Please help me.. I'm in a vicious circle!

[FeedMyFaceWithJaffaCakes]

Hello.
I seem to have got myself in a bit of a pickle with my money.
I work full time earning roughly £1500 a month. I put £700 in our joint account to cover my part of mortgage bills including food also budgeted in that is £40 a week for us to go out etc. With the rest I pay for my car £160 a month, phone bill about £60, petrol about £80, cat insurance £15 and anything else I want.
I can't remember the last time I saved anything because I just seem to be fire fighting with my debt... The worse thing is I'm not even sure where all my money goes!
This month I'm £600 in my overdraft and £300 in my credit card so I'll be back in the same situation where I've paid my £700, and I'll be in my overdraft to do my car and everything else! I just do not know what to do anymore!

Can you do anything about your crazy high phone bill. £60 is an insane amount - buy a cheapie handset ( you will survive ) and a pay as you go SIM card.

What else do you spend your money on?

Also £40 a week going out is unrealistic if you can't afford it. Iyswim

Have you tried logging every single thing that you spend over the course of a month - you might find other areas where you are wasting money - coffees out, sandwiches, magazines etc???

what does your dp pay?

You need to start logging everything you spend. Yes it's tedious. But it's the only way you will find out.

Blue he pays the same into joint and does the saving into the joint and bails me out when he can we're not here to talk about my lovely DP, this is about me

I just phoned o2. Because I'm on refresh I can't change unless I pay £510 to get out of contract

I think writing it all down might be a good idea, but I'll still be in the debt, even if I don't buy a single thing this month!

This month just pay £660 in joint account don't go out and then only pay phone, car, cat and petrol.
That will leave £525 to go towards credit card and overdraft. Do the same next month and you will have a bit left over to spend.
Then stop living beyond your means and write down everything. I recommend the app called " spending" the icon looks like a brown wallet , the app is free on Apple unsure if it's on Android.

Here is screen shots of the app.

It's set up automatically to go out for £700, but I can take some back if I need it I guess, I wanted to build up a little buffer in the joint too. All my bills are DD. I've just cancelled some old laptop insurance - so that's £12 saved. It's my birthday on Saturday, I'm hoping I get some money!

You need to write it all down, if you dont know what youre spending it on then you dont know where you can cut back or be more careful of.

Well if you don't buy a single thing this month hopefully you will be slightly less in debt.

You need to figure out what you spend day to day. Especially the little bits that add up quickly. Get a little notebook and write down every penny that you spend and see if anything jumps out at you.

There are lots of threads on here to help. Moneysavingexpert is good too.

So, after paying out £315 for your personal bills you should be left with £485 to spend on whatever you need (roughly £120 per week). Until you are out of your overdraft and credit card you could reduce your weekly spending to £50 and put the rest into paying off debt. Don't buy any new clothes unless absolutely necessary, take a packed lunch to work, buy a water bottle that can be refilled and stay away form coffee places as it all adds up without you realising. If you do that you should find that £50 a week is plenty just for "playing" money.

I really like the pie chart as it shows me at a glance I spend to much proportionately on " eating out" .

Do you have access to a PC at home?

I would keep a diary of spending for a month then put together a spreadsheet based on my actual outgoings rather than what I think I'm spending. Then you can see where the over spending is.

Have a look at this site, it has some great ideas and advice:

www.moneysavingexpert.com

Good news is you've identified a need to review things before its got worse. Your situation is very fixable.

I'm going to pay off credit card straight away i think? As it makes me feel a bit ill. Payday is Friday, I'm due to get some overtime money and back pay from my pay rise from April, so I'm hoping all this will help.

I'm writing all your advice down.
I have SEN (AS tendencies) so want to apologise if I'm coming across rude, I'm just feeling very anxious.

Kim I won't have anything left this month!
1500
-600 overdraft
-300 credit card
-700 joint account

That's -100 already without any extras like car, cat insurance or phone!

You could have a look on moneysavingexpert website - it has lots of good advice about cutting your expenditure. It's easy to get into the habit of spending too much on silly things.

The most important thing is to u sets tans what you are currently spending your money.

How much might you get for your birthday?

I think I do spend t on silly things. Costa and whatever mostly, or bits for the house. I think that if I want it I just buy it. And I'm dreadful with online stuff as well.

Maybe £200?
My sister has bought me a Fitbit and my mum did my garden for me so no money from them!

I cook all our meals from stratch and we have lots in the freezer. But we still have take out once a fortnight!

The good news is that it looks like you are going to be able to make changes to reduce your spending. It doesn't help for the immediate few weeks but long term it should.

Im sure tracking your spending w ok help you a lot.

Just a few Costa's a week and a takeaway every fortnight is still going to add up.

There are some amazing zero interest credit card deal about at the moment. Might that be something for you to look at

Was thinking about getting rid of it all together and chopping my overdraft... But then what happens when I run out of money?