Money worries!

[Sam574]

I'm struggling with money at the minute and am just looking for some advice and maybe a kick up the arse .

Basically I have £1000 coming out of my account on Wednesday and have known about it since Christmas, I had about £600 saved up 2 months ago and assumed I could save the rest (with a part time job and a small 'pension') (I'm a 19yr old student) anyway.. long story short I haven't really been checking my account since then (I think I've took the worry from my uni exams out on my bank account) and now have discovered I have no money at all!! Luckily my account allows for up to a £1000 overdraft interest free for students, this I have had to take out. But now I just feel like sh*t and just feel so guilty. I've been with my girlfriend like 3 years and we both don't care about who sees what on our finances, but I haven't shown her recently cos she'd kill me!! I can pay it back but it's gonna be a while, I've got a trip booked for France in August too. Any advice on the best ways to save and is it worth telling my girlfriend. (She will literally want to strangle me )

Anyway, sorry for the agony aunt type question but I've no one else to really ask other than fellow F.Forumers

 

[arc]

Get into the habit of checking your account.

Record what you spend, use your debit card to pay for things where possible instead of cash - easier to burn through cash.

Work out how much you can save per month, but be realistic - don't just pick a big number that you're not going to be able to hit.

(and be glad you have that OD!)

 

[Eklipze3k]

Spreadsheets!
Here's a screenshot of mine.
As arc says, use your card, it's much easier to burn through cash before you know where it's gone and keep a regular check. With a budget in place you shouldn't need to check it daily because you'll know when things are happening, just often enough to make sure you put any irregular payments on there and keep it up to date.

 

[ysidfa]

I know where your coming from with struggling for cash. Personally, the GF shouldnt be involved when it comes to your cash. I found when i was with my Ex that I told her when i was skint and when I had money and she exploited me for it. Then when i went and bought something (my GSR for £90 for example) I felt guilty about not having any money.

Ive found that a big help is not having money that isnt yours (credit cards/overdrafts ect) because its far to easy to spend. My advice for paying the £1k is to talk to your parents. They might be able to sub you half or even a quarter of it and you can use your overdraft for the rest. Sort of contradicting my self there :s

Money is a C-unit and paying tax, NI, rent, insurance, bills, food and water and then scraping the barrel to go out for a pint at the weekend is a right royal PITA.

Hope it all ends up going well dude.

Tom

 

[PuntoHowTo]

a student overdraft is the best invention in the world ever!

yes you might be £400 down but your not paying interest on it and by your own admission you'll be able to pay it back (over what time scale you don't say) as long as its before your interest free over draft runs out.

you really have no reason to feel guilty we've all been there it happens. you've fallen in a rut and it will take a couple of months weeks to sort yourself out.

budgeting as suggested above is key, when i was your age i found spending on a card was a recipe for disaster you can quickly burn through all your cash without ever having touched it, these days i only deal in cash, much to my other half's disgust (but this doesn't work for everyone)

I can't give you any better advice than whats been suggested above, however i would say you have a pretty healthy attitude towards money as being in debt is never something you should want, just accept at the moment you need a little help and do what you can to sort things out for the future

 

[Kier]

I'm crap at pretty much everything with money...doesn't help that I thought I got paid two weeks before pay day so spent all my money that week...was a long two week wait!

 

[ChrisUK]

I'm learning the hard way.

 

[jenks69]

I'm learning the hard way.

I am doing it the hard way but don't always seems to learn :bang:

 

[bludvl_x19]

I am doing it the hard way but don't always seems to learn :bang:

Amen to that!

 

[wellsy87]

Online banking, if you don't have it, get it! You can usually get an app as well (lloyds do one) where you can check your balance on the go without being near a cash point. Some banks also offer things like texts to tell you your balance. For example, my bank text me every monday at 8.00am with my recent in/outgoings and my balance. They also text me when my account gets below a certain amount to warn me that I'm skint!

Spreadsheets as already said is a good way but it's a lot of effort to keep up to date, I have one but it's very basic and I never use it lol

Interest free overdraft isn't a bad thing as it's a way of borrowing without having to pay for the privelage. Just make sure you pay it back after you graduate or they start charging interest and *may* backdate the interest (read the small print, not 100% on this though).

Hope this helps.

 

[Sam574]

Ah it's all sound advice thanks guys, nice to know I'm not the only dafto out there! Yeah I think the key is keeping a semi-constant eye on the balance and never assuming the wages won't run out haha. Well the rent comes out tomorrow and the phone bill on Thurs but then I get paid on Friday so fingers crossed in a month or so I can get back to normal!

Again, cheers, love this forum!!

