We can do this

OnlyPariah · 6 November 2019 at 5:07PM

After some great advice on DFW I've decided to put together a diary so I can put down how I'm doing, feeling and generally whats going on with my plan to be debt-free.

First a bit of background. I live with my partner and our two children, 8 and 2. We also have a cat, a dog, a rabbit and an axelotl. We've managed to accrue about 21k in debt and we're also getting married next March and need to find the remainingg £1,900 for that.

My partner is self employed, working from home, and obviously that means her wage fluctuates. It's part of the reason we're in this mess. We'd always buy on the credit cards to earn cash back and then pay itoff. Except when she didn't go back to work after our littlest was born we found those payments slipped. Bad month here, bad month there and before you know it we're in a hole.

Still, the first step is admitting there is a problem, we've analysed it, I've asked for advice on here and got some good tips. My partner has started working nights at McDonalds which, although is wearing her out and she has to then be awake with our littlest during the day before I come home, she is enjoying.

We've put a budget of £300 for food, we used to spend around £450. and I'm using an app called Emma to track my accounts and budget accordingly. All the credit cards are in there except the Asda card we have.

I'm starting to put aside the emergency fund. I've got £400 in there since pay day as my partner got her last salary in. Groceries are going to go straight on the debit card so we will see how much we've spent. My plan is to keep adding to the emergency fund, this will be part emergency fund and wedding fund.

Thank you for reading if you've made it this far.

enthusiasticsaver · 6 November 2019 at 5:11PM

Great idea to start a diary and have subscribed.

Good idea to start the emergency savings account and glad to see you are going to use the debit card for groceries rather than credit.

Which debt are you targeting first?

Willing2Learn · 6 November 2019 at 5:14PM

Yay, a nice new diary...

OnlyPariah wrote: »

I'm starting to put aside the emergency fund. I've got £400 in there since pay day as my partner got her last salary in. Groceries are going to go straight on the debit card so we will see how much we've spent. My plan is to keep adding to the emergency fund, this will be part emergency fund and wedding fund.

If it were me, I would keep the EF and Wedding budget categories entirely separate. I wouldn't really want to be mixing the two as they are for entirely different things.

(lol - I felt compelled to google axelotl!!)

[Deleted User] · 6 November 2019 at 5:15PM

Good luck on your journey x

OnlyPariah · 6 November 2019 at 5:23PM

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Great idea to start a diary and have subscribed.

Good idea to start the emergency savings account and glad to see you are going to use the debit card for groceries rather than credit.

Which debt are you targeting first?

The Asda card has to be the first debt to target. The interest rate is 29.9 and that needs to come down. I did receive a letter from Tesco telling me that I'd paid more due to interest than the original debt was for and this month I've noticed they don't seem to have added any interest. The interest has normally gone on by now.

Oh, I forgot to say, I read some advice about paying a little more than the minimums on all the cards so I'm doing that. Should help things start coming down.

Thanks again everyone. This place is so supportive, I can imagine sticking around even once I'm debt free.

OnlyPariah · 6 November 2019 at 5:24PM

Willing2Learn wrote: »

If it were me, I would keep the EF and Wedding budget categories entirely separate. I wouldn't really want to be mixing the two as they are for entirely different things.

That might well be a smart move. I need to have a think. Cheers.

charlotte1988 · 6 November 2019 at 10:44PM

Good luck with your journey to being debt free!

I think Willing2Learn makes an excellent point by having separate pots for the emergency and wedding fund. Having clearly allocated areas for each makes the goals easier to see, and should reduce stress. Well, it does for me anyway

enthusiasticsaver · 7 November 2019 at 12:04AM

I would second having separate pots for emergency savings, wedding savings etc. If you get close to the wedding and do not have enough saved you could always dip into the emergency fund then temporarily. Not ideal but better than taking on more debt.

OnlyPariah · 7 November 2019 at 12:58PM

I've taken that advice on board and now have a separate pot for the wedding funds. I have £150 in Emergency Fund and £250 in the Wedding Fund.

I know the wedding fund is higher but that does need to be paid for next March. Hopefully we can go away for a few days after. We've never been away since we met and I'm quite looking forward to a few days without the kids.

I've now setup to make sure I'm paying a little more than the minimum on each of the credit cards. I've also put a freeze on each of my credit cards so I'm not tempted to use them. It'll also help in stopping anything that might be coming out monthly on them that I've forgotten. I know we have Spotify that comes out on one of them. I need to get that changed.

Overall though I'm feeling good. Writing on here helps.

I do have one question though. With three of the cards I'm paying interest at the moment but can't get a 0% balance transfer. If I contacted Step Change or similar could they get this interest stopped. I want to pay the debt just the interest is slowing down this effort.

savingholmes · 7 November 2019 at 7:30PM

You would need to post a statement of affairs really to get proper advice on whether you need a debt management arrangement or whether with your income you could manage if you used your money differently.

enthusiasticsaver · 7 November 2019 at 11:05PM

The only way to get interest frozen is to go on some sort of debt management plan and that will result in a default on your record. An soa will help to see whether that would be suitable. It really depends on how tight your budget is.

We can do this

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free