I heart NY - Our journey to and across the Pond

RAS

Flapjack can be really cheap - loads of oats, some marg and sugar/syrup plus a litt flavouring if you want.

newyorkcitybride

Well now I know where the name "Heart attack flapjack" comes from...

I'm still recovering from a small slice 2 days later!
Might be getting a back pay from my employer, as apparently a director told us we were only entitled to 20days holiday per year when we first opened, however our head office have informed me its actually 23 days holiday per year, plus im owed 5 days from the year anyway, and I might be able to get it in pay as opposed to time owing. Tha wud come in really handy if that were the case!

ms_london

Hi Newyorkcitybride.

Welcome to MSE!

I do think your groceries & petrol costs are extremely high - food could be halved. Why is the petrol so high? Does your hubby commute?

What do you do with the remaining 600 pounds? Split it?

To be honest, I would be inclined to split your rent 50/50 and other bills, then use whatever you have left to service your own debts, and let your hubby do the same with his wage and his debts. I know it is easy for me to say that, I am not married - but if you are the more serious one on the debt repayment front & your hubby will still fritter money away, surely this makes YOU the one that is paying his debts, not him - also the stress of them. It might be a wake up call he needs, and if he still decides he wants to worry about them later and continue his 'live for now' attitude, he can do that.

Alternatively, once all of the bills have been paid, split the remaining money so you can each have 'pocket money', then you can do what you like with your own half of the money - if your hubby wants to spend it on sweets & junk, let him. How old is he? 10? hehe. At least its not an alcohol or drug problem he has I suppose! :rolleyes:

I sympathise with the mild depression - thats why I feel like you shouldnt have to burden his debts as well as your own, as it wont do you any good & make things harder. But well done if you want to support him, I guess thats what its all about - dont think I could do it though (my own debt past has made me very wary of money and money in relationships!).

xx

TurnaroundSue

newyorkcitybride wrote: »

I'm aiming to pay off the store card, or at very least make a considerable overpayment to it this month, but I am just waiting for all my direct debits/standing orders to clear from my account to see what I have left over.[/quote]

Hi NYCB - have just come across this thread and would like to say welcome and well done for trying to sort things out now. One thing I notice from your statement highlighted above, I assume from this that you only have one account? I have 2 accounts, which I use one for bills and one for everything else. On payday I transfer (standing order set up) an amount which covers ALL my monthly outgoings to my 'bill' account and then I know exactly what I have left for the rest of the month. This also helps in that you know that you have monies for your bills and are not going to be short for any of them to be paid.

I also have a spreadsheet on excel which shows all the standing orders/direct debits and when they are taken from the bank I put a cross next to the payment and I then know that this has been paid for that month. I also do a spreadsheet for my day to day account. Everytime I use the account I mark it on my spreadsheet and when it comes out of the bank I put a cross next to that and know that it has left my account.

I find that doing this you know exactly how much you have left at any one time in your account, all your bills are covered and you dont need to worry about monies not being there to pay for them.

I also forgot to mention that I pay my cc bills on the day I get paid (even if they are not due until say a week or so after payday). I know then that they have been covered for that month and I can just forget about them. Seeing as you are now on online banking, you can put on your cc payment as soon as you get the bill to come out of your account at a later date.

I hope that some of this helps - good luck in your mission to become debt free - fingers crossed your OH will soon find his light bulb is on full power and he will be there with you 100%.:D

newyorkcitybride

ms_london wrote: »

Hi Newyorkcitybride.

Welcome to MSE!

I do think your groceries & petrol costs are extremely high - food could be halved. Why is the petrol so high? Does your hubby commute?

Hit the nail on the head there. Petrol is so high because Hubby works full time and has a 50 mile round trip back home.
Food is so high maily because of his inability/pig headedness about eating certain foods, so I'm currently paying out a lot due to this, I've tried what I can to change this particular situation but its prooving unfruitful:mad:

What do you do with the remaining 600 pounds? Split it?
Tho the SOA lists all our outgoings as if they were combined, we dont pool our money together.
We split the rent 50/50, he pays a bit more toward the council tax then I do, but then I pay the Sky.
He's also paying for the petrol and I pay for the food.... since I dont drive I dont see why I should pay for petrol but because he moved away to be with me, I do "swap" it by paying for the food...