 

[ChrisUK]

I managed to burn through 30k when I was 18 :-(

 

[Sam574]

Did a similar thing with about half of that last year such a horrible feeling to have a mk1 Punto as all I have to show for it haha

 

[JustAndy]

When i turned 18 I burned through 5k and had a mk2 punto which didnt cost me 5k and a few months ago I had another 5k that I only have a grand left of (which was originally 3k of "savings I wouldnt touch") and have my cinq to show for it and that also didnt cost 5k
Money doesnt go anywhere
Doesnt help being in a low paid job either getting hardly any hours a week

 

[jnoiles]

I've been with my girlfriend like 3 years and we both don't care about who sees what on our finances, but I haven't shown her recently cos she'd kill me!!

I've been with my girlfriend for 6 and half years. Once a month the day after payday I have something setup to automagically transfer my half of the mortgage and bills to an account plus £100. She does the same. Other than that we keep our entire financial affairs separate. I get to spend my money on race car bits and she spends her on....nothing actually, she saves and invests here in that curiously responsible way that women do. In the entire time we've been together we've never fought about money.

As for the rest, its a student overdraft, no interest. Pay it off, learn from it and move on.

 

[Sam574]

Ah well, at the end of the day it's only money there is more important things in life for me , just gets you down to think sometimes doesn't it!

 

[jenks69]

Ah well, at the end of the day it's only money there is more important things in life for me , just gets you down to think sometimes doesn't it!

You got that right sadly as life moves on money does become the important thing, as it's needed to keep a roof over head and food on the table and the men with bruised knuckles and big ego's from taking the TV!

Today is pay day and I've just transfered out of my account all of my wages into another account then tonight I'll transfer money out of that to SWMBO for our monthly budgets.

It works well for us at the start of the month to draw out our allocated spends and that money goes into defined funds which we have 3 walelts and a bank account. This way all things that can get us into court and trouble are paid straight away. Everyone else can wait their turn!

Bills Bank account - pay into that £950 which covers rent, gas electric, water, council tax etc
Food wallet - £200 (I think this is too much for 2 people but SWMBO likes cake and sweets and I like beer and kebabs)
Fuel wallet - £100 often this isn't enough but it's the easiest to kerb if we have to stop it going over
Baby wallet - £100 this covers nappies, wipes, clubs, swimming, milk clothes toys basically anything for the baby. Any money people give us for him goes into a seperate place in the wallet and we only use it for toys or clothes.
Normally at the end of the month my baby has more spare cash than I do!

Once all of the above is sorted what I am left with I pay:

Car finance
mobile bill
Phone / interwebs
Credit Cards
Loan
Overdraft
Landy insurance
Mortgage and associated bills for flat that I bought.

Thankfully I get two paydays a month salary from job and rent from tenant. Sadly this month there were repairs to the flat so I won't actually get the rent same next month as it'll be kept back by the agent to cover costs of repairs

It's tough but with planning and foresight (thank you SWMBO!) you can plan for anything.

what started as a £250 overdraft for me when I left uni has lead to a loan, two credit cards, two overdrafts and I owe my parents money too!

My only advice is don't borrow a penny unless you absolutely life and death have to - if you need to eat super noodles for a month instead of borrowing bucks do it. Once you borrow and you repay back you are left short and it will just perpetuate.

just over 18 months ago, we had 6 cars and no unmanageable debt - due to be shafted by the DVLA (twice) and three lots of bad tennants I am now up the creak without a paddle. Down to 2 cars sold a fair amount of my stuff, and with the above wallet plans just about managing. I am not making full payments on the credit cards or loans, but with letters to them explaining my income and outgoings they are happy for now. As time moves on my situation will improve but for now it's a tough slog.

I am sure I am not alone and many many people are in similar if not worse position than I am.

Once again the best advice is simply "don't borrow unless you really have to".

 

[ChrisUK]

Yeah it's amazing how quickly it snowballs...

 

[Sam574]

Sorry when I meant more to life than money I meant spare money, my dad's a taxi driver and when his 14month old Mondeo's oil pump siezed and screwed the engine last month Ford wanted 8grand to fix it cos one of his services was 1000miles late. Whilst his car has been off the road (1month) he's had to pay an extra £200 a week rent and insurance on another vehicle whilst also keeping his own insured as well as £3000 garage fees (local garage sourced an engine which had only 153 miles on after being rear-ended!! which was on sale for £1800 + labour) so yeah I meant spare money isn't everything .

Hope everything goes alright, grew up in a house full of debt (I mean we've never had any spare cash [until I got my own job]) but things have always turned out okay, even if my mum and step dad's credit ratings are in the single figures, they've always kept the house! They're finally coming out of as you said s**t creek so I know it's possible to get out of it albeit a struggle.