Debt free in four years...

roversbabe

julybride wrote:

Cigarettes 200.00

:eek:

I'm smoker and used to spend £35 per week on cigs (just me, OH bought his own). I switched to roll ups and a 50g pack (around a tenner) lasts a week. I get papers in bulk (£8 for 100 packs - lasts forever) and filters at 3 packs for a £1 from the local pound shop (you need filters, trust me ). This has saved me a bomb over the last few years.

Even better, when your friends go on their hols, ask them to bring you some back, cheaper again. A friend of mine has just been on her hols so I'm stocked up for the next couple of months.

HTH

rb

julybride

Hi everyone, yep i have already booked to go to France before christmas and that way can get some pressies i.e. wine for everyone much cheaper too. Please bare in mind this budget was for 2 smokers; and though obvious! i hadn't thought of going to roll ups. Yep mobile will come down in the next 4 weeks but it really is due to me and husband living apart and having to make new job/solicitors call in work hours (expensive but nearly over) then this will be down to £50 all together.

As for the birthdays I have budgeted in that for next Christmas too, and we also have 4 weddings next year, even if we don't get pressies, the travel adds up and i took account of that.

Going to keep looking and threads i actually thikn i may be able to reduce my utilities as well as food budget.

DesG

On the mobile front, are you in contract or payg? Even at £50 that is WAY ott for 2 phones.

Also on the life insurance, does that include critical injury? £50 seems a lot if it doesn't, I just worked out that a 25 year joint life policy would cover you for £500,000 for £50/mo ! But if you have critical illness the £50 would only get you bout £110,000 cover.

Cheers, Des.

ms_london

I personally think that you should be able to clear this in 2 years MAX, less if you really wanted to.

Its all about priorities I suppose.

Is any of this debt your wedding? How much did that cost? (if you dont mind me asking).

Ms_London

julybride

No I don't mind you asking. The wedding was paid for mostly by us (about £3500 in total) I worked really hard to not go over board but not feel like we hadn't had the wedding we had wanted... Funnily enough i had enough in savings to cover it, although whichever way you look at it we'd have been that much better off.

No our real problem was he was out of work for 4 months and then had to move to West sussex which has meant our overheads went up as well as his salary going down. Although we cut back... it wasn't enough. I've also taken charge of ALL finances now because £4500 was his accumulated over the last 4 years. I'm actually quite positive because looking at the budget there is more we can pay of than we think.

It has broken down like this:

no salary for 3 months 3 x £1200 = £3600
already occured dedt = £4500
sixmonths rent and living expenses on top of mortgage = £2000ish

also both on contracts mine £30 month him £45 (his is definately the wrong contract) but as i said the last few months have been an unusual situation. He is in the process of ebaying a lot!!!! of stuff.

As for the Life assurance yep its critical illness cover, this is also being reassessed at the moment because we will have 2 properties and think we need higher cover, so will be re examining if its neccesary as we are both still fairly young.

Lucie_2

How much profit do you make from your second property? If I've read it right (& I may not have done) you pay £610 mortgage plus £50 maintenance & only get £625 rent?
It's costing you £35 a month.
How much equity is there in the property? Enough to pay off your debts?
If it were me, I would sell the house, use the equity to pay off debts & get back on a even keel. Then once I was back in control of my finances I'd look to buy another property to rent.

DesG

julybride wrote:

also both on contracts mine £30 month him £45 (his is definately the wrong contract) but as i said the last few months have been an unusual situation. He is in the process of ebaying a lot!!!! of stuff.

ok, how long have you remaining on your contracts, I assume you are still in the first 12/18 months?

julybride wrote:

As for the Life assurance yep its critical illness cover, this is also being reassessed at the moment because we will have 2 properties and think we need higher cover, so will be re examining if its neccesary as we are both still fairly young.

First off, this is not financial advice, and I am not a financial adviser! Personally I am not a big fan of critical illness. So if you are, maybe my advice isn't suitable. If you have enough cover at the moment to pay off your mortage on one house and maybe have a surplus, then I would just get some basic life assurance, without critical illness, to cover the other mortgage.

One thing to bear in mind, critical illness cover costs considerably more the older you get, so think carefully if you decide to cancel or replace it with term life.


Cheers, Des.

Tondella

Hi Julybride, congratulations on your recent wedding, well done for getting the day you wanted in budget!

I think you're getting loads of specific advice from the money savers so I just wanted to offer some words of encouragement. I'm in a similar position too, £24k worth of credit card debt between us. Thanks to this website I have taken charge of the debt and shifted it down from about 14.9% to about 5.5% (average). I'm really pleased that I managed to reduce all the debt down to such a lower interest rate. However even if it could be at 0% for the lifetime of the balance it still needs money to pay it off. That's where the budgeting comes in.
It's good that you have identified all your outgoings, and people are giving you lots of advice about how to free up more money for repayments. Like you and your partner we live apart because of work reasons, so unfortunately that's twice the rent to pay, although OH lives in mess and so gets a bargain with accom. and food. We're slightly ahead of the game than you because we have already had a look at our outgoings and made reductions. WE found there are two types of cutbacks you can do. Firstly you can pay less for the same things, so looking at your utility providers to find the best bargains is one way. Like you we are particularly dependent on our mobiles to speak to each other, however we both recently came to the end of our contracts and using the advice onthe site negotiated some real bargains. OH got his tariff down from £55 to £15 per month (for first six months, then up to £30) for the same minutes and texts by citing three's tariff as cheaper and threatening to cancel with Orange (if you look through my posts you'll find more details of this). So now I have 1000mins weekend and evening calls free plus some texts and he has his 500 anytime minutes he calls me during the day, I call him during the evening and it costs £35 for both of us!
The second part of budgeting is to try and do without some things. So we've given ourselves a socialising allowance of £20 per week, try to go round to friends for dinner, if we treat ourselves to a coffee we buy one large one to share, ditto for the cheeky muffin (these coffee houses charge a fortune for the smallest cup but then pennies for the increase in volume thereafter). We live in london which can be very pricey but there are also loads of free things to do, just walking around the different parts of london can be a day's entertainment. WE've got an excellent library and are catching up with our classic movie watching using their cheap rentals.
Even after all this, we are still looking at about three years to pay off, we're at the beginning of the repayments and it is so daunting to think of myself, aged 30 with no savings. But then the other way of looking at it is that I'll be debt free before I'm thirty, which when i look around is more than I can say for many of my friends and relatives. The MSE-ers are right, if you play with the snowball calculator you can see the difference that even an extra £50 can make in shortening your repayments.

I wish you the best in your money saving endeavours, please keep us posted, it's always nice to hear the experiences of other people going through the same things

All the best Tondella

Eliza252

Hi - Just a small point on the mobile phone bills.
I guess alot of the money goes on calling each other if your currently living apart. Is there any way you can call each other from a phone box with a discount card (yes I know smells of pee, but the trick is in choosing your phone box carefully and taking some dettol!)
Do any of your friends have landlines? Maybe you could ask if you could use it occasionally and then give them the money (work out how much it is per minute and then time yourself) it will still work out cheaper.
Could you use an internet cafe and arrange to have a chat on MSN occasionally instead of calling?
Mobile phone calls really are very expensive - every time you make a call using an alternative means - work out much it would have cost you on the mobile and write the amount down. Then add it up at the end of the week - you'll be shocked!
If you still feel deprived - put the money you've saved towards doing something nice together like going out for dinner or something. I know your not supposed to have a life - but if you dont have the very occasional treat you'll go mad! - just dont throw it away by giving it to the mobile company (they have enough mullah already )