Debt stressing me out, can't sleep!

Grumpelstiltskin

Kim is not in a minority, this website is called Money SAVING Expert and we do try and save people money, but some people have no conception of how to save money and are trapped in the spending money habit.

You don't have to waste money on things like presents, it doesn't make you appear brilliant to spend ( waste ) money.

ManyWays

For someone who says they have a tumultuous relationship with money, having managed to buy and furnish a house and still have £8,000 in an emergency fund and only a few small debts at 0% looks pretty solid.

Guessing the private prescription in Mounjaro, so that could be long term? 
It would obviously help if you both keep a detailed record of all your spending for a few months. 

But the only problem is the elderly cars. Keeping good records of your spending for a few months should give a clue as to how much you may be able to spend safely on car finance; or you could use most of the emergency fund to buy a slightly less old car and then replenish the emergency fund fast if you dont want car finance. 

RAS

I do spend on presents, but I generally ask what they really want. And sometimes it's a donation to a favourite charity. Some years are less expensive than others. 

But if I find something really cheap that I know someone would really value, like second hand china matching their existing favourite, a branded tin for the collector or an ancient OS map or old "local" book for the house historian, then I don't go out buying loads of stuff to make up the value. Even if I've got change for a quid.

sapphire193

Grumpelstiltskin said:

Kim is not in a minority, this website is called Money SAVING Expert and we do try and save people money, but some people have no conception of how to save money and are trapped in the spending money habit.

You don't have to waste money on things like presents, it doesn't make you appear brilliant to spend ( waste ) money.

That’s fine but you also need to live life and if I want to buy my sister a car seat or my nephew a toy or pyjamas or whatever it is and I have budgeted and can afford it then why shouldn’t I? 

It’s “money saving”, not “money hoarding and never using”. 

Even Martin Lewis acknowledges people spend money on luxuries.

I’m not trying to appear brilliant. What an odd take. 

sapphire193

kimwp said:

sapphire193 said:

kimwp said:

sapphire193 said:

kimwp said:

sapphire193 said:

kimwp said:

I'm struggling to see what you are anxious about. Is it that you are worried about getting into more debt?

Re your SOA, are you really spending £233 on medical a month?
Also, £1200 is a lot for two adults to spend on presents.

Best to save up before you spend, but your SOA shows a decent surplus, so you can save for the new kitchen. What is making it barely functional?

It's private medication so yes. Also includes contact lense subscription. 

£1200 a year is presents for all of our families, birthday and christmas and presents for each other birthdays christmas. Unfortunately we have big families lol. 

The kitchen is essentially falling apart and we are using plug in appliances as it needs to be completely gutted and re-done. It's fine but it's been hard living like this. Annoyingly the money we had put aside for the kitchen had to go on a new roof instead. 

I'm worried because everytime I save for things, some boring emergency comes along and I'm back to square one. Just wasting my life away by saving and spending on emergencies and repeat. 

Thank you for explaining.

I echo what others are saying - it's about choices - instead of buying furniture on finance, you could have bought two camp chairs and a blow up mattress until you had saved up. 

And you may have a big family, but do you need £1200 of presents a year? Because if you are all spending £1200 on presents, you are all receiving £1200 in presents. I imagine it's mostly stuff that isn't needed and is either adding to the piles of stuff or gets thrown away. (If it goes to a charity shop, it'll probably get thrown away, most of the stuff doesn't get sold) So it might be worth a discussion with your family as to the value that is being gained from this spend and decide to cut back.

I'm not judging your choices, just highlighting that you do have choices that you might not think you do. I think you already are thinking a bit like this - trying to live with your kitchen while you save up and I recognise that it feels a bit miserable that you are having to spend your savings on boring things but honestly it sounds like it's just that you have a lot of big spends (car, roof, kitchen, furniture) at the moment that you won't then have for another 5-10 years. You've got a healthy surplus, even without cutting back and once you get through this period of high outgoings, you'll be on a really good position to save some of your surplus alongside having adventures. 

Why don't you lay out your plan for paying your debts off and saving for new car and kitchen and that will give you some targets to work towards. Also, think of some low cost adventures - inter railing as someone suggested, but also exploring more locally. Good memories are largely due to the people you are with, rather than how far from home you were.

Nothing is low cost anymore. But I’ll lay out a plan. 

I also can’t stop my family from buying presents therefore need (and want to!) get them presents too. I’m not spending £1200 on each person, just £10-20 each and maybe £100 on my partner. 

Yey for making fun plans!!

Btw, in my 20's, I lived and worked in Europe and Canada, travelled a decent amount of Europe and some of Australia and Asia and I spent a decent amount of time in my 30s thinking I should be travelling more like others I knew. But I'm into my 40s now and recognise that there really are diminishing returns from travelling. Which is why I recommend doing different things when you do go travelling, to optimise what you get out of those travels.

Based on your presents numbers, your family is spending roughly £40k per year on presents, hope they are good ones!

Haha how have you worked that out? 

Really confused as to why buying our nieces and nephews birthday and Christmas presents has become such a big thing… as if it’s so weird to buy presents? 

Does no one buy their partner presents for their birthday and Christmas? 

What about having to chip in £10 for each person at work for their presents which is the norm where I work? 

Do you not get invited to weddings and christenings? You need presents for those too… 

I don’t think £1200 a year between 2 people for all this is a lot.

