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Original poster

Debt Free 2007?

551 replies

Flamesparrow · 28/11/2006 17:42

Keep thinking about this since yesterday...

Am thinking that my aim for 2007 is to be in a decent(ish) money situation next Christmas BUT I don't wanna take the swing out of the budgie's cage completely...

I need to work out how to save money, pay all the bills, but still be able to have the odd treat here and there.

I thinking:

  • Decent food budgetting/planning
  • uswitch (I think I am on the cheapest anyway)
  • s/o for savings AND a s/o for treats
  • Work out the birthdays that will be coming across the year and make sure I put aside enough each month to cover the hell months.

What else should I be doing?

OP posts:
AlwaysTheMummy · 01/02/2007 15:51

Flamesparrow, I got round to doing my budget with the spreadsheet you gave me, looks good so far approx £200 a month left over and thats just during the winter months, dh has seasonal job, busy in summer, not so busy in winter so to have £200 a month during winter is great.

nikkie · 01/02/2007 19:30

Thinking this month should be fairly goo money wise-have loads of ebay money coming, some o/t at the end of the month and no council tax/water to pay (10 month payments!)

Original poster
Flamesparrow · 02/02/2007 08:18

Its quite frightening when you realise how much you should have left over each month and therefore how much you must be frittering isn't it?!

We're putting our council tax savings for the next 2 months into an account to help pay for tax and mot.

OP posts:
FatFikAndFugly · 02/02/2007 10:24

Hi guys, i am £400 worse of this month than at the same time last month

the good news is I have a bonus coming through, I need to decide the best way to use it to get the most from it.

nikkie · 02/02/2007 13:35

Got Electricity Bill today and it was estimated over 100 units out! Phoned up and am now over £40 in credit
BUT also got Gas bill and again estimated over 100 units out but I still owe a lot from a previous mess by Powergen (didn't bill/read meter for 2 years!and let someone poach me!) which I am paying off slowly because it was their mistake so the £40 credit has gone to the gas account and I now owe £100 to pay off.

FatFikAndFugly · 02/02/2007 14:34

I got my bills through today, I don't know how I could use so much - are gas and electric just really chuffing expensive?

Original poster
Flamesparrow · 02/02/2007 16:07

Gas n electric suck

OP posts:
charliecat · 02/02/2007 16:53

FatandFik, I am on prepayment, and sitting freezing my nuts off when the kids are at school. The heatings on from 4pm to 10pm, schooldays and all weekend(not thru night). Its costing £75 a month.
2 bed semi.

Jelley · 02/02/2007 17:43

FFF - I think they really went up alot. We've been in the same place for 10 years and our combined g&e was around 200-250 for the winter quarter. I've just had a bill for £330, and it isn't an estimate

nikkie · 02/02/2007 18:23

They are evry expensive atm but check their estimations are right as I said mine were out by quite a lot (£10 for elec and £60 for gas)

GreedyGecko · 02/02/2007 20:08

@ gas & leccy bills that you're all paying. I just got my gas bill for the last 1/4. It was £140, give or take a few units it was right. I pay £25 a month & although that's a bit low for winter, it evens itself out over the year.

I saw on BBC news tonight that household debt has gone from 100% of income in 1997 to 160% of income in 2006. Feel a bit better now, knowing that ours is about 1/2 the national average.

ska · 02/02/2007 21:10

always themummy:
I put in carton of juice (if we have one else it's her school water bottle), geobar, box raisins (sometimes a little fudge or similar from party bags), foodbag of crayons/felt tips, little notebook for drawing in, pack of playing cards, little plastic things from party bags, story book. For longer trips add more snacks ie cheese sandwich/crisps. I got into the habit of having this ready by the front door to pop in a back pack when she was younger as we often ended up rushing off to the hospital or GP at a moment's notice (she has a chronic health condition) and I got caught out once too often with a very bored/hungry child! It saves a fortune and I negotiate with her around what to add if she's been very good/it's half term etc.
if we go to the cinema we take the food/drink with us and rarely buy the expensive stuff there.

for log trip seg going away, i used to save up all her party bags from the last few months and put them into abg as a kind of lucky dip during really awful bits of the journey. A chalk board an some plastacine got us to the US once!!

ska · 02/02/2007 21:13

we got the bank charges refunded today! Oh i am so happy!the bank balance looks sohealthy and i am depertimned to keep it that way. half term is coming up though - anybody got any good cash saving ideas to do with 3 kids?

charliecat · 02/02/2007 21:15

Picnics Ska, days out with scooters, bikes etc. Any local historic/free places of interest. Fishing at local pond?
Library.
£1 each trip to pound shop for treat.
Long walk to shop with 50p to spend.

nikkie · 02/02/2007 21:37

My Gas-£35 amonth (including paying off debt)
My electric- £23 a month

Cheap things for half term-park, feed ducks, we will make a start on the allotment, we will also be clearing out toys

Jelley · 03/02/2007 13:26

I've made a decision to try and do something about our mortgage. We are paying interest only and have an endowment which will probably only pay off half

I am going to cash in a savings account I'd forgotten about, some shares, and a saving plan which is going to give rubbish returns, and pay a (still quite small) lump off the mortgage, then I will try and get it changed to part repayment, with the money I am going to save by not paying into the rubbish saving account.

