Put away your purse & become debt-averse

Hello diary readers,
Well, next week's meal plans have been done & I'm about to sit down with those & a couple of recipes to start the shopping list. I use my meal plans to write the list, with lots of cupboard/freezer checking to make sure I'm not re-buying stuff I've already got. That's made be think how much of our success in paying off our 35K debts originally was down to planning. It's funny really, because mr f has always been a meticulous planner at work, & so was I while I was working. We also both managed reasonable sized budgets at work & kept them straight to the penny! But at home, our approach to managing money was very lax. Partly this was down to attitude & credit being extremely easy to acquire for 2 people on decent salaries, but partly it was down to really p*ss-poor planning!
Planning is one of the things where we really took ourselves in hand & we now apply it willingly to many areas of our lives:
*Budgeting (More of that later) but what is budgeting if not a plan for how your money is going to last for the coming month?
*Food. Meal planning, proper shopping list & including lots of tasty economical new recipes & 'fakeaways' planned in to avoid wasting money we couldn't afford on expensive takeaways. Extra planning ahead when we knew we'd got family/guests staying, for Christmas & other celebrations so we'd know to put in a little extra money or start buying additional supplies gradually in advance. Freezer list - more planning. But so useful when meal planning to see at a glance what meals could be 'shopped from home'.
*Diaries/calendars - Every Sunday teatime, we both sit down with a coffee & just go through our diaries to plan use of car (we share one since my redundancy) look at any days where extra pack-up might be needed to avoid a Costa's run, etc.
*Holidays - We did always book these in advance, but didn't do any planning, so it all tended to go on a credit card. Now I calculate exactly how much money we will need to put aside each month to pay the balance, pay for cat's stay at the cattery & for a sensible amount of spending money.
*Garden - Veggie garden has an annual written plan of what we want to grow, based on what we eat lots of, what can be frozen to eat throughout winter. It's very different from my old approach of buying in what ever I fancied on impulse at the garden centre.
*Presents - another huge area of overspending for us in the past. Now I have a page in my bullet diary with everyone we need to buy for & I jot ideas against their name as I think of things. I alsy buy stuff for gifts all year round & pop them away in the presents box, as I used to be an annual silly victim of the overspend on presents in December & suffer those awful debts in January & Feb.
Maybe some people would say we over-plan, I don't know? I only know that it works for us. Having seen what spendy narnas we were when our approach was just 'Have it now' without any real thought or context, I know which I prefer.
Also, we are not living in very secure economic times at the moment, & I do find that as soon as I've got a plan drafted out on paper, whether it be our monthly budget, annual projection or just a micro-budget for managing a family event, I do feel more in control.
That was a long post, wasn't it? But we have achieved debt-free before taking out this modest car loan & I want to share any good habits I can. Planning is defo a really key debt-busting 'good habit'. I think we both really understand now how a 'Have it now' mindset & bad money habits, combined with lack of planning was a really lethal combination in building our original debt.
F x

Lol, no, funnily enough I do kind of know what you mean. Years ago I did a couple of creative writing courses & the tutor told us the most unproductive thing we could do is just stare at a blank page. She told us always to get SOMETHING on paper, then we'd have somethibg to work on, adapt, change, develop, etc. I think it's the same with planning. You can adapt & change a carefully written plan much more easily than trying to apply changes to a load of chaotic stuff in your head.
So I think I do know what you mean.

We woke up to such a grey dull old day, & pouring with rain. Decided to have a little 'cheer up' by treating ourselves to breakfast out. And it was completely guilt-free because we paid from our March Personal Spends, so I could enjoy my bacon & avocado on sourdough toast knowing it was not impacting on the budget/bank account in anyway. We also reduced costs a little by choosing Waitrose Cafe so we'd be able to have a free coffee each on our loyalty cards.
Back in the Spendy Years, we regularly used cafes for breakfasts & lunches.....on a city centre trip, we might have both, & it really did add up. On a city centre trip now, we would usually breakfast at home, treat ourselves to just a coffee & small cakey item mid-morning using our personal spends money, & at lunchtime we find somewhere to eat a packed lunch. I make this the night before as I.know if we are hungry, we'll be tempted to buy paninis & a bowl of chips & that can easily be £15 for two people (mr f doesn't exactly have a titchy appetite!).
Another thing I really noticed this morning is how much I really enjoyed that breakfast. It"s a rare thing.now for us & because of that it felt like a treat.
Planning a little trip out tomorrow & am already planning packed lunch to keep us out of the cafe at lunchtime. It must save a good few hundred quid over the year, I should think.
Enjoy your Saturday night everyone.
F x

Hi,
Was there even a two minute gap in the rain today? I don't think so! Generally good frugal day today. Very positive 'rubber chicken' activity in the kitchen. It did a roast dinner yesterday & the leftovers have stretched to 3 more meals (for two people), some sandwiches & 3 containers of chicken stock for the freezer. But for potential loan pay-off activity today, that's been me making a nice hot cafetiere, getting my bum in a chair & finally listing that pile of stuff on ebay. Only little bits & pieces for small amounts, but it all adds up & like all the little extra amounts of cash I make, any sales money will be paid straight across to the Loan Pay Down Fund.
And isn't de-cluttering a great feeling. It kind of sorts my head out as well as my house.
Wishing everyone a good debt-busting week.
F x