To ask for help with £10K debt

[Helpwithfinances]

Hi all!
I was wondering for your tips for getting rid of around £10K debt.
I had some unexpected house repairs come up that I hadn't saved for and have put the money on a credit card, have around a year to pay it off - but could potentially move to another 0% card when the 12 months is up.
It is really stressing me out as I am a single mum and I am crap at budgeting each month. I have two teenagers who never stop eating and my DD does dance and a couple of other activities that cost a lot.
I was wondering everyones tips for saving money. I would ideally like to save around £500 a month (not impossible if I am very, very sensible I think) but I am not a natural saver (as seen my getting in debt in the first place). I have already decided no summer holiday this year which will hopefully help..
Thanks!

So my monthly money I get in is around £3K when you add in child benefit and very small amount of maintentance from ex (another boring story for another time)
My mortgage is £890
Council tax around £200
Heating and electric - £200
Then things like life insurance / home insurance / union fees / phone - £120
Credit card repayment - around £200
Petrol - £100

Then the next biggest expense is probably that I have two teens for five nights a week. My daughter's dance and acting classes (that I would be loathed to stop but would if I had to) come to around £200 a month not including extras like costumes / show fees etc.

I do a weekly Asda shopping for around £100 but then probably a couple of top up shops of around £20-30 plus take away once a week (maybe £20)

Then everything else I end up spending money includes, bus fayres to work, coffees when my daughter is in classes, children's clothes, toiletteries, books, admission to things (trampoline parks / cinema etc), presents for birthday parts kids are going to - note nothing for myself!

I am crap at saving. I think I could save money on food shopping as I realise that is a huge drain.

My daughter is 12 and my son is 14. He doesn't do any expensive out of school activities as he's more of a book worm / computer geek (has asd) - so it's mostly my daughter's clubs that are expensive. But I do think 12 is an age where they start to drop out of things so was hoping to keep going for a bit longer. Especially as she is doing really well (but also if I can't afford it then I can't afford it).

I agree some meal planning would help you to spend a bit less on food shopping OP.

If you aren't already, I would write down all of your miscellaneous spending, as that seems to be your current pot of 'unaccounted' for funds. Do it for a month so you can account for every penny.

It sounds like you could take your own coffee to drink when running your daughter to dance class, or use the library for books, but having full oversight of your household budget will enable you to find the most efficient savings and balance treats, daily expenses and a savings pot.

I also second the advice to declutter and sell any good but unused items- most of us have unused stuff cluttering up our homes and this is an easy win

It’s not the grocery shopping, you are actually doing great there. It’s the dancing and debt that is eating the money.

Yeh the dancing and debt about sums it up 😪

Do you have any dance related costumes that you can resell? These are massively expensive new and would hopefully free up some space too.

In addition ring your utility companies and see if you are in credit with them, they are quite happy to hold on to £100s of your money that can accumulate if your payments are over what you're actually using - if there is any credit there have it paid back to you.

If you lack the discipline to save...

• Set up a fixed payment of GBP500 to go to the CC on payday, so you don't have the money available to spend on anything else
• Close/freeeze your CC account so that you aren't tempted to put any more money onto it
• Towards the end of the interest free term, open a 'balance transfer' credit card to transfer the balance from the existing card onto there to stop incurring interest cost. Then do as above with this card til your entire debt is paid off

If you work and make over 30K outside the South East, it's really not too bad to have this amount of debt. Just focus on paying it off as opposed to getting into more debt.

Try selling stuff on Vinted/ another side hustle to make a few extra pounds as well

Write down how you currently spend your money. Account for every penny.

Then review.

I have 8k on 0% so we're in this together.
I pay something a day to my debt minimum of £1. I know it's a drop in the ocean but I do it and have paid off £4k this year alone on cc debt.

We also bank with monzo and use pots. I have 20 pots set up with things like food shopping, dog stuff, eating out. Once all bills are paid I divide whats left into the weeks of the month, then take 1 weeks worth and split it out amongst pots. When the week is over I take anything left over from pots and pay half towards credit card and i put half into a longer term bill such as car insurance or car repairs and then start over again on a Friday. Monzo does most of this for me tbf.

I also do things like prolific and use any cash from that half to credit card and half to long term savings.

I am of the opinion that you cannot just throw every spare bit of cash at debt as its unsustainable. You get to month 3 and your fed up of beans on toast and saying no to your friends who want to meet in a cafe and you end up borrowing more to help that debt. But if you budget for this stuff (maybe on a smaller scale) you can actively make every £ have a job.

Just some of my tips.

I’ve been doing the opposite, saving furiously with a target(stay with me here I’m not being a dick!). I have never been so aggressive with saving 😂 but I keep it simple

I run a spreadsheet every month, I know when I’m due each income payment and when each bill is. I have a regular bills account , and I leave enough in there for that.
I shovel the rest into Monzo (daily account) , budget for the months worth of shopping etc, and the rest gets thrown into my savings/pots. You could try this for a month but leave the money in the pot rather than putting it on the CC straight away, just for safety’s sake. Once the month is done throw that money on the CC

I used to use Chip and Plum, and they’re great if you want some easy going saving, but I’ve found I’ve saved much faster by going for a harsher approach. I’m also using Intellizoom and AttaPoll for surveys.

Sorry I don't have time to read everyone else's posts, but just in case nobody has said it already.... pay for everything you can in cash. If you start with an amount of cash, it's sad when you see it go down, so it makes you think more about what you are buying and if you really need it. I know there is a more technical way of putting it, like you see it as real money, where you don't on your cards. But I get disappointed when I see my cash going down so it really helped me. And as an added bonus if you are lucky you can get rare coins in your change that you can sell...