Debt Payers and Savers Support group

[aimee-lou]

Hi all,

Seeing as a number of people seem to share my will to pay off my debts and make some savings, I thought I'd start a group for us to help each other out.

Introduce yourselves and I'll pop your name on the list below along with your most pertinent goal - let me know in your post what you want to target first - and when you achieve it I'll update with stars and banners!

Good luck everyone

DEBT PAYERS & SAVERS

aimee-lou: Save £850 by 1.9.14
JChihuahua: Save £1000 & Pay off £500 by 1.1.15
weewdy: Save £1000 by 4.6.14
Blah11: Save £1200 by 20.6.14 - ***Increased to £1600***
wishuwerehere: Save £600 by 1.9.14 and £100 by Christmas
QueenMummyToBe: Pay off £7k by 2015
catty: Save £1000 by 1.1.15
Zizzle: Save £6k by 2015
highhopes19: Pay off £725 and Save £500 by 1.1.15
Natasha2605: Pay off £1300 ASAP
lau86: Pay off £2k in 2014
tasha41: Pay off $900 ASAP
amazed: Save £1000 in pot of dreams
babycrazy1706: Save £1000 by 31/8/14
Pinguay off £1500 by 01/12/2014 and save £4000 by 31/12/2014

 

[aimee-lou]

My name is Aimee, I have 3 boys. Hubby is a student, and we live in the tiniest 2 bed house of the planet (at least it's cheap! lol)

We currently have 0 savings, and about £350 of debts - none of any great consequence but annoying!

I have a number of goals. First is to pay off those debts as soon as I can this year - aiming to have them all gone by March.
Savings wise I have 2
- 1 is to save up spending money for our holiday in June. It's 2 weeks in Cornwall, so aiming for £50 a day, so £700.
- 2 is to save £850 by September. That's 1 month of bills, and would give us a 'buffer' should anything happen, break, not come through etc etc. It's the minimum I would want in my savings, and I've given myself 8 months to raise is (target date 1.9.14). Hubby starts his PGCE and Earl at full time school then, so it's important we're settled and sound by then.

 

[Jchihuahua]

Hi,

I have LOADS of debts. I have ahuge loan that I had to take out because of circumstances beyond my control a few years ago and also money on credit cards and catalogues and an overdraft. I am really struggling to pay it all off and even though I earn a good wage most of it goes on paying things off so I feel like I never have any money. I am on maternity leave at the moment so can't do anything until I am back on full pay (I go back to work in March so my first full pay will be April).

Once I am back on full pay I want to clear at least £75 a month plus the interest on my credit card and put £150 into a savings account so by the end of this year I'll have around £1300 in savings.

 

[aimee-lou]

Hi JC - How are your 3?

What would you like me to put as your goal(s)?

I know how you feel. Hubby and I took out loans and overdrafts (added up to about £12k I think) and had finance on a couple of things. Our finances went completely out of the window for a good time. I'm not saying we're out of the woods (paid off a lot of them but still some left behind the scenes) but I'm prioritising the smallest and most recent as they're doable.

 

[weewdy]

Hi

I am seriously going to start saving this year. I plan on working out my spending, food,bills petrol etc and see how much i can save every month. I plan on setting up a direct debit to come out of my account on payday into a savings account. I do have £6000 in savings which i will be using some of this year to buy a caravan. Also its mine and oh 30th birthday in june/july. So my first savings goal is £1000 for 04/06. Also want to save £500 for 01/12 for christmas. Lastly depending on how i stick to it we would like to go a family holiday in september so probably need around £2000 for that.

I already have an emergency account with £500 in (car bills, new appliances etc). Do you think i should set up an account for christmas money and one for holiday?
Last year i saved christmas money using one of those savings tins but my oh didnt like having that amount of money in house.

 

[Jchihuahua]

Hi JC - How are your 3?

What would you like me to put as your goal(s)?

I know how you feel. Hubby and I took out loans and overdrafts (added up to about £12k I think) and had finance on a couple of things. Our finances went completely out of the window for a good time. I'm not saying we're out of the woods (paid off a lot of them but still some left behind the scenes) but I'm prioritising the smallest and most recent as they're doable.

We're all good thanks. I hope your boys all had a fab christmas .

For my goals I think
1. save at least £1000 by 1.1.15
2. Pay off at least £500 on my credit card (and not put anything else on it) by 1.1.15

 

[QueenMummyToBe]

Hey I'm Ashleigh, have 3 beautiful children under 5.

I am hoping to pay off around £7000 of debt this year (angry with myself for letting it build up)
Money is going to be super tight until it is all paid off but I just think if we have a frugal year from then on we can save save save.
Hubby doesn't have the best health (has arthritis & ankolosing spondylitis) so it will be good for us to have a fair bit of savings incase he needs time off work in the future.

xxxx

 

[aimee-lou]

Updated

JC - Yes thanks we all had a fabby Christmas. Sad it's over but this year is going to be exciting (holiday, 2 weddings, 3 new babies in the family not to mention school starting lol) so I'm trying to hit the ground running lol

weewdy - I'm trying to minimise the number of savings accounts I have. I have 1 attached to each of my bank accounts (mainly for 'moving' money about as we get hubby's student loan 3 times a year so it's been feast or famine otherwise lol) and 1 for the boys with the post office, and an extra one which is entitled savings on my internet banking. I have a spreadsheet which shows everything going in or out and it also has little colour block charts where I can see what I've put aside in that savings accounts for which goal. It makes sense to me to do it this way (otherwise I'd have too many accounts - I already have 6 plus 3 child trust funds/junior isas to worry about lol - but if you think having seperate accounts would help, my bank lets me set them up online instantly so they're easy enough to set up nowadays

 

[aimee-lou]

Hey I'm Ashleigh, have 3 beautiful children under 5.

I am hoping to pay off around £7000 of debt this year (angry with myself for letting it build up)
Money is going to be super tight until it is all paid off but I just think if we have a frugal year from then on we can save save save.
Hubby doesn't have the best health (has arthritis & ankolosing spondylitis) so it will be good for us to have a fair bit of savings incase he needs time off work in the future.

xxxx

Is your target £7k by 2015?

 

[Blah11]

Hello!


I have saved 950 so far, want to save another 1200 by 20/6/14

 

[wishuwerehere]

I have an overdraft which i ended up in because of bad forward planning and some unfortunate circumstances. So i want to pay it off (about £600) this year.
My oh has cleared more than £15000 of debt (he's due to clear the last little bit by this summer) as well as saving several thousand for our wedding last year and to pay for holidays this year so i feel like this should be easy to clear but i'm a bit bad for forgetting i've spent money and spending it twice iykwim? So for me paying it off is all about strict budgeting and being organised!
As far as saving goes i have a dd that saves 25 a month, i treat it like a bill so that just goes away for a house deposit. I think we have about 4 thousand saved for a house so i could pay my over draft off with that but i feel like the overdraft is my fault and we saved the deposit together so i don't want to use it for that!
I'm also going to make myself a sealed jar for saving for christmas as it caught me by surprise a bit this year and next year i'll have 2 little ones! So i just want a bit of extra cash to ease me through.
So, my goals are to pay off £600 by 1/9/14 and save £100 in my sealed jar by christmas.

 

[weewdy]

Updated

JC - Yes thanks we all had a fabby Christmas. Sad it's over but this year is going to be exciting (holiday, 2 weddings, 3 new babies in the family not to mention school starting lol) so I'm trying to hit the ground running lol

weewdy - I'm trying to minimise the number of savings accounts I have. I have 1 attached to each of my bank accounts (mainly for 'moving' money about as we get hubby's student loan 3 times a year so it's been feast or famine otherwise lol) and 1 for the boys with the post office, and an extra one which is entitled savings on my internet banking. I have a spreadsheet which shows everything going in or out and it also has little colour block charts where I can see what I've put aside in that savings accounts for which goal. It makes sense to me to do it this way (otherwise I'd have too many accounts - I already have 6 plus 3 child trust funds/junior isas to worry about lol - but if you think having seperate accounts would help, my bank lets me set them up online instantly so they're easy enough to set up nowadays

Do you have a template for your spreadsheet?

 

[aimee-lou]

weewdy - I'm trying to minimise the number of savings accounts I have. I have 1 attached to each of my bank accounts (mainly for 'moving' money about as we get hubby's student loan 3 times a year so it's been feast or famine otherwise lol) and 1 for the boys with the post office, and an extra one which is entitled savings on my internet banking. I have a spreadsheet which shows everything going in or out and it also has little colour block charts where I can see what I've put aside in that savings accounts for which goal. It makes sense to me to do it this way (otherwise I'd have too many accounts - I already have 6 plus 3 child trust funds/junior isas to worry about lol - but if you think having seperate accounts would help, my bank lets me set them up online instantly so they're easy enough to set up nowadays

Do you have a template for your spreadsheet?

Not really I did it myself. It's a sheet for everything coming in (simple list) and same for going out.

1 sheet is a running balance of my bills account and a checklist that that DDs have gone out on time, another sheet for spending account

1 sheet for the savings accounts split down the middle.

It's developed a bit of a life of it's own - it's like my bible! lol

 

[catty]

I feel comfortable with our debt but id rather it wasnt there.

What do use class as debt anything you owe money to?

I have a £950 overdraft, I pay almost £30pm to have this so want it gone!

Oh has about £300 overdraft

I have £150 on the cc I used for some xmas pressies

Then we have debts which I dont consider as debt but some might
£2000 sofa we have about £1200 left which is £40pm
Car is £5000 and I pay £92 pm

I have been trying to save all of our child benefit which is £80pm but so far it hasnt gone well at all. Im going to try hard now that its 2014!!

Edit- id like to save £1000 for next january.

I also have 4 weddings this year and want to pay for the presents outright and not have anything go on a card.

Iv also set up park so hope not to get into any debt at xmas

 

[aimee-lou]

I class my debts as anything that isn't accounted for or that makes life uncomfortable. If a finance agreement is on a set period and affordable within your budget then keeping up with payments is fine, but if you got behind with payments or like your OD is costing you more than you're paying in, then it's to be tackled as that's taking away money that could be better spent/saved elsewhere.

 

[Zizzle]

Can I join? I want to start saving about £500 a month so £6000 by this time next year. Need to buy a house/save for another baby

 

[aimee-lou]

Think I've got everyone - prod me if I miss something! lol

I've made a start anyway - sold some bits on FB for £6 to be collected tomorrow.

 

[highhopes19]

Hi everyone

I'm holly, I have one beautiful little munchkin called Isabelle who's 2... Going on 22

We don't have a great deal of debt but I'm a worrier and i want it gone sooner the better

I got in a bit of a rut when I was quite ill with depression and would spend like anything we were living at home with my parents at the time and had a nice fare old amount of spare cash each month and once I'd spent all that I'd move on to accounts like very and littlwoods... Spending made me happy and watching the parcels be delivered made the buzz even greater ... Looking back I feel really angry with myself .

We've cleared over £1500 . We paid another £400 off with a credit card because the interest was a lot lower than the original debt .

Now we have left:

Provident loan- £170
Credit card- £500
My very- -about £55

So we have £725 I wanna clear this year or at the very least the provident loan and my very

Feeling really optimistic about it now

We also have toms very account with our oven on which we've got a payment plan of £35 a month for 2 years and my newlook card which is about £5 a month... I'm happy to keep these as they are for now untill the other lot are cleared then I can move onto these next year if need be If ican clear this year even better

Looking to save £500 by 1.1.15

 

[aimee-lou]

Added everyone I think. Just sat doing my budget for the next 4 months. Headache!!!!! lol

However I have sold 2 things on facebook tonight.....another £6 towards my target!

 

[aimee-lou]

Can I join? I want to start saving about £500 a month so £6000 by this time next year. Need to buy a house/save for another baby

Love the ticker!!!! Loving the PMA!!!