Daisy's Debt Free Diary [29F/Autistic]

daintydaisy

@Take_a_hike_Elon_and_Jeff just wanted to say thanks again for the recommendation. I listened to an ep on the way to work this morning and really enjoyed it. 

Spent £18.79 at Sainsbos today picking up things for tea & icing for school tomorrow. I had £20 sitting in a Monzo account that I forgot about which luckily was able to cover that. Tea should do us for the next couple of nights too which is good as it’s a late one for me with parents evenings. 

I feel a lot better today - I fell asleep before half 9 last night! Been thinking about finances a lot today and especially my pension. I have had a few different jobs with pension pots scattered around so I really need to merge them all into one.  Will need to do some research on the simplest way to do this and maybe have a look at the weekend.

I dont think I will post tomorrow and Thursday with it being a late one at work, but I’m hoping both days are NSD’s. Need to do a big shop at some point too. T-minus 17 days til payday!! 

Hope you’ve all had a good day. X

Take_a_hike_Elon_and_Jeff

@Take_a_hike_Elon_and_Jeff just wanted to say thanks again for the recommendation. I listened to an ep on the way to work this morning and really enjoyed it. 

Hello thanks and I'm glad you liked it. I've come to realise that education is a fundamental and I don't profess to being a pro but I have definitely learnt new things in the past few months and hope to learn much more

daintydaisy

Morning all and happy weekend! I am absolutely exhausted after this week with 2 parents evenings back to back, so glad to see the end of the week. Only a couple of weeks to go until payday too. 

My lovely neighbours sent us an uber eats voucher of £15 to thank us for the spare cat food/treats we gave them. (Todd is a very fussy eater!) we are so lucky to have such lovely neighbours but I feel bad because we don't expect anything in return for gifting them things. Anyway, I ended up us in that voucher to do a top up shop on Wednesday and spent £12 on top. I realised I’d been subscribing to Uber one so I cancelled that immediately and will be removing the app from my phone as it’s too tempting to order. 

My partner took his mum and I out for dinner last night so that was a nice spend free treat! However I did have to top up Todd’s lick e lix which cost £4. 

2.99 came out on Tues for my iCloud subscription, 3.50 on Wed for the lotto & I’m estimating about £25 spent today for a birthday present (bottle of gin). May do a big shop on Sunday so that I can have more NSD’s next week. 

Total spend so far this week: 
122.64

This weekend I have a few things I’d like to get on top of which are: 

- Prepping resources/activities for next week in class

- clean makeup brushes

- do a couple loads of washing

We cleaned the house yesterday so there isnt much to do in that regard. I’m hoping to just take it easy because I’m still not feeling 100%, and I’d like to go for a couple of walks maybe today and tomorrow. 

Have a lovely weekend x 

daintydaisy

Only thing I managed to do this weekend was some laundry! I ended up napping today as I have just felt exhausted this weekend. I think going out on Friday ran my social battery down. 

I downloaded an app called ‘Snoop’ which tracks finances etc. and it has helped me organise everything and look at spends over the last year. Shocked at how much I have frittered away. I’m hoping having it all laid out (without much input from me) will help me stay on top of things more.

We didn’t do a big shop today as apparently we get free delivery on a Tues so will be ordering tomorrow instead. We have plenty of things in the house we can eat until then. 

I’m in bed already (still feeling shattered) and going to play my game then read my book and sleep. Hoping to have more NSD’s this week - I wonder if I can manage 3 or 4? 

Here’s to a productive week x 

thelibrarian11

Hello, just wanted to say hi. I'm also autistic and I have my diary here: A Lifetime of Debt
I was diagnosed aged 36, and I've struggled with debt forever because of it. I tend to do OK with spending and have had a great life with the tiny amounts of money I have had, but my problem has been employability and making poor choices in terms of moving, partners, and not really understand the problems I was making for myself. All of that I've managed to tackle and so will probably make it to being permanently debt free this time.

daintydaisy

@thelibrarian11 hello and thanks for stopping by! I’ve subscribed to your diary and have read a bit and we do have quite a bit in common. I’ve been in and out of debt (varying amounts but this is my highest so far) and always struggled with impulsive spending. I sometimes see people in more debt than me and think “oh I could spend some more” which I know is destructive thinking. I look forward to following you along your debt free journey and wish you the best of luck!

————————

It’s been a busy week at work, and next week is looking even busier! I feel like I’ve taken steps backward this week rather than forward but I have definitely reined in my spending since my LBM. 

A few things I did on Sunday:

I paid off 2 of my monthly Klarna payments. I thought they were the last payments but I actually have 1 left so will pay that as soon as I get paid. This totalled £65.90.
The bottle of gin I bought for a present was £20.
These payments came out on Monday as well as the £4 B&M lick e lix top up. 

My pet insurance also came out on Monday, which took Monday’s payments to £95.89. We also did our big shop on Monday which was about £90, when I get paid I will have to transfer what I owe over to my partner as I only have enough for bills currently. All spends are going on my CC. 

On Tuesday I ordered a book for work which was £1.25 as I already had money from selling some clothes. 

On Wednesday I spent £2.39 at the shop on a flatbread and some rice for tea, and my iCloud subscription came out which was £1.99.

On Thursday another bill came out which was £10 towards student finance (they overpaid me for my last loan so I have to pay it back). 

