Sensible budgeting allows for preventative measures (310-55)

Sensible budgeting – and sticking to that budget! - makes such a difference to your life. I realise this is probably completely obvious to most people, and indeed it was to me; but in previous years I just couldn’t seem to manage it, no matter how I tried.

Now that we’re back on the road to financial improvement, it’s allowed us to take preventative measures when they’re a good idea - as opposed to always playing at crisis management when we could only afford critical extras. Our improved financial situation allowed us, during a recent visit to our dog’s vet, to take the best health step for our dog and agree to some dentistry for him, even though it was a preventative for the future, rather than extremely essential in the present.

Unfortunately, you can’t make your dog sit sweetly while a noisy, smelly metal device is shoved in his mouth to scour his plaque, so dentistry for animals includes a general anaesthetic - so no easy, or cheap, matter. Our dog’s breath was noticeably bad, and the plaque visible, but it wasn’t at a crucial state yet – it was just much better for him to have them cleaned now, rather than waiting for a crisis and much more work on worse-off teeth in a year or two’s time. It was a fantastic feeling to be able to say ‘yes’, we want the best for our pet, and we can afford it. This is one important aspect of what financial freedom means to me.

I’m not sure our poor dog would have agreed with my sentiments, however, when we picked him up after his surgery; he looked more like a basset hound around the eyes, than a labrador, and was clearly feeling very sorry for himself. Although I think the whimpering the next day was perhaps putting it on a bit for our benefit!! We’re £142.36 lighter (and, as non-essential, it’s not covered by our insurance), but our dog is much mintier of breath and has healthy teeth to carry him through to his older years – which is what is important.

Unsolicited credit cards (308-57)

I get really irritated by unsolicited credit card ‘approvals’ that drop through our door. They don’t come too often, thankfully, but one came through recently – essentially saying ‘apply now and we can offer you a mere 18.9% APR’. NO THANKS.

I’m of the opinion that this kind of unsolicited approach to people going about their normal lives should be completely banned. For one it’s thoroughly irritating, and secondly it’s just hooking people into yet more debt – usually at a ridiculous APR if you read the small print (our record is 50% APR; how would you ever pay that off??). Finally, it also wrecks your credit record because half the time (in my experience) if you do try to apply you get refused anyway, and this gets marked on your credit record. Grrr.

In fact, I got so irate by this unsolicited letter, which even included a mocked-up credit card in an attempt to catch my eye that merely contributes to the UK’s landfill problem, that I added my thoughts to the UK government’s credit and store card consultation (http://www.bis.gov.uk/creditconsultation) - immediately I felt my rant ease my wrath, and I’ve done my bit for democracy!

We’re not alone (306-59)

In sorting through my email inbox, I came across an article I meant to mention on here when I first read it back in September: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/6121759/Consumers-pay-off-600m-of-debts-as-they-batten-down-hatches.html

It would seem we’re not alone in trying to become financially responsible and pay off our debts. Despite the recession, lots of Brits are at it!

November 1st round-up (304-61)

The observant among you may have noticed it’s not actually November 1st, but I couldn’t wait to find out how well we’ve done this month – and our achievement is massive!!!

As of November 1st 2009, our debt is:

Lloyds a/c 1: £ -1,983.70
Lloyds a/c 2: £ -571.69
Halifax a/c: £ 496.18
Capital 1 c/c: £ -4,819.52
Tesco c/c: £ 0
Barclaycard: £ -1,355.55
Mum’s c/c: £ -4,380
Egg loan: £0  
Student loan: £ -7,372.57 (despite repayments this will stay here till April 2010’s yearly update)
Parent loan: £ -8,850

Total debt at 1 October 2009: £ -28,836.85

Total debt paid off since January 2009: £7,525.79

% of debt paid off since January 2009:
20.70% of our total debt
40.80% of our ‘bad’ debt (debt excl student and parent loan)

I can’t believe how well we’re doing! We’re under £30,000 debt for the first time since I started keeping records (June 2006), and I just can’t get over the fact that we’ve paid off 40% of our bad debt in under one year; it’s just incredible, and so motivating – we’re both now addicted to watching these debt figures fall!

October – an overview (303-62)

I have been very slack this month with writing my blog, and can only apologise for this – but we have certainly not been slack with our finances during October. Au contraire, we’ve been positively on fire this month…

Key point number one this month has been that we have stuck to our budget, and even underspent at times. For the first time in a long time, therefore, we had spare money in our accounts in the week leading up to payday – what a less-stressful way to be!! No scrabbling around trying to cover expenses we didn’t have money for, and we could even afford unexpected extras, such as a wedding present for some friends who returned from abroad unexpectedly. It’s great!

CJ also did some DIY work for one of my colleagues this month, and the extra earnings went straight off our Tesco credit card

This month we also tackled a few big money issues. CJ finally lost patience with his work claiming to be sorting out his incorrect tax code and rang Inland Revenue direct – to find that he could have just made one simple phone call to them all along; it would have been nice if his payroll department could just have said that. IR sorted it out within 10 days, and so he should be earning about £80 more each month, which is great. Even better, they repaid his overpayments since April, so his pay-packet yesterday included an extra £670!! We had already decided that this money is going to go towards our holiday to Paris, so that we can start to pre-book our flights and accommodation  so I’ve duly shifted it to our savings account so that we can’t spend it by mistake on day-to-day stuff. It’s a relief to finally have CJ’s tax code sorted after a mere 7 months of it hanging over us!

We also submitted CJ’s online tax return from 08/09 when he was self-employed for part of the year – something else that’s been sat on our to-do list for a while. It always feels like it’s going to be a monstrous mountain of a task to perform, hence the procrastination (I suspect, along with many people with online tax returns!), so it was fantastic to tackle and overcome the beast this month – and well worth it as CJ got £1200 tax back!! We could have gone on a crazy spending spree, and probably would have done in the past (or gone on the volleyball club ski trip), but, amazingly, both of us 100% wanted to use all the money to pay off debt! What a turnaround from our attitudes in previous years – how far we have come! So we completely paid off our Tesco credit card, and paid off almost half of our Barclaycard – what an incredible feeling!

Budgeting properly also enabled me to finally register with and visit the dentist, and in the end it turned out I was all fine so only cost £16.50 – far less than the £50 I’d budgeted in case I needed a filling And CJ is in the process of quitting smoking, something that’s bugged me for years – and he’s chosen to do it all by himself, which is superb (and much more likely to succeed).

All in all, October’s been a really great month and I can’t wait to count up how much we’ve paid off through all our efforts.

Paying things on time is soooo much less stressful! (281-84)

CJ and I have both now paid our volleyball club fees for the 09/10 season, and I can’t tell you just how fantastic it feels to be paying things on time nowadays. In previous years we’ve had to skulk around trying to avoid the eyes of anyone who mentions money, and it just felt so terrible owing people money and not being able to afford it till next payday… or the one after that. Although we’re not perfect just yet, we are so much improved in this area it’s amazing – and being able to pay bills and people on time is sooo much less stressful!

One account down… (280-85)

My cheque from closing my Alliance & Leicester savings account down arrived today. Although it’s for a mere £1.07, it still feels really good to cross another account off our list. We’re now down to just 8 on our Egg Money Manager, of which we actually ideally would have 3, and it’s a vast improvement from when the whole screen used to be filled with about 15 different bank accounts, loans and credit cards. Good stuff – it really feels like we’re finally getting somewhere with our finances.

Lovefilm – 3 more free months found (278-87)

My 3-month free trial with Lovefilm finally ran out this week. I have to say it’s been absolutely fantastic; we’ve been watching 4 movies almost every week over the three months so this is a substantial saving and has been a superb treat as we love watching movies. The only downside to it is that you can’t pick a movie to match your mood, as you have a long list online and Lovefilm send any two from this according to their availability, but apart from that it’s an awesome service. I am really happy, therefore, that I managed to find another 3-months free trial code (EPAL3M4) and have signed up CJ! So we have another three months to enjoy movies absolutely for free. Brilliant.

Quidco and shopping around save big bucks (277-88)

I am extremely over-excited right now, as I have just managed to save big bucks on our dog insurance by shopping around online. Our renewal with MoreThan would have been £300 for the year, which is a big jump on last year’s premium, but after searching various sites including moneysupermarket, confused and other well known insurance companies direct, I’ve found better cover for just £141 with Sainsbury’s A major saving of £159 over the year (and cheaper than last year’s premium too!); well worth the time taken re-entering my data on different websites.

I’ve also become a huge Quidco fan.  Quidco is a cashback website - there are quite a few around but I decided to concentrate on using just one and Quidco had the best coverage for the stores I use. Essentially you sign into their website, and then visit online stores (such as Sainsbury’s finance) through their links. You then get money credited to your account just for doing the shopping you would have done anyway (because Quidco get paid for directing online traffic to the companies)! The amount of cashback varies according to the store, so it could be a straight £5 or it could be a percentage of your spend; for our Sainsbury’s pet insurance purchase, which we would have been buying anyway, we should hopefully get £40 cashback!! Fantastic.

October debt round-up (275-90)

Another month is already here, so how did we do in September? As of October 1st, our debts stand at:

Lloyds a/c 1: £ -1,976.51
Lloyds a/c 2: £ -1,097
Halifax a/c: £ 503.48
Capital 1 c/c: £ -4,942.46
Tesco c/c: £ -583.64
Barclaycard: £ -2,081.51
Mum’s c/c: £ -4,580
Egg loan: £0  
Student loan: £ -7,372.57 (despite repayments this will stay here till April 2010’s yearly update)
Parent loan: £ -8,850

Total debt at 1 October 2009: £ -30,980.21

So in September we paid off a measly £328.98, which is rubbish but not unexpected given our consumer blow-out at the start of the month; and at least we didn’t go in the wrong direction all together and get further into debt – towards the end of the month our willpower not to spend money (or just bail ourselves out by using a credit card) was excellent. October needs to be much better though!!! I want a big chunk paid off.

Since January 2009 we’ve paid off a total of £5,382.43; that’s 14.86% of our total debt and 30.75% of our ‘bad’ debt (debt excl student and parent loan). We’re going in the right direction but I want us to be going there much faster! 14% and 30% sound good until you calculate that at our current rate we’ll only have paid off our bad debt in 2 further years’ time, and all our debt in a massive 4 more years. Yikes. It needs to be a whole lot quicker than that!