Debt mutual support thread number 6 ....... start the new year with a clear purpose and keep moving forwards even by tiny steps

[TalkinPeace]

This thread follows on from the last five threads in the series, the most recent of which is here.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2193736-Debt-mutual-support-thread-number-5-the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-is-NOT-an-oncoming-train?

We live in a society that makes it horribly easy to get into debt but makes it incredibly hard to admit you have a problem and even harder to get out of debt.
The posters on threads, new and experienced, are here to help people get to where they want to be.

I am not in debt, any more.
Here is a link to some spreadsheets that might help
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/1987219-SPREADSHEETS-for-Debt-Control-Budgeting-Mortgages-etc

and lots of people use this
YouNeedABudget

The important things to remember are

• yesterday is as past as the Crimean War

( we will not judge how you got into debt, but we will support you on the way out )

• this is an anonymous forum

( we will not tell your employer, family or friends of the reality of your numbers and we are here day and night )

• this thread is about supporting people through the huge mindset changes needed to come out of debt

( feel free to offload all of the feelings that drive you to want to spend, that make it hard to save and that generally make life crap at times, including getting those closest to you to recognise the changes needed )

Join in, bare your soul and come out the other end.
Its worth it.
You are worth it
The long term results for you, your partner, your children, and your friends and family are worth it.

I forget what January is like for most, both dp and I work in the construction industry and both get paid weekly. This is the only time of year when it's a godsend! Well this week spend no money on food and no need to for another 10 days or so looking in the fridge so the money which would have gone on that has instead gone towards a credit card. I do have one wonder though, the 3 credit cards we have are all on 0% and we overpay with fixed dor etc debit's so when we have spare cash should we really be throwing it at the 2 loans we have (both for cars, both cheaper than finance) one is 295 a month over 5 years and the other 128 a month over 4 years. Thinking as these are the only ones with interest other than the mortgage should we be trying to get these down?! Argh!!!

Morning all! I have a question.....my folks have kindly said they would be happier to keep helping us out by reducing their money cheque by £100 a month rather than just stopping (like I'd told them to before Xmas). So I will have some surplus money for a few months....what should I do with it? Overpay a cc? If so should it be the one with highest interest or the 0% one which ends in July? Should I squirrel some away to cover Xmas?

OVERPAY - every time - hit the one with the highest interest so that you reduce the amount of total interest as quickly as possible.

Saving at 0.05% when you are paying at 26% is not sensible.

I've seen on mumsnet that lots of people sing the praises of Aldi and Lidls. Do you find that it saves much money? I shop at Morrisons, as it's the most local store. They have just started a match and more card where they say the compare their prices against other supermarkets and you get vouchers for the price difference. Need to cut back on my outgoings!

We now do a basics shop at aldi sch week and then top up at asda for the things we can't get at aldi.
I buy uht milk, fruit, veg, cleaning products, toiletries, cheese, some frozen stuff.
The cleaning stuff is excellent.
I wouldn't buy meat there though so tend to get that from the local co op.
I tend to spend £40 ish at aldi which leaves £60 in the food Budget for the rest of the week.
It's got our food bill down to £400 per month (for 4), which is much better than it was.

Favourite
I do not like Aldi, but I love Lidl.
The choice is much more restricted, but the products are good.
If you are buying fruit, veg, dairy, meat, tins, dry goods, basic toiletries, you will save around 25% over any other shop.
And when it comes time to splurge, their booze is cheap, their luxury meats and canapes and pimentos are better than Waitrose

Thank you talkin-didn't know there were charities that can help.Will pm you.

Went to town yesterday and had great fun spending £40 of Boots vouchers that I had for christmas-all on myself!! The mascara I buy was buy one, get one half price, and my eyeliner (which is getting increasingly harder to find) was 2 for £10 instead of £6.79 each! It perked me up just buying stuff for myself!
As I said before, DD needed new uniform.Just out of interest, I went to the uniform shop while I was in town.The trousers were £16-and hideous! Thin,cheap feeling material that looked as though it would 'pull' easily. So today I went to Asda, and got 2 skirts for £5.50 each and then to Matalan (which,conveniently is next to Asda) and got 2 pairs of trousers for £6 each.Better quality and colour than the uniform shop! The skirts that DD has grown out of are now for sale on FB!

DH has been told that we could get benefit help to pay the interest on our mortgage.Does anyone know anything about this?
Thanks x

hooker when DH lost his job in Sept 13 we looked into this, however the cut off to qualify was something like a joint income of £110 a week. Given that DHs contributions based job seekers (or whatever it was called) was about £70 and I'd found a job by then we didn't qualify. There are other conditions too like the amount of interest rate they will pay out for and for how long. Do check it out though in case you do qualify.

