and have it cleared in 2 years or less 

I’ve started prepping my saving spaces for the new year, i currently have 7 spaces:
- bills
- food
- petrol
- debts
- personal spends
- emergency fund 
- miscellaneous 

each month I have been allocating the required amount to each space and the remainder goes into the misc saving space which I then use for everything not covered in the other spaces 

I am hoping to get better at budgeting and planning ahead so from January have also added in:
- annual bills - currently just house insurance is yearly at around £45
- car - to cover mot/repairs/new car fund 
- clothes
- DIY
- gifts - birthdays and Christmas 
- health  - opticians etc 
- holidays
- in laws -  currently owe them £2500, they say they are in no rush and don’t care if not paid back but I am going to start saving towards paying back 

when I get paid this month, I will know what my monthly wage is (after backdated pay rise this month) and can then figure out how much I have to allocate to each pot each month, starting with the essentials and then working down. I am hoping to be able to up my debt payments whilst also budgeting for the future and putting some aside in the EF each month, hopefully it’s not too unrealistic 

overhauler

working from home today so have had a little extra down time 

I spent it looking at my budget options for next year, I tried a couple of new ideas on my spreadsheet and quickly came to the conclusion that I’m getting a bit ahead of myself and over complicating things 

so new plan, from January continue with current budget as it is working really well for me but look to increase contribution to emergency fund from £50p/m to £100p/m 

I think once the debts are all cleared and I’m in a more stable position I can then look at allocating the money I was paying to debt to other things such as holiday/clothes/new car savings spaces 

trying to do that whilst paying debt and saving to an EF will most likely mean the budget would fail as I would be stretching it too thin 

Decision made and I feel happier about it 

overhauler

Also decided to make another £10 payment to debt 1, balance remaining now £70 

it’s payday next Wednesday and my account was looking healthy enough that I can afford it 

overhauler

That last payment also took me below the next £100 barrier for debt owed so £4797.96 left to clear now 

I think now I’ve decided on the snowball method and paying as much as I can I should see a few of the debts cleared more quickly so at least the overall amount of creditors will drop 

Debtfree2026

Hi - I've been lurking on this forum for a week or so and contemplating starting my own diary - I love the idea of the different pots to keep track of spending!

overhauler

I originally came to the forum around the start of the year and did a bit of lurking, tried to tackle the debt via a DMP but was way to conservative with my budget and just found it unaffordable so I cancelled it and started to deal with my creditors myself 

My monthly payments are now low enough that I feel they are affordable and after a recent pay rise I am starting to overpay 

its early days but I feel like I have a solid budget which is working for me and a lot of that is due to this forum, I read others diaries in my free time to keep my motivation up 

i definitely recommend a bank that has some kind of pot/space feature. I am with starling but others such as Monzo have similar and it really helps me splitting my money into the pots so I know everything is covered 

@Debtfree2026 best of luck with your journey, I will keep a look out for if you start a diary and cheer you along 

Sarahwithlove

Well done sounds like you are learning to live within your budget. 

How old are your kids? Do they get pocket money? Maybe if they have to choose between that or a streaming service or having less they may be more willing to negotiate. Do you shop at Tesco? I used my club card vouchers for Disney plus, is that an option for you? 

overhauler

Kids are 11 and 18, eldest doesn’t get pocket money as now works although only part time 

youngest gets spending money

i will see how we go with streaming services, if we only had 1 we would have to have the top option so we could all watch at once whereas at present I dropped them down to the lower package with just 2 screens viewing at once meaning between us we can all watch something and is probably similar cost wise but means we get both Netflix and Disney 

Budget is definitely going well, to think in August I was missing payments and having to play catch up the following payday and now I have money to spare so can overpay the debts 

overhauler

Another good week that kept within the budget

paydsy is Wednesday so I will do a full roundup for the month on Tuesday evening 

some things I have noticed this month:
- I am not very good at keeping track of my spends on my spreadsheet even though my saving spaces online stay on track so I am going to try and keep better track of that moving forward
- my petrol budget is likely over generous now I’m in my new role, I will keep it at the same monthly allocation and then any spare at the end of the month can go to either debt or EF

when I get paid I imagine I will have a spendy few days as I intend to get all the Christmas shopping completed

I’ve not made any further debt repayments the last few days so signature is still correct and I am still working towards the mini challenge of clearing debt 1 by the end of the year, balance currently £70

after reading a lot of diaries for motivation I’ve been amazed at how much some have made from completing surveys so I signed up to one site and have earned £4 since yesterday. I am going to cash out each time I get to £5 and if I can earn £20 over the month as an additional debt payment I will be really impressed