I am also looking for free 1/2 term activities. My big entertainment is a trip on the London Eye, plus a possible extra day to go the the Natural History Museum (free), and I have promised to take the girls to see Charlottes web...
In between I am hoping for nice weather, so they can play outside with the neighbours children, and I can sit on the wall and drink tea.

ska · 03/02/2007 17:48

half term:
we will go to the seaside with picnic/ (cheap)
go to in laws(free apart from take home made cake)
go to £1 cinema (on saturday morning)
visit local NT place (petrol/picnic)
make salt dough things
empty loft/to cupboard and maybe do a boot sale (kids trying to raise money for their own laptop!)

FatFikAndFugly · 05/02/2007 11:52

I spent money at the weekend on gifts and on myself. bit disappointed. I can never control my spending.. I'm good for a couple of weeks and then blam - worse than ever. Shopping for week was only £45 though (good). Aim now is to be only £1k overdrawn when I next get paid. Have to really tighten belt over next 2.5 weeks and get more stuff listed on eBay.

charliecat · 05/02/2007 12:00

FFandU, if putting the breaks completely on your spending doesnt work, could you set aside an amount to go out once a fornight to spend on yourself that you can look forward to. And anything you spend before that date gets taken out of the amount?
I know what you mean though. My car stereo broke about a month ago.
And ive been browsing on ebay and looking and drooling and last night I bod on one up to about £40.
Have I got £40? have I feck.
But im going to get ebaying rapidly to pay for it...hopefully. And I might be outbid...but still, money that i shouldnt be spending.

clumsymum · 05/02/2007 13:09

Oh I had soooo promised to reduce our debts this year, but not had a good start.

Just after Christmas our gas cooker stopped working, and we had to buy a new one for £400. So that's put the credit card bill up, not down.

But I do have a couple of plans. Egg credit card have offered me a 5.9% for life of balance deal. So I'm going to transfer it all onto there, cut up my card so I can't spend on it, and chuck money at it every month for the next 1000 years until it's all gone. Previously I've been a 'tart' but as it costs 2.5 or 3% every time you shift it keeps costing, and it's such an effort to keep track of when the low/zero interest period ends. Anyway, I'm running out of cards to transfer to.

I do have some savings in premium bonds, our 'safety net'. I've decided to halve it, to pay off our Christmas overspends.

I'm saving money too, because I haven't been into our city centre since Christmas. Last year I seemed to be in town every week, getting stuff for DS, seeing little 'bargains' that dh or I couldn't live without.

I also buy washing detergent in bulk at Makro (whichever brand is on offer when I'm running low) and only ever buy toiletries such as shampoo, soap or shower gel when they're bogof at the supermarket.

charliecat · 05/02/2007 13:11

I am avoiding the shops too. And buying 21p bubble bath.

mooshy · 05/02/2007 15:18

Anyone know a good online bugeting programe.
Couldn`t get the moneysavingexpert one to download ?

nikkie · 05/02/2007 20:22

I was ill last week and saved £6 through being off work and £8 by not going to my exercise classes (not including petrol)

I have a voucher for a month free at Cannons so when I am well properly i will use that and save my class money for the month too!

Original poster
Flamesparrow · 06/02/2007 11:11

for your cooker CM. I did similar with the credit cards... I looked at all the various 0% things, and I decided in the end that I was better off with a fixed low rate loan to pay off the lot, than fiddling with changing, forgetting and everything else! We ended up with a cahoot loan that we can pay off extra as and when we want.

for your illness Nikkie but for savings. We were the same - all of us ill in spurts over the last few weeks, so our 2 week shopping lasted over 3

Shopping order came in budget with a nice bottle of wine Having it Friday night as my going away romantic night with DH. Going to stay with CantSleepWontSleep... never been away from DH for even 48 hours before and i'm starting to get twitchy!! thing is - I have been away from DD for longer than I have DH!!

Had to buy jeans yesterday - I have lost so much weight they were all falling down, even with belts. I went to my friend's to order some from Next, and she produced a pair she had bought in the sales, didn't fit her, and she had been planning to give me for my birthday - so I got the jeans I was wanting, for more than 50% off

OP posts:
winnie · 06/02/2007 13:16

I am not doing well with this so will print this off (whilst boss isn't in ) and take it home and read.

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