To be honest, I would be inclined to split your rent 50/50 and other bills, then use whatever you have left to service your own debts, and let your hubby do the same with his wage and his debts. I know it is easy for me to say that, I am not married - but if you are the more serious one on the debt repayment front & your hubby will still fritter money away, surely this makes YOU the one that is paying his debts, not him - also the stress of them. It might be a wake up call he needs, and if he still decides he wants to worry about them later and continue his 'live for now' attitude, he can do that.
He's had quite a change of heart in repaying his debts quickly since we've got a vague plan for what we want to do when we are debt free. :rolleyes: But I'm still waiting to see him actually overpay on anything come payday, rather than do what he and I usually do which is have lots of good intentions but never actually do it.

Alternatively, once all of the bills have been paid, split the remaining money so you can each have 'pocket money', then you can do what you like with your own half of the money - if your hubby wants to spend it on sweets & junk, let him. How old is he? 10? hehe. At least its not an alcohol or drug problem he has I suppose! :rolleyes:
I at the moment give myself a budget of £80 to spend on myself per month, which some might say is quite a bit but I include all my toilettries, haircuts etc within this.

I sympathise with the mild depression - thats why I feel like you shouldnt have to burden his debts as well as your own, as it wont do you any good & make things harder. But well done if you want to support him, I guess thats what its all about - dont think I could do it though (my own debt past has made me very wary of money and money in relationships!).
I agree with you in terms of keeping things seperate to a degree although the affect both of us. I'd just rather tackle it now and get some things set in stone rather than having to deal with it years down the line...

xx

Thanks for your message and suggestions, I'm taking everything on board and trying to make the best possible decision I can...

newyorkcitybride

TurnaroundSue wrote: »

newyorkcitybride wrote: »

I'm aiming to pay off the store card, or at very least make a considerable overpayment to it this month, but I am just waiting for all my direct debits/standing orders to clear from my account to see what I have left over.[/quote]

Hi NYCB -Hello have just come across this thread and would like to say welcome and well done for trying to sort things out now. One thing I notice from your statement highlighted above, I assume from this that you only have one account?I have two accounts, one which my wages are paid into and where all my dd's/standing orders come out, and another which I transfer money over to from my wages account which is the food budget and my personal spends budget. I have 2 accounts, which I use one for bills and one for everything else. On payday I transfer (standing order set up) an amount which covers ALL my monthly outgoings to my 'bill' account and then I know exactly what I have left for the rest of the month. This also helps in that you know that you have monies for your bills and are not going to be short for any of them to be paid. Thankfully none of the bills are ever short, and in theory there should always be an amount left over to use to overpay on debts. However I haven't always been totally strict with myself and have spent from my wages account, and I've sometimes needed to because the transfer between the wages account and my spends account has sometimes taken over 6 days to go through!

I also have a spreadsheet on excel which shows all the standing orders/direct debits and when they are taken from the bank I put a cross next to the payment and I then know that this has been paid for that month. I also do a spreadsheet for my day to day account. Everytime I use the account I mark it on my spreadsheet and when it comes out of the bank I put a cross next to that and know that it has left my account.

I find that doing this you know exactly how much you have left at any one time in your account, all your bills are covered and you dont need to worry about monies not being there to pay for them.

I also forgot to mention that I pay my cc bills on the day I get paid (even if they are not due until say a week or so after payday). I know then that they have been covered for that month and I can just forget about them. Seeing as you are now on online banking, you can put on your cc payment as soon as you get the bill to come out of your account at a later date.
I have my direct debit set up to my credit card so that I know at least the minimum is paid, and then I can log on to the internet site and overpay, once all my bills have cleared from my wages account and I know how much is left in there for me to use to make overpayments.

I hope that some of this helps - good luck in your mission to become debt free - fingers crossed your OH will soon find his light bulb is on full power and he will be there with you 100%.:D

Thanks for your message. It really is appreciated, as they all are.
Esp' today when hubby and I have had a bit of a falling out and Im feeling a bit feeble.... it's nice to come on here and get a new sense of direction

hypno06

aww, don't feel feeble.......

there is always someone to give you support/a laugh/a kick up the backside on these boards!!

Good luck in your journey - I have only just stumbled across your thread and you seem to be heading in the right direction.

newyorkcitybride

Hi Hypno...
I think its just because we shared a few "choice" words and thats never nice...but then even reading back thru this I realised I have don quite a bit and at last I'm admitting our shortcomings... the only way is up as they say

newyorkcitybride

Hi Again,

Just keeping a running update on my progress...
Paid off an extra £50 off my store card today so that will be gone next payday without a hitch!

I finally feel like after all the previous half !!!!!d efforts, I'm finally getting somethere with it all....

Hubby has been doing pretty well too, paid off £60 on his Halifax credit card today, which was an overpayment of about £15.. so thats something.

Even just the odd extra makes a difference, and the snowball is great fun in realising that.

The drive now is to get the Debt Free in 28 months to be lower and lower, and the interest we're paying out to be lower and lower, so we dont feel so much like we're paying the Fat Cats bonuses...
I mean I know we borrowed it and spent it on rubbish (predominantly) but it's time to pay back what we owe now, and then move on with our lives.

We also had a chat about a dream we've got of spending a year out in the States, just travelling and taking in the sights... but that costs money so big drive to pay off and then even bigger drive to save save save!

newyorkcitybride

OK so I've just been analysing my spending for the past month:
Incoming £1143

Outgoings
£280 S.O Food/Spends account (A&L)
£27.88 D.D Sky (OH ordered something!)
£40 CASH
£450 S.O Rent account
£25 S.O to I.F Credit Card
£4.92 Marks and Spencer (Lunch!)
£22.40 SE Rail (Claimed back from work)
£41.50 DD to MBNA Credit Card
£9.48 WHSmith (Claimed back from work)
£20 CASH
£14.30 National Express
£116.86 Payment to I.F Credit Card (Now cleared!)
£9.01 D.D Dorothy Perkins Store Card
£26.05 D.D 3 Mobile Contract
£26 Nail Tech'
£6.29 Interest Charges on Current Acc'
£17.99 DVD for Hubby's Bday

So just by looking over that, what have I realised???

1. I'm not using the food/spend account as I should be because the National Express, Nail Tech and Marks and Spencer lunch should have come from there and then theres the £60 CASH....

However the cash was used to make overpayments on the Dorothy Perkins store card which now has £141.07 outstanding on it, as opposed to £225...:T

2. I can make overpayments :rotfl: but I need to keep my motivation going when a card a month isn't being cleared :rolleyes:
So I will be "saving" the £25 S.O and the £116.86 payments to I.F...
Which I will be utilising next month to clear £141.07 on the Dorothy Perkins store card, therefore meaning that one is cleared :T

3. I need to start accepting that if I want to get out of this mess, some things will have to give so...
I will get people to come and see me...
Saving the £14.30 I paid on the National Express
I will not be doing stupid things like getting my nails done solely because I was feeling low.....
Saving the £26 I paid out and got really cr&p service for..

Now the DVD for OH I don't begrudge..

However come May we have a slight problem...
We are having a late reception party on the 24th.
Now the DJ, the rest of the room hire £150 and the food needs to be paid for!
Any got any ideas on how to cater for 120 people on very little cash whilst having a Nando's style buffet?! :rotfl:

But thats going to be the challenge for April/May, I'm hoping I can control the April/May food spends to such an extent that I can save some money there.Hopefully at least £100

See the 1st part is rather positive I thnk, I know where I've gone wrong I've admitted it to myself (and others) and I'm ready to make amends..

However its the 2nd part that worries me now I need to get OH to realise that as much as I've taken on organising the whole party, it is for both of us, which means he needs to give me some money toward it....:rolleyes: