Earlier in the week, I was reading a newspaper article on how the writer managed to end up in around £20k of debt from consumer spending over a period of 20 years. This alone bugs the hell out of me as I can’t believe that she doesn’t understand the basics of managing money, ‘Don’t spend what you don’t have’.
If this was a cause of getting into debt due to basic necessities like food and rent, then I can understand and sympathise but this was from purchases such as a $400 spending spree in Ralph Lauren and going out in bars.
The image above is her monthly budget to start paying back this debt where she is earning £2800 after tax (equivalent of about £46k a year so she is pretty well off) and ending up with only £73 wiggle room.
She is already using £530 to pay off loans which is good but I don’t see why she still has £300 budget for ‘Going out’ and ‘Sundries’. Surely there is plenty of scope to trim that down further considering how much debt she is in. Also ‘Phone, Internet and cable TV’ does not cost £80. I had the full Virgin Media Package for half that amount so I have no idea what she is spending that extra £40 on. She can even go one step further and remove cable TV altogether to get it down to about £25.
Unbelievable.
