Jak's 'I will not spend any money on rubbish and I will pay off my debts' diary

jak

I was just thinking about how many NSD's I have now a week. Also Low spend days and budgetted spend days. I'm going to split my week into these three categories from now on. Obviously there will be the occasional extra spend days but hopefully these will be fairly distant and to be honest I can't remember the last time I spent any extra money on my self which wasn't budgetted for!
Today has been a NSD and yesterday a LSD as I only spent 15p on paracetamol.
Good start to the week so far: Total spend 15p!
Obviously debt repayment is GOOD spending so i'll keep a record of that here and my budget is going well so far this month, although it need s a bit of tweaking next month as some of our bills are changing slightly so I'll need to update my records to keep on top of it.

Jobs for tomorrow:
1. Get up before lunch time!
2. Go to bank to pay in husbands extra money into joint savings.
3. Check online banking.
4. Don't spend any 'extra' money!
5. Only buy from budget: Need bread and potatoes. Tesco 2.5kg 75p and bread 37p.
6. Cook nice meal from left over veg and stuff in freezer- soup?
7. Wash up and water plants.
8. Fnish 'this is your life' book for Mum's birthday and start on mounting Dad's pictures for Christmas.
9. Call midwife and arrange appointment for next week.
10. Hopefully get paid from work PM late and pay some money off credit card.

Nearly there now! I can't wait till I recieve my bill. I'm going to put 'pay in full' on the statement and take it into the bank and pysically pay it off! woooo hooo. I'm SO excited about this! I should get the statement soon as my cut off point for the cc bill is 15th of the month. I've worked out that by a week Wednesday, I should have paid off my credit card.
After that, I plan to reduce my over draft by £300 and leave just a £100 buffer. I can do this via my online banking so I shouldn't have to talk to a person-something I try and avoid as I find they always try and sell me something! Lloyds are trying to get me to buy another loan at the moment. And while it's nice to be offered, I am trying to get OUT of debt, not into MORE!
After my overdraft is reduced- I plan to use my credit card for any food shopping and leave the food budget money in my account. I may move it to my savings- although they aren't very high %, at least it's easy access and for my first month of this I wan tot be able to move my money with ease! Pref. from my armchair- as i'm getting really huge now!

jak

My next step after that will be to pay a chunk off my personal loan each week, starting with any spare money left from husbands wages after the budgetted money has come out of it. I'm hoping there will be a spare £200 at least but it may be slightly less as we've got to account for some extra stuff I need for the baby- bras and other lady stuff. TMI sorry!
The problem with my personal loan is that I can't pay it off via internet banking, I have to speak to a person which for the reasons stated above, I HATE doing! It just makes it difficult for me but I will be strong and it's not forever.
I hope to pay off my personal loan using my wages from work, and my husbands excess, by the 2nd July. I VERY much hope this is achievable- it leaves us with nothing spare, so it might be a bit tight. However, it's only for one month, not forever...
Although, then the saving will start but I think we'll be needing some spending money each month then...Maybe £40 each, I was thinking. We already have £50 for socialising and £20 for clothes so the £40 would just be fritter money. -Maybe that's what my husband needs! And we would be saving £138 in minimum debt payments a month so in theory, we'll have a bit more spare anyway.
My plan is to talk our budget through AGAIN with my husband and see if he can ACTUALLY take some kind of interest and STICK WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If I ever speak to him again, of course....
Anyway, that's quite enough rambling for today... sooff to bed with me....
J
X

jak

Nearly made it to bed then thought of a plan!
I'm going to use what's in the freezer until the end of next month. Then i'm going to defrost it, then fill it up with easy to cook stuff and batch cook meals to be defrosted when the baby's really little so when I can't be bothered or am too tired to cook, we will still eat well. That's the plan! Right now i'm off to do my meal plan for July to make sure we will have enough food for our main meals.
J
X

beanielou

Great news on CC.
Have you checked wth the lovely(!)Lloyds that you can repay on the loan?
How many more payments do u have to make?

jak

I can repay on the loan but i'm subject to a 54 day interest payment if I settle early. I'm not sure if that's interest pon the original amount I borrowed actually or if it's on what I owe now. I'll go inot the bank later and find out. I've got 18 payments left if I carry on as normal but I really want ot get it paid off and reduce our monthly outgoings a bit. Things are fairly tight really and my husbands job is seasonal so he's only got work until Nov. If his visa isn't through till then he can't work- hence the need to reduce outgoigs and save as much as possible! I'm on Mat leave until end of March so if we had to live on what I'll get for the winter we will have problems.
I will get £468 every 4 weeks, £75.20 child benefit plus I think about £150 child tax credit- but this is based on 'entitled to'.com so i'm not sure how accurate the figure is. Total: £693.20! Oh God....
I really hope it doesn't come to that! If it does, then we'll just have to rein in our spends and cope! we've done it before, but then that's partly why we ended up in so much debt!
Anyway, have a cool day B.
J
X

jak

I will get off my bum and walk into town before the bank shuts....
I'm going now.....
I am....

Karmacat

Hi Jaks

You're doing well - and the batch cooking is a really good idea. Sorry to hear that you and your husband are having a hard time - its part of building a relationship over the years, but that *never* makes it easier. Take your time, remember that your hormones are all over the place right now - hope you enjoyed the walk into town.

jak

Thanks.. I did enjoy the walk into town but when I got to the bank some of the money I was meant to pay in had mysteriously disappeared. Doesn't look like husband took our chat very seriously. I have had it! He spent all last night when he got home saying sorry and he'd never mess about with the money again and then 1 day later...
I am seriously fed up now! And i'm locking the G*D D**N Door!

jak

He's just phoned and used the money for a cab because he was tired. I'm going to sit him down and go through the budget with him when he gets in. If he wants to get a cab he can take it out of the socializing budget. That's what it's there for. Honestly. Why doesn't he get it?

jak

My spends for today:
-Budgetted spends: cinema ticket £6.60 socializing. £3.12 milk, bread, potatoes, ice lollies.
So a medium spend day I supose. Not too bad. But no brilliant either. Saying that, I would have spent the money anyway as I needed those things so there you go...
Next week I'm going to see sex and the city film and out for dinner with my friend. Very excited! We are using my Weatherspoons voucher for 2 steak meals and a bottle of wine for £14.99 so I will need to take £7.50 with me. We've got just over a tenner left of our socialising budget- which husband ALWAYS spends so it's my turn this month!
J
X