Politics
My shopping addiction left me £38k in debt – this is how I’m SAVING money in 2022… and all you need is an envelope
BUDGETING money is something that many of us struggle with.
Yasmine Camilla, 36, from London, is sharing her debt recovery journey on TikTok where she hopes to help others with money struggles.
David CummingsYasmine Camilla found herself in £38,000 debt after a shopping addiction got out of control[/caption]
The mum-of-two has over 80,000 followers and shares her tips for saving money.
Yasmine, who has two credit cards as well as five personal loans, explains that her debt is a result of a number of factors.
Yasmine grew up in social housing in the late 80s, early 90s and for most of her childhood, her family received welfare benefits.
She explained: “My parents probably struggled to get by and do remember us not being able to buy things, even sometimes food when we wanted to.
“But I had what I needed.
“I did my A-Levels and started working at 16 and just worked and worked.
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“Eventually when I was 20, I bought a flat with 110% mortgage.
“I had no deposit and no way of ever saving one. I bought that property with my ex.
“I was working a job at the time that was paying me £7 an hour but I could do over time, it was a clocking in and clocking out system.
“So I stayed at work for as long as I could physically manage to make my pay check as big as possible so I could get the biggest mortgage possible, which was for £140,000.
“We got a one bed flat in London.
“We didn’t make tonnes of money on that flat because the market crashed but we managed to pay back enough so we could move from a flat to a house, which is where I live now.
“That was quite a long time ago so house prices were lