Facing up and cracking on

remote_control · 16 August 2016 at 9:19AM

Hi

We are in debt and we need to face up to it as I do not want it to define the next few years of our life.

In a nut shell, we moved to a house that was slightly over budget and did a lot of DIY.

Debt as of July 2016 £20,485.45

We don't act like we're in debt, we just carry on as normal. I am hoping this diary will help to change this.

Feel a bit scared and tearful posting this!

Thanks in advance for your support!!

Pinkwhisk · 16 August 2016 at 9:28AM

Hi,

It's good you've recognised your debt now, before it gets so big that only drastic action will help! Have you posted a SOA? That can help others to see where you can make cutbacks. Also you could look at the snowball calculator too, lots find that a good motivation for staying out of debt!

I've subscribed

Good luck!

PW X

smallholdingsister · 16 August 2016 at 9:46AM

God bless and good luck.

If the house is over budget do you have a spare room you could rent out?

remote_control · 16 August 2016 at 7:53PM

Thank you for your responses. I don't know where to begin with an SOA, I don't really know how I'd work it out. Our spare rooms are taken up by children!

I felt motivated today and took a vague scrambled together lunch in instead of buying anything. That's £3 saved. Very pleased.

remote_control · 30 August 2016 at 3:44PM

Hi everyone,

Debt as of August 2016 20,155.45

I realised we're paying less and less each month with some of the debts (spread over 4 cards) as things are on minimum payment. So we've changed the direct debits to be on fixed payments totalling £620 a month across the 4 debts. This way I can also calculate an end date (as we are not adding to the debt) which is 3.5 years away. This is too long for me and since starting this diary I have been much better at not spending. Our downfall is food really. And eating out. And holidays.

I forgot to mention in the original post that all our debt is on 0% cards. We recently moved the bulk of it to a card which is 0% until March 2019!!!

Good news
A couple of ebay sales
Saved £60 on home insurance (stayed with same company but had to go through the faff of doing a comparison, getting a cheaper quote, ringing up original company, they matched it)
husband has pay rise looming

Bad news
Car on the blink

Happy money saving xx

little_miss_spendtoomuch · 30 August 2016 at 5:07PM

You're off to a great start

Good luck on your journey x

engineer_amy · 30 August 2016 at 5:58PM

Afternoon Remote Control
you seem to have a sensible outlook on this, so keep motivated and the pounds will soon come off the debt.
As others have suggested, do a statement of affairs http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php

Even if you do it for your eyes only and are completely honest with what is being spent, you will see where there are areas of overspending and what can be trimmed. You mention food and eating out/entertainment as two of the main overspends - add up what you have spent on these over the last month/3 months to get your benchmark figure. Then priority number 1 is to reduce these each month. Think of how you will feel in a year's time when you compare your food spend and realise you have reduced the spend by maybe 50%. I keep an old SOA, and redo one every few months. its amazing the difference in the amount of money I was spending on cr*p, or overpaying on poor deals. Now mine is trimmed down nicely and I have spare money for a few luxuries while still reducing my debt at a reasonable pace.

If you are feeling really brave, post your statement on here. Other people may see areas for reductions that you hadn't thought of, or give you a few ideas.

Good luck

remote_control · 20 September 2016 at 9:58AM

Hi all,

I am bursting with excitement as I have finally found a way to see how much money I spend each month and where it goes. I know it sounds really silly but I haven't found anything that works for me before and I think I finally have. In the past I've wanted to do it really thoroughly and account for what each penny was spent on. But I was chatting with a friend who has a spreadsheet and she said she has a category that just says 'cash out'. And this simple idea has made all the difference. Previously I've been saving receipts, writing down where every penny is spent and trying to keep track. I know that having a category which just says 'cash' isn't perfect but if it means I can see where I am spending most of my money then that makes such a difference to me and I can post an SOA for you very soon. So I've done my spreadsheet for August and it shows we spent £259 more than came in!! I'm all fired up now to do lots of ebaying today and to try and use up the food in my cupboard so that doesn't happen again.

Sorry that was a bit of a ramble!

remote_control · 4 October 2016 at 2:21PM

New budget spreadsheet going really well. Its silly but it's the first time I've seen in one place how much we spend a month on things. And this month we have spent £600 less than came in! Result! I can't wait to see how next month goes - excited!

NotNormal · 4 October 2016 at 6:14PM

remote_control wrote: »

New budget spreadsheet going really well. Its silly but it's the first time I've seen in one place how much we spend a month on things. And this month we have spent £600 less than came in! Result! I can't wait to see how next month goes - excited!

Congratulations! It's not silly at all, I have a spreadsheet too. It's so easy to look at the bank and see that big number and think oh £3 for this won't matter etc. Take yesterday for example, I spent £10 on packs of ciggies even though I had baccy because it was "easier". So I'm going to refill the empties with rollies instead. Still easy to grab/no need to roll on the go but also no need to buy while out!

I'm going to knuckle down with my spreadsheet in a minute because I've looked on my SOA and so much "spare" money that I never see.

remote_control · 6 October 2016 at 3:17PM

The groceries have been a bit of a shock for me. But then the last time I wrote down what we spent we were only 2 people and now we are 4. I'm not going too over the top with writing down where every penny goes as when I do that I give up.

Facing up and cracking on

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