Finally asking for advice on debt

[LuckyOliveDeer]

I’m hoping this post will be relatable.
I have gone through my statement and the majority of my spending is lots of on average around £15 purchases. Various Self help books have gotten me before. Hobby stuff I don’t have the time for.
Other more expensive items have been shoes that have fallen apart, or home decor - most recently was a £20 tin of paint, non refundable as used and it dried a horrible shade of yellow on the wall. A £40 wallpaper remover that just squirts hot water onto the wall! Yes I might as well have flushed it all down the toilet. Much of that spending is down to poor quality products, or marketing. I am not sure whether my expensive skin care set is actually doing anything, and I’m not sure that buying eco friendly versions are going to make much of a difference it all gets recycled anyway.
Some of my spending is my own fault, like poor planning during a stressful week, but not most.
I have tried waiting a week before buying, and on the advice of a short web chat with a debt advisory service I am setting up a new bank account to pay myself weekly from. I am hoping it will be easier to manage my money that way.
Does anyone have any further advice particularly if you have managed to pay off debt, I don’t know as I think a lot of people are in this situation.

Watching with interest…..

Im currently paying off around £4k of debt which is 0% for another 18 months. I have a comprehensive budget now to ensure the debt goes down and on payday I move everything into various pots and leave only my fun money in my current account. For me it's much easier to work out what I can afford that way. Anything left over by next payday gets thrown at the debt

Is the weekly bank account so you have a budgeted amount of money to spend on a 'when it's gone, it's gone' basis? That sounds like a good idea.

Other people talk about 'no spend days' when they aim to have X days when they don't spend any money (except the essential bills that come out of their current account).

If you haven't already seen it, Moneysavingexpert.com is an excellent resource and they have a 'how to stop spending' page with lots of tips.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/stop-spending-budgeting-tool/

Do you have things you've bought you can sell? As well as bringing money in instead of spending it, clearing out 'stuff' is often motivational as you see another downside to spending, it fills your house with crap.

I'm not in debt, but how I've saved when previously on a low budget is to transfer money into savings on the day I get paid, then consider it gone. It's untouchable from that point.
I've also drawn out cash to last me the week.
I've just left my highly paid job due to burnout, so am spending as little as possible. Apart from essential bills, I'm allowing myself £25 a week to spend on makeup that has run out, exercise classes or lunch out with a friend, or I can save it for a few weeks and buy an item of clothing. It's amazing how much you can do without when you need to. Yesterday my treat was walking into town and buying a new novel from the charity shop for £1.

How much debt do you have OP?

it’s good that you’ve identified that you seem to spend £15 or so on lots of different things - it sounds like you need a mindset change. Could you maybe equate amounts like this into
how long you’d need to work to pay for them before you decide to buy them?

I quite enjoy knowing about money and saving etc. - might you be able to become interested in it so it feels less like a restriction?

I just stopped buying anything and whacked half my earthly goods on Vinted!

I’m too poor to buy cheap. Can’t afford multiple £15 to patch holes all the time. So I decided to stare at the hole for a while until I could afford £150, do it once, it’ll last 10 years.

It sounds like you’re drowning and fighting lots of fires. Take a step back. Make a battle plan.

I do this every months: on a piece of paper I put:
Home
work
personal development
friends and family
health

Under each one, put 3 things you’re not happy with. And then give yourself 6 months to work through them. Not get them done and dusted with, but this is what you’re working on.
After 6 months, do it again. See how you’ve done. See what prevented you from sorting it out. See what you’ve learnt and how you can try and go forward. See if it’s still that important.

I started doing this 10 years ago. A lot of the stuff it’s only now I’m getting around to. Like replacing the terrible rickety dining table. I had to play the long game because the alternative would have been to keep throwing money down the drain.

My main problem was the (lack of) money. I needed counselling /therapy. I needed to get fit and it would have been the gym membership OR eating. I needed to pay the mortgage. I was a single mum, so any of the above took a back seat because I needed to pay for DD’s bus pass, iPad, uniform, meals, I had a million other stuff to pay for before I could think about paying £40 for a counselling session. That was a luxury I simply couldn’t afford.

So I took on extra shifts. Built an emergency fund. A health fund. Overpaid the mortgage so I can take a mortgage holiday if things got really bad. Chased promotion. Took me 10 years. It wasn’t fun. But what kept me going is having a clear plan.

I am generally good with money however I’ve recognised that I am an impulse spender. I also find it hard to visualise the monthly outgoings so if I look in the account on the 13th and there’s 2.5k in there I can justify lots of spending, but actually theres still the mortgage, food shopping, council tax etc to come out, so the available money for unnecessary shite could be £60 a weeks

I find the best thing to do is take money out if your main account for general spending, so any purchases that isn’t the food shop or bills and put it in another account. Then got can check the balance regularly on it, can visualise how much is left and you can’t go over or take from bill money and end up in debt.

I used to buy so much shite I didn't really need, it just changed naturally really. What I do now is I think to myself do I need it or do I want it. If I just want it, I don't get it. If I feel I need it I make myself wait a week or two and see if I still feel the same.

You need to do more research into items before you purchase. I never buy anything unless I have looked at reviews, asked around etc

I’m guessing that you could sell a lot of the shite you have bought? Get Vinting to clawback some money on the mistakes you have made.

Unsubscribe to all the marketing emails you get and come off social media.

Do you have trigger points when you are most likely to spend? Evenings? Take up a hobby that doesn’t allow for that. Knitting is a good one. Even reading a good book will distract you enough.

Good luck.

It might be that you need a lifestyle change in order to help your spending habits. Impulse buying is often caused by a need to improve things - ‘this yellow paint will cheer me up’ or ‘this gadget will solve my problem’.
I often get the impulse to buying things for a little pick-me-up but I will make myself stop and consider if I can get it cheaper, or if I need it at all.
The latest Roka lucky dip sale was really hard for me to resist.

I do this too. I have just under £5k of debt to clear.

The separate in my bank really do help