Thanks JickJack. I had a feeling my income would be taken into consideration-it's more than £110

I'm another Lidl fan, the in-store bakery (if it has one) are fabulous, the dairy is much better than Aldi IME.

However, I tend to online shop for time and use the dreaded Tesco. (I'm hoping more supermarkets will get on board with this.) It is certainly worth considering that Tesco are in a tight spot re profits and are going to have to make themselves super-competitive quickly. Morrisons are also supposed to be trying to compete with the likes of Aldi/Lidl.

I'm certainly seeing some good price reductions in Tesco for veg, more is dropping to 49p. Quorn for me is now cheaper than Aldi. Gradually it is shifting down. I think Aldi/Lidl will stay cheaper for now, but I wouldn't be surprised if in 6 months the big shops are worth a look again. I'm not saying Tesco is as good on quality, but for those like me who are time-poor, prices coming down there is certainly a BIG help.

And I have it all worked out - when Tesco compete better with Lidl, Lidl will have to up their game and start delivering to my house for me! Huzzah for supermarket price wars!!

The 20p fuel reduction through Tesco is also a great help.

And I recently discovered Farm Foods, handily situated on my journey home from work. I regularly pop in for cheap cheese and massive bags of apples for £1.

In fairness, isn't Waitrose quite ethical and stocks a good savers line? I wouldn't feel too bad Coup.

I'm going to get myself down Lidls next Friday on my day off and give it a go!
kinkydorito there is a farm foods next door to where I park my car each day at work. Never gone in! I will now!

Market Harborough is the place to live. They've got a waitrose, a lidl and aldi right next door to each other.

I like Aldi but the lidl half price offers are not to be missed.

Hi all..I've got to try Aldi and Lidle - I do like meal planning my tescos shops as I go online.

Finally Scottish Power are refunding £285 within the next 7 days - phew as I am overdrawn. But will set us straight.

I've also requested a payment from topcashback for £70 - this will cover my food shop (£45) and petrol (£15) for the last week of the month.

I've just ordered my tesco shop for this comming week (one bag of chicken fillets left in freezer!) - £38 exactly as this is how much is left on my small credit card that I pay off every month.

BUT gotta say we've had a great weekend here, really good - So I can do two weeks of watching meals/petrol. You don't minds so much then. Think we'll be smuggling a lot of our own food into gym this week no naughty spends there!

DH is doing well with his pocket money and has got over half left at this stage of month. He is pleased with himself.

To Do:

Chase up account switch - M&S voucher £125 at stake
Get quotes for toilet
Price new laptops
DD's party

Kicking myself this morning. Mis-ordered the dog food and got large breed instead of the originally one. It arrived an I figured it was just bigger sized biscuits of the same stuff - wrong! Dog has thrown up two days in a row and is now on fresh chicken and rice to settle his tummy while I order another bag of dog food (at £45) and take the offending bag to the dogs trust. Poor dog and poor bank account....

Okay I'm here for a flaming. Spent £100 on house stuff yesterday. In my defence it was stuff we really needed. Our shower head was clogged with limescale (massive problem in our area and even the descaler stuff doesn't work), 4 towels that were 60% off in the sale as ours were literally threadbare and a massive huge doormat because being rural our house is permanently covered in mud despite everyone taking their boots off at the door and it was stressing me out hoovering every few minutes. So there we go.

On the justification side that 100 is 0% interest free and is the equivalent of the repayment we have made on the card this month. So its like this month never happened in terms of money - I've just cancelled out what we would have paid really.

So start again next month.

On the positive side... our toilet is being fixed today which I'm really pleased about and I actually sat down and meal planned and spent £60 in tesco covering all the weeks meals so I'm hoping I can stick to that.

.

I'm not going to flame you fairy :)
I have actually done a bit of the opposite today!
I had ordered 2 DVDs from amazon (box sets) a treat for myself. (Bit down ATM)
In total it would have been £80
But I cancelled them this morning.
Would have been nice, but I have Netflix so I will just watch the stuff on there instead :)
Will spend more on food this week as Dh forgot some of the things I put on the list (sigh) I also spent £8 on a free range chicken (!!) yesterday for dinner but that will do for a meal today too.
I am quite down ATM about our money situation.
We have paid £3k off the loan last year - which is great - but we are still trying to pay down our overdrafts and also pay off the next acc and cc.

Fairy I nearly laughed when I read your post, the way it's worded I thought you were going to say the toilet was fixed so you sat on it make your meal plan!!! Whatever floats your boat......

As far as the spends go, sometimes we do need to buy something and as you say, it makes last month 'spend neutral'.

! Maybe I should meal plan on the toilet. It's about the only place I get any peace to concentrate! !

Thanks both.

Well done for cancelling the order Baddz.

By the way meant to say Baddz to pay £3k off is fantastic. You should be really proud of yourselves. You're doing well, even if it sometimes feels like a struggle you're making progress.