Returning to normal

Today in an effort to get back to my normal organisation, I've emptied my purse of receipts, updated all my excel sheets and worked out the balance of my checking account. I have £1,250.47 in there and £103.80 in cash.

-£700 Bills
-£500 Loans
-£17.50 Driving Licence (Cost to update photo after 10 years)
-£83.80 Cash (Grocery for rest of July)
-£20.00 Cash (Haircut and colour)

My debt balance is now £18,089 and will remain at that until August payday unless I find some snowflakes.

Free falling

First of all apologies for no posts last week, work kind of got the better of me. Working twelve hour days combined with the end of school term doesn't make blogging easy.
I've had to spend money this week too, which has made me unhappy. I ripped my suit trousers on Tuesday at work, my fault, and I had a big meeting on Thursday so needed to get a new one. The suit I count as essential spending, as I have to have one for work, however the 2 tops and shoes I bought with it are not. This led to a trip to the magazine shop and to the coffee shop. So I failed my challenge after 39 days!

I've still not done a budget for June and its already the 13th, my grocery spending is in free fall, as is my spending diary. No updates all month. I've also spent money on my daughters new school uniform, including shoes, which is loads more expensive than her old school.

I need to work out my budget for the rest of the month, however I think I've spent all my snowball money.
This is the most out of control I've felt in a long time and it's just in my personal finances, the joint account is running along as normal. I'm trying to really simplify my life, however it seems to be more complicated than ever on the way to doing this.

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Carnivals and a new blog

Kimberly at My Good Cents hosted the Carnival of Money Stories this week and included my post, The Possession Crossover Point, thanks Kimberly.

J at Budgets Are Sexy, yes they are, hosted the Festival of Frugality #132

The Money Hacks Carnival #19 was hosted at Sound Money Matters

The Carnival of Personal Finance #159 was held over at Greener Pastures

In other news Kelly from My Small Cents recently became Almost Frugal, go and check her new site. Kelly is an American living in France and to quote her blog '‘Almost Frugal’ is how we live our life. We watch our pennies and centimes but like to live well too''

Make do and mend

My pc has been fixed for a cost of £60, lots cheaper than a new one. I've had it for over 4 years and it needs to last another 4 years as buying a new one is not an option. If it goes again I will just have to share my daughters laptop. I'm making do and mending. I'm not spending money on new things.

A new budget for July?

I'm trying my hardest not to get too down about the cost of everything at the moment, especially fuel and grocery.
In June my petrol expenses increased to £105.00, I'd budgeted £60, and my grocery spending hit £275.14 , against a budget of £200. I don't feel I can reduce the grocery costs that much as I'm not sacrificing the quality of our food anymore and I'm already only using the car when needed and planning my journeys really carefully.
Dh and I are having a budget meeting at the weekend as we feel the January figures for our household expenses are now out of touch in the current climate and we need to make adjustments.

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June 2008 -Net Worth +£1,199

Our Net Worth went up to £39,789 in June, an increase of £1,199 and 3.11% on May's figure.

-Mortgage overpayments bought back in line after re-mortgage 3rd June
-£566 paid off my debts
-9.95% towards our target Net Worth for 2012

Broken computer!

This afternoon my pc stopped working. I'm using my daughters laptop at the moment, which I can have access to most days, however this is not ideal.
I'm hoping it's fixable as I don't have the money to buy a new one at the moment and I won't be buying one on credit.

My emergency fund

If you look at my sidebar regularly you will have noticed that my Emergency Fund total of £100 has not changed for weeks, even though I have a goal amount of £1,000 for 2008.

I change my mind about the amount I need in an emergency fund every day for the following reasons;

1. I feel the need to throw every spare penny I have at my debt. This is understandable as I pay 7.7% interest on my loan and get a lot less than that for my savings.
2. I have a joint savings account, linked to my checking account with dh that currently has a balance of £1,500
3. I can always stop any mortgage over payments I'm making with dh if I need to. Currently £600 a month.

Am I looking at this in the right way, do you just have a joint emergency fund to cover 3-6 months of living expenses if disaster strikes?, which would be both partners out of work, or do you have individual funds to cover your own monthly expenses plus joint saving if the roof caves in on you house?

I know different people do different things, please let me know what you think.

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The possession cross over point

I think its finally happened, I've finally reached the point where I have nothing left to sell from my previous spending habits. I've reached a possession cross over point.
Every item in my home now either serves a purpose, in which case it will be used and repaired until it no longer serves that purpose, or is an item that will be with me forever. I have no clutter left. I have no eBay sales to do. I have no urge to buy more stuff. I can no longer sells items for a fraction of the original buying price and feel like I've made money. In truth some of the items I've sold on eBay since 2005, I'm still paying for, however not for much longer.

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It's not all good, it's not all bad and it's not all ugly..

If truth be told I've had better months, however June is not too bad.

Debt: I've cleared £566 in June.
This amount should be nearer to £800, however the snowflakes have not been coming. I need to work on this.

Make £200 a month extra challenge: In June I've made £47.31
In May it was only £119.90. On the positive side I have made £1,067.11 in extra money so far this year, which is much better than nothing.

Spending: I've not spent anything that hasn't got a budget.
This means that every time I walk past Starbucks ,I want a coffee, and every time I go past Waterstones, I want to buy a book. The ban on spending has opened up a need to spend but I'm sure this will pass, its like the first few weeks of dieting, its hard at first, but gets a little easier the longer you do it.

2008 Goal: My goal this year was to clear £15,000 of debt from my loans.
This means that by the end of June I should have paid off £7.5k. I've paid off £3,910. Extremely behind! The debt clearance was always weighted more towards the second half of the year, however I'm much further behind than I thought I would be.

I've got another 4 weeks of intense workload and then for the rest of the year I'm throwing all my spare energy at my snow flaking business. I need to increase my income and I have nothing left to sell!

Update to come

I'm still having blog problems, I can only load my blog page when signed in..I've emailed blogger again as I know that some other people have had problems too :(

I'm so overdue an update on my finances, my money making or lack of it and my no spending, which is continuing with success. I've been working very hard at the day job, this is make or break time for my bonuses, which are much more lucrative than eBay selling, so I've given it my all. Time will tell if I achieve them.

Still not spending

I'm having a bit of a lull at the moment, I'm working long hours and there seems no time to do anything, however I've still not spent a penny of non budgeted money in June.

I've snowballed £205.64 to my loan account today which leaves a balance of £7,500 outstanding. This is amazing so I'm hoping this will lift me from the doldrums.

My total debt now stands at £18,875. The original balance was £45,023 so I've paid off 58% so far. When you are on the long haul of debt payment I know its normal to get a little down occasionally, so I'm going to ride it out and hope to be back to normal by the weekend.

Help

For some reason I am unable to load my blog home page. I think one of the adverts is stopping the page loading, does this happen? Is anyone else having trouble viewing this?

I can post and that all!

I've only spent budgeted money this week on groceries and petrol. I nearly got tempted by a magazine in the grocery store but I walked away. Fathers Day next week could of been a problem but my Dad says he doesn't want a present, spending the day with us and seeing the children is all he wants, so that's good.

June's simple budget

Incoming:
£1868

Outgoing:
£1880

Bills £800 includes contribution to mortgage overpayments
Loans £490
Grocery £200
Petrol £60 Increased by £10 due to rising cost
Loan Overpayments £200
Child Costs £130 includes some summer activities

Hopefully I should be able to make some extra money this month from eBay, Amazon and my new business.

Off and running! (well walking)

I'm off and running on my no miscellaneous spending challenge, three days down and not one penny spent. So far its been easy, however I know its going to get tough on occasions.


I've also started to go for a daily walk, 30 minutes a day with my own personal trainer. No I'm not paying for a trainer, my fourteen year old daughter, who has high hopes of working in sports/training when she's older is using me as a test case!

I'll post my June budget tomorrow.

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May 2008 - Net Worth + £1,234

Our Net Worth went up to £38,590 in May, an increase of £1,234 and 3.3% on April's figure.

- No mortgage overpayment made yet this month due to re mortgage currently going through.
- £600 placed in e-saver until able to make overpayment
- £771 cleared from my debts
- 9.647% towards our target Net Worth for 2012

I want it gone!

My No 1 personal loan that is. The balance outstanding is £7950, and the minimum monthly payment is £295.25. I work nearly a whole day every week after taxes etc, at a job I don't like, to pay this minimum payment and I want it gone. This is the reason I'm doing the challenge, to eliminate this loan.

Eliminating a little bit more spending

As part of my preparation for the 6 month challenge today I have:

-Cancelled all my magazine subscriptions. This will save me at least £17.90 a month.
I have so many magazines stored, most of which I've hardly read, so what I'll do is choose a few every month and read them from cover to cover.

-Switched my hair cut and blow to a wet cut. This will save me £5.40 every six weeks. I've decided that haircuts, with my job, are a necessity however getting it washed at the salon is not.

-Swapped my daughters mobile contract. This will save me £15 a month. She has swapped services with her older sister so now her bill is £20 a month instead of £35.

Only one day left now, I'm tempted to go to Starbucks!

The six month challenge

Ever since I've been on this debt journey I've done two things, reduce my outgoings and increase my income. I totally agree with this post by Brip Blap that spending less than you earn is the wrong way to think and this post at The Digerati Life on becoming a 'frugal capitalist'. To increase your wealth (or reduce your debt) you have to spend less and make more.

For the next six months, from June 1st to November 30th I will continue to try and increase my income every month at the same time as not spending any money on non essential items.

Over the next few days I will establish some guidelines for myself, as well as determine what items are essential and what items are non essential. There will obviously be things that crop up along the way and I will deal with them as and when.

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Non Essentials

This could be a long list, so far I have

-Make Up
-Magazines, I'm cancelling all my subscriptions
-Paid for meals out, I have some free vouchers
-Books
-Stationery, including birthdays cards and wrapping paper
-Clothes, non work
-Starbucks or any other coffee house
-Flowers
-Household items
-Alcohol
-Cd's, although I don't buy these anyway

I'm going to add to this list as I go along. Any other items you can think of?

A six month challenge?

I'm mad at myself, really mad and I'm considering drastic action. I've been thinking of challenging myself to no spending, except on essentials, for the next six months. I know this has been done before by other bloggers/writers for longer, but it might be what I need to get me back on the straight and narrow and nearer to my goal. I'm getting so close to the end of this debt free journey, 19 months to go, and the key to my success so far has been constantly challenging myself along the way. I have to stop myself from becoming jet lagged.

If I do this, the problem I will have is deciding whats essential and whats not.

Stop blogging = Start spending

Confession time. I've not been blogging much lately due to work commitments and launching my new business. When I stop blogging I start spending. This is fact.

I've spent too much money this week and here are the details.

Birthdays x 3 : £126.31
Flowers: £5.49
Real Simple Magazine: £3.75
Planner: £8.00
Handbag: £40 !!!

There is a lesson to be learnt, don't go to Borders/Paperchase/Monsoon when you are feeling a bit tired and low.

Reduced mail

I've realised today just how much my postal mail has reduced in the last few months. Some of the reasons:

• No more credit card bills
• All household bills on Direct Debit/Paperless billing
• All checking accounts paperless
• Reduced magazine subscriptions
• No more miscellaneous Internet purchases

Good for the environment and my wallet.

Mid May update

-Planning to spend money and actually spending it are two different things, the suit I had my eye on is out of stock and now I've lost all motivation to look for another. I did buy four t-shirts though.

-£350 is set to be snowballed to my loan account from my wages tomorrow, this will take the debt down to £19,442

-I have 7 items listed on eBay, three with bids and the others all with watchers

-I've sold some more books/cd's on Amazon and have made £55.79 in extra income so far in May

-The long awaited car boot sale takes place this weekend. The house is de cluttered to the max and my youngest daughter is booked to be my sales assistant, lets hope the sun is still shining and I make some money.

Debt repayment sure keeps you busy!

I'm going to spend some money

My wardrobe clear out and the good weather here at the moment in England has resulted in my realising that I need some new clothing items. In the winter I could wear my very smart coat all day and this would hide a multitude of sins on the clothing front, now this is no longer the case and I do need to look professional at work.

I'm going to give myself a budget of £160 this month for new clothes. Out of this I will get the following items, which all fit into my current wardrobe.

• A suit
• 4 t's
• A summer mac

The suit at £105 is not the cheapest out there, however it's good quality and will last me for at least a year. I've tried to buy cheaper suits before and they don't last, I'm in and out of my car all day so I need something that can withstand this. The t-shirts jazzed up with a necklace are great for work and the mac is for those days when I just wear trousers or its raining.

What I love about all this is the fact that this is planned spending for a reason, not 'lets go to the shops and buy as much as I can on the credit card as I need some new work clothes'. There's such a big difference in my mindset. I still dislike spending the money at all, however dh thinks I might have gone too far the other way now and occasionally he tells me its ok to buy something.