Numerous Posts About Debt

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Ways To Save Money Around The House

When I lived with my parents, I didn’t give leaving appliances on, throwing food away or turning the heating up a second thought. I thought these were everyday actions- regardless of what my dad repeatedly told me!

Then I moved out and carried on in the same way…for about two months, until the bills started rolling in.

The largest of my household bills was the electricity. My house it is totally run on electricity. This was a major problem when it came to the winter (and most of the summer-this is England) and I had the task of keeping myself warm. Storage heaters are extortionate! I literally could not afford to heat the house and I managed the run up outstanding bills thanks to estimated readings and high usage!

I found a solution. This solution will not be suitable for everyone, but it worked for me. A Darlek! OK, it is not an actual Darlek, but it looks very similar. I bought myself a mobile gas fire. This cost me around £60 and the Cali-Gas that goes inside cost around £25 and lasts around 2 months depending on usage.

Recently I watched a T.V program called “Downgrading”. It wasn’t about swapping your car for a bike or contemplating moving into a tent, it was about food!

I am a label lover, not designer clothes, but designer food! I am a sucker for exciting packaging and a hard sell! After the program, I started to change this habit however.

The program illustrated that through choosing supermarket own brands or even the very basic brands you can save anywhere between 1000 to 6000 pounds a year! Now this got my interest!

When I next ventured to the local supermarket I didn’t head straight to my usual products, but actually considered the cheaper alternative. I swapped “pretty” fresh peppers to the basic ones, that although aren’t going to win any beauty pageants, they taste just as good. This saved me an incredible 74 pence. O.K, in itself this will not make me a millionaire, but on my total weekly shopping bill was reduced by me making these choices by around £15! This made my sacrifices more than worthwhile!

There are certain things however that I won’t be “Downgrading” to. Heinz Baked Beans and H.P sauce for two! Well, everyone deserves some luxuries!

Saving Money In The Summer

Finally the nice weather is returning, along with lighter evenings and that need to just get out and do more.

Here in Britain our summers are precious. Every bit of glorious (not raining) weather we have we celebrate by being outside. This is a great way to save money.

This may surprise some of you as you are thinking of long nights spent in beer gardens or out door theatre productions. But honestly the summer is the saving tool of the year!

Firstly, ditch your gym membership! What would you prefer to do, run on a treadmill, breathing artificial air in a smelly packed gym, or run in the country side in the sun? I know which I would choose, and have! Bye bye gym fee! That is a saving on average of £50 a month!

Next, rather than heading to the beer garden with your friends and family, opt instead for a BBQ! If you are hosting your friends, it is custom that they bring the drinks. There again is a saving of around £20, after all, people don’t eat much in the summer and so you won’t need to provide much food.

And my key tip would be exploring the many free sites that your city has to offer. Stately homes, art shows… there is plenty to see in the summer. Not to mention that these stately homes have HUGE grounds perfect for a friendly football match without the cost of hiring out the astro pitch!

Here comes the summer – and the money!

I’m Helping My Friend Get Out Of Her Overdraft Debt!

A friend in need…

One of my friends is a shopaholic. I realised that she was addicted to shopping when asking her how much something cost and she honestly couldn’t tell me. Her reply was, “Well, I don’t know. I just liked it so I bought it!”

This seemed to strike a nerve with her as soon after she asked how I manage my finances. After explaining the principle of budgeting and showing her how YNAB could be used to support this and make life much easier, she asked if I would help her set up a budget.

The first step of this was finding out how much debt she was in and where it was spread. This is a daunting task for those of us who are in debt. It can be depressing and scary to face the numbers head on. What we found when we did tackle the debts was that she had over estimated her overall debts. This is not uncommon; we often over estimate or under estimate the amount we owe.

Once we had the figures there to see, we had to go through her incoming and outgoings. YNAB is really useful for this. It has all the categories set out for the user that you can amend where required. YNAB calculates how much you have left in your budget depending on what you have spent and where it has gone. This helped my friend immensely as she appears to be allergic to numbers!

This is all three months ago now. Since then she has been keeping within her budget, not spending what she hasn’t got and actually paying attention to the labels on the clothes that she is lusting after.

Using YNAB has enabled her to begin to clear her debts. She will be out of her overdraft next month for the first time in 8 years and her confidence with money and her ability to handle it has blossomed.