Haha, its become a big thing just because we're discussing it. Usually people come on the board with debts they can't afford and really can't afford to be spending £100 a month on presents - this is pointed out and usually that's the end of it.

In your case you can afford it, and I could leave it there....except that I (and Martin Lewis, I think) have a bee in my bonnet about consumption for the sake of it. So if you go out and spend a tenner on some perfume or soaps or a mug just because it's someone's birthday and you wouldn't buy it for them otherwise, that's consumption for the sake of consumption - we have become convinced that money needs to be spent for birthdays and Christmas etc when that's not actually the case - we don't need to spend money on an item to show someone we care about them or celebrate an event. The reason I personally hate it so much is the amount of stuff that gets bought and eventually discarded - it all adds to landfill and pollution. 

I'm likely in the minority even on these boards. For weddings and christenings, I give money, then they can save it for something needed or wanted.

I'm not having a go at you, but trying to explain my take on it. Hopefully you understand, as with the other points, spending on presents is optional - you make a choice to spend that amount on presents vs something else. It's worth thinking/talking about how much you and your family really want all those gifts or if it's just a habit.

I calculated it as: £1200-£100=£1000 for partner presents
£1000/£30 (£15 per person *2 for birthday and Christmas)= 33 people
33 people giving £1200 a year =£40k
Some of those 33 are presumably children, so maybe they are not spending, but I imagine their parents and grandparents will be spending a lot more than £15 on them.

Each to their own but I also want to enjoy my life and I do that with my family. So if I want to buy tickets to a comedy show for my sisters birthday or something, then it’s not an issue for me. 

Very weird take. We can all sit in our houses and twiddle our thumbs in the name of saving money but what’s the point of living in that case?

sapphire193

ManyWays said:

For someone who says they have a tumultuous relationship with money, having managed to buy and furnish a house and still have £8,000 in an emergency fund and only a few small debts at 0% looks pretty solid.

Guessing the private prescription in Mounjaro, so that could be long term? 
It would obviously help if you both keep a detailed record of all your spending for a few months. 

But the only problem is the elderly cars. Keeping good records of your spending for a few months should give a clue as to how much you may be able to spend safely on car finance; or you could use most of the emergency fund to buy a slightly less old car and then replenish the emergency fund fast if you dont want car finance. 

Yeah I’ve been toying with financing a car but nervous to do so. I can get it on a 0% credit card but nervous one day the 0% balance transfers will stop and I’ll be stuck with it 

Nomunnofun1

On the original heading - ‘debt is stressing me out’. On your current repayment schedule you will only owe around £1000 on one remaining debt in nine months time and your outgoings will reduce by £241 per month.  I’m not sure that you should be stressed as a result of the debt. As you say, each to their own, but there are many on this forum who can only dream of being in your position. 

If the thought of ANY debt stresses you out pay it all off from savings to be recouped in around ten months from the reduced outgoings. 

ManyWays

sapphire193 said:

Yeah I’ve been toying with financing a car but nervous to do so. I can get it on a 0% credit card but nervous one day the 0% balance transfers will stop and I’ll be stuck with it 

It is very hard to buy a car on a 0% credit card. I meant a low-cost HP or PCP deal. HP is best if you actually want to buy the car, not have to get another car in finance when this one ends. 

The problem at the moment is that no one here is convinced by your SOA! So, we have no idea what you could actually afford per month. Keeping detailed records for a few months will resolve that issue. 

sapphire193

ManyWays said:

sapphire193 said:

Yeah I’ve been toying with financing a car but nervous to do so. I can get it on a 0% credit card but nervous one day the 0% balance transfers will stop and I’ll be stuck with it 

It is very hard to buy a car on a 0% credit card. I meant a low-cost HP or PCP deal. HP is best if you actually want to buy the car, not have to get another car in finance when this one ends. 

The problem at the moment is that no one here is convinced by your SOA! So, we have no idea what you could actually afford per month. Keeping detailed records for a few months will resolve that issue. 

That’s fine. I don’t need to tell everyone what I spend on my underpants. I’ve given the general overview of my finances and anything else is just fun money which obviously changes. 

I know what options I have to buy a car, I wouldn’t take PCP and I’m not sure why everyone moaning about my buying people birthday presents has suddenly gone quiet at your suggestion of it. 

Very odd behaviour indeed. 

josephine82

My suggestion here to help you would be to look at your surplus and allocate yourself pots for the different categories of spends. 

Monzo is ideal for this as you can create many pots within one account and it’s super clear to see what you have in each pot. 

This way, you can separate your surplus after debt payments and any additional overpayments to clear them quicker. 

When I was paying off debt, I made my debt payments, plus a little extra, and then put money aside for everything I wanted to cover ie holidays, house, garden, car, haircuts etc and incorporated those monthly payments into my SOA. 

I made sure I also had enough money to ‘live’ each month ie socialising a bit and the gym etc. I perhaps paid my debt off a bit more slowly than I could have done because I wanted to have some things to enjoy during this time, but I did start to be more sensible with my spending. 

The good thing with the above method is that once you pay off your debt you retain these habits. So I always have money for my car MOT and service, a significant holiday once a year, regular haircuts and the dentist put aside before my ‘spending money’ for the month and it’s so easy. 

Just a suggestion!