£15,000 to 0

Silver_Queen · 16 January 2018 at 2:10PM

Hi all from sunny Algarve! It’s beautifully warm here compared to dreary England at the moment and we’ve had a frugal holiday. Flights, hotel and transfer have cost us £100 each in total for a week. We each bought £150 worth of euros and had some as an xmas gift and leftover from last holiday, but didn’t really need to as today is our last day here and we’ve still got almost 300 euros left! I’m pleased with that as it means we’ve spent about 150 euros for the week including two meals out.

I’m a Jack Monroe convert already

her recipes are so far the only vegan recipes I’ve tried that aren’t bland.

Silver_Queen · 16 January 2018 at 2:19PM

Oops, submitted before I was finished.

Thanks EH, I’m quite proud of myself when it comes to pay rise as I would not normally be brave enough to march in and ask for it but I decided I would take the risk as all they could have done is said no.

I have been through finances with OH and feel a bit guilty for giving him a hard time about money, since it turns out his take home pay is about £100 less than I thought it was and he has more fixed expenses than I thought. I feel better for having gone through it with him though, I confess I had slightly thought he was just a frivolous spender.

I have a good action plan to be able to pay off my debts by the end of 2019 and start saving to finally buy a house. Not sure OH is quite on board yet with planning so far ahead but I’ll be working on him.

My main challenge right now is that I have £30 in the bank to last until payday. I have got my share of the 300 euros but I’d prefer to keep that in euros rather than change it back as it just wastes money in the conversion, inevitably we will go on another holiday by the end of the year (oh woe is me...I don’t mean to sound whiny as I know I am very fortunate to be able to take so many breaks).

I can feel my compulsive spending creeping up again. I keep thinking I should treat myself because I got a pay rise. I won’t succumb! I already have many luxuries and I don’t want to get used to viewing the spending of money as a treat

EssexHebridean · 17 January 2018 at 11:58AM

Ooh lucky you being somewhere warmer - it's a bit parky here at the moment!

That's excellent (non) spending on your holibobs - well done! I can also see the sense in leaving the euros you come back with as euros too - if they're going to be used that makes sense doesn't it.

On the creeping spendiness - can you set yourself a solid "reward" promise for when you reach a certain point? As in, think of something small that's calling to you as a treat and say that when you hit the point of X amount paid off, you'll buy it? I did something similar last year with buying my Fitbit - said if I'd stuck to the regular exercise thing from the start of the year until March then I'd buy it - and it did prove to be a motivator I admit! (And I still shopped around and bought it for the best price I could!) I'm currently thinking along the same lines with a proper running watch - but need to prove to myself I'll keep up the running first! :rotfl:

Silver_Queen · 18 January 2018 at 12:47PM

Back to dreary England and the cold and wet

Unanticipated spends cropped up this week including booking a transfer back to the airport in Portugal (we've never stayed in a resort-y type place before, always city, so we didn't anticipate the lack of public transport back to the airport) which cost us £11 each. Train back from the airport in the UK to home, which was silly of me not to anticipate. We then had dinner on the way home as it was late and we were bl00dy starvin'.

The result is that I now have £8 left to last me until the end of the month and I suspect I will be charged the interest on the interest-bearing part of my overdraft that I was in last month, when I didn't realise it was interest-bearing. Sadly this means I will probably be charged interest again next month, albeit only for a small amount - about £50 into my overdraft for 3 days max. Fortunately my overdraft doesn't charge a daily sum but is 16.6% APR.

OH now owes me a round £1k from various expenses this month and will be paying me back from 31st Jan 2018 at £150 per month. This means I should be paid back by the end of July.

The non-interest-bearing part of my OD will start charging interest from either 1 June 2018 or 1 July 2018, I've forgotten. Luckily, by my calculations, I will have paid it back by then.

Finances looking very squeaky this month, my fault as I know I didn't budget properly or take into account certain costs.

EH, I like your idea of rewards. I've tried it in the past but never stuck to it because of willpower, but now I'm a little older and wiser, and I think I will be able to! I've decided that come payday I will treat myself to a bottle of very expensive perfume that I want, as a smug self-congratulatory pat on the back for pay rise. Luckily I have a gift voucher from Christmas so it will only cost me £8.

Parental loan still ticking along, I think that once my payrise kicks in in March, I will start paying it off £500 per month rather than the current £250 per month.