Finally on Friday I spent £11.82 in the shop picking up some bits that weren’t included in our weekly shop. I also filled up my car which was £51.03. I also made my packed lunch for work but forgot my sandwich so ended up having to buy dinner which I will pay back next week (£2.54).

That takes my weekly spend to… £174.37 (not including the weekly shop/friday’s lunch). 

————————

I aimed for some NSD’s but I’m curious to what constitutes a NSD? If a monthly bill comes out but I don’t go out and buy anything is that technically a NSD? I think that’s what I’d like to aim for with my NSD’s as otherwise I’d never have any haha. 

Payday on Friday thankfully and I’m excited to get my budget properly planned out. The expenses I have next week that I’m aware of so far are:

£120 towards CC1
£8 phone bill
£124 car payment 

I also have a dentist appt next week so I’m estimating around £25 for the check up (hopefully no other work needed!!) 

I had an early night last night and today my partner and I cleaned the whole house. I plan on chilling for the rest of the day, playing some Pokemon and maybe doing some crochet as I haven’t done that in a while. I will probably go for a nap too as I woke up super early today so feeling a bit tired. Not much planned for tomorrow either but I have a few things I need to sort for work next week so I’d like to get on top of that. I should get my payslip next week too so once I know how much I’ll be getting paid I’m looking forward to budgeting that. I’ve been listening to the meaningful money podcast everyday on the drive to work and I love it - it’s helped me understand more about pensions etc than I ever knew before. I need to have a look at combining all my pensions as I’ve had a few different jobs (and subsequently different pensions) - does anybody know if there is a quick way to do this? I have seen the app PensionBee advertised a few times and wondering if that is worth it. 

Hope you all have a lovely weekend! 

enthusiasticsaver

There was  a Martin Lewis show recently about merging pensions.  You need to  make sure that you are not giving up any special protections before making that call. Pension Wise can advise about  different schemes but cannot make recommendations.  Not sure about Pension Bee. 

daintydaisy

@enthusiasticsaver thank you I’ll try and find it.

i started watching Greys Anatomy after talking to @Catlady2025 and im obsessed, just started season 2! 

I also got my payslip through today so will try and sort my budget tonight and make a post. I was at a meeting today and then decided to take my PPA from home. Dentist appt this evening. 

As I’m typing this we have just had a power cut!! Hopefully it doesn’t last too long. 

Hope you’re all having a good week so far. 

daintydaisy

Okay, so pleasant surprise when I opened my payslip today. I was expecting to get paid around £1,500 (transition from supply to main contract happened after half term so I wasn’t expecting to get paid for that week in Feb). Checked my payslip and after deductions I will be paid £1,924. Payday is Friday!

I’ve broken this down into a budget…

Bills = 390

Insurance = 300 (yearly)

MOT = 50 (not expecting it to fail so fingers crossed)

Car Tax = 35

Mortgage = 610

Klarna = 66 

Monthly shop = 200

Petrol = 120

Fun spends = 120 (broken down into 30 per week)

Total = 1,891

Left = 33

I’m left with less than I expected due to car payments coming out (must plan for April next year so it’s not as much of a blow). I think I am going to opt for the snowball method with my CC’s and just pay off the minimum for CC2. My monthly £120 came out and I payed off another £7 today to bring it to £699! If I want to pay it off by September I need to make monthly payments of at least £139, however if I do the snowball method I should be able to pay it off before then.  Both payments have been factored into the ‘bills’ category. 

As for CC2, I will continue to pay off the minimum and as soon as I get paid I plan on taking the CC off my phone etc so I can just use my budget plan. My credit score is in the 900s so I’m not really concerned about whether I’ll be able to get a balance transfer or not come January, but ideally I’d like it either paid off or brought down considerably before that becomes a last resort.  

In other news, I had an email from Nationwide that said I’d be receiving £50, so when that’s in my account I play on paying it towards CC1. As for the £33 left in my budget, I will put some away for Todd’s food (this is about £40) and coffee beans (we have a nice coffee machine which saves me buying take out coffees, but the beans are around £30 a month). If there are weeks when I spend less on ‘fun’ things I will top up the cat food/coffee pots and put the rest into a sort of buffer pot in case of any extra spends. 

I feel a lot better simply having a plan for this, and I’m hoping next payday I’ll feel even better as I won’t be adding to my debt and will have more money to play around with after paying annual expenses for car insurance/tax etc. we also have 2 weeks off for Easter so I will be saving on petrol (however we’re away in the Lake District for a few days so that budget will probably be transferred into ‘fun’ spends). 

My goal is to eventually get a month ahead with bills etc so that I’m always covered and that way I can focus on paying off debt and saving. I’m interested in how other people allocate ‘left over’ money after bills etc, I’ve always had a buffer amount left in my account because I’m terrified of missing a bill or being overdrawn. The Snoop app is helping immensely and I just upgraded to plus so I can track payday to payday. I’m also interested in whether you build up an emergency fund alongside snowballing debt? It’s hard to know what to prioritise. 

enthusiasticsaver

Good that your pay is higher than normal.  I agree with paying the annual car insurance up front as it is so much cheaper.  Maybe going forward put £25 a month away so that next year that money is waiting rather than throwing out your monthly budget. 

I love the early seasons of Greys but not so keen on the latest ones. 

I think if your debt repayments are under control then saving excess money is a good option.