Silver_Queen · 22 January 2018 at 11:16PM

Inspired by the ever wonderful and wise Greying Pilgrim, and bolstered by the fact that the other person in this flat will be away from Thursday this week, my meal plan will be from stores until Monday and is as follows:

Tuesday: vegan pie with steamed or boiled veggies on the side, will make extra of the filling which will be a lovely veg stew frozen for another day
Wednesday: out with a friend - her treat!
Thursday: tofu skin stir fry
Friday: bean and chickpea chilli with rice (cobble together)
Saturday: toast or porridge for brunch and then vegan fried rice with the leftover rice from Friday and probably some of the tofu skins from Thursday for dinner.
Sunday: mashed banana pancakes for brunch, marmite marinated tofu and rice for dinner.

The last one (marmite tofu) is cheating a little as I will have to buy marmite, sesame oil and hoi sin sauce. The sesame oil and hoi sin sauce we will keep, the marmite I may pass along to OH as he absolutely adores the stuff and would probably let me drown to save a jar of the stuff.

Payday is in 4 days and counting. Sometimes I get paid a day early though - here’s hoping!!!

Today I reached £23 on OnePoll. I swear I will never ever EVER reach cash out.

Silver_Queen · 25 January 2018 at 7:00PM

Payday tomorrow and I cannot wait.

Had a lovely evening with my friend last night and then today was treated to lunch by my boss!

Can't wait for the weekend.

lonelyrat · 27 January 2018 at 8:36PM

Hi Silver Queen - just had a proper read through your diary. It's awesome you managed to move out to live with your sister! But pretty crummy about the issues with your mum re the loan. I had to borrow a bit of money off my dad last year when things got dire moneywise. He was giving me £100 a month for a few months. Thankfully managed to pay him back as I got a bigger bonus at work than I'd expected. But at the time I felt like such a failure being indebted to him... It did seriously save my bacon helping with rent. At least with your parental loan it was for something worthwhile and will help you in the future

Your holiday sounds lovely and I'm a wee bit jealous haha. I think I'm going to book something up for September when I get out of debt. Very, very, very far away but something (anything) I can look forward to!

Did your pay rise start from this months wage? If so happy days :cool: You should defo treat yourself to something as a reward (but then curb the spends after!) I know with me once I get in a rewards/ treats kind of mindset it's kind of hard to turn it back off :rotfl:

Silver_Queen · 28 January 2018 at 10:33AM

lonelyrat wrote: »

Hi Silver Queen - just had a proper read through your diary. It's awesome you managed to move out to live with your sister! But pretty crummy about the issues with your mum re the loan. I had to borrow a bit of money off my dad last year when things got dire moneywise. He was giving me £100 a month for a few months. Thankfully managed to pay him back as I got a bigger bonus at work than I'd expected. But at the time I felt like such a failure being indebted to him... It did seriously save my bacon helping with rent. At least with your parental loan it was for something worthwhile and will help you in the future

Your holiday sounds lovely and I'm a wee bit jealous haha. I think I'm going to book something up for September when I get out of debt. Very, very, very far away but something (anything) I can look forward to!

Did your pay rise start from this months wage? If so happy days :cool: You should defo treat yourself to something as a reward (but then curb the spends after!) I know with me once I get in a rewards/ treats kind of mindset it's kind of hard to turn it back off :rotfl:

Thanks lonelyrat. I've been reading your diary with interest but can't remember if I've ever posted in there.

Pay rise starts from March - I cannot wait!

Woke up this lovely sunday morning to a rather unpleasant surprise :eek: I signed up to a "one month" free trial of exercise classes at my sister's behest two weeks ago but have been charged the full £55 for it today - reading the terms a bit closer turns out the free trial is actually 2 weeks. My mistake! I've emailed them straight away asking if they can refund and cancel but if not, I will just have to do many many exercise classes this month to make up for it :eek::rotfl:

EssexHebridean · 29 January 2018 at 12:22PM

If it is in any way advertised as a "month" rather than "to the end of the month" then I should hope that they do the decent thing and refund you. Fingers crossed anyway!

As you say otherwise at the least get your moneys worth from it!

I think that treat to yourself to reward you for the payrise (and for being brave enough to go in there and make your case for it too - well done you!) is a great idea particularly as it will actually cost you so little in actual money! :T

enthusiasticsaver · 29 January 2018 at 2:53PM

You do seem to be struggling a bit with the budgeting.

Lending to your sister and OH probably wasn’t the best move considering you are also in debt. Can they not access credit?

You need an emergency fund and that overdraft gone. You will be charged for it a certain amount after graduation and they are not cheap.

Lending from and to family members can be a nightmare. Loads of stories on this forum about relationships breaking up and people left with debt owing. No one thinks it will happen to them but personally unless you are married it is not a good idea to lend to each other. That is my cynical view having seen a lot of people who have had their fingers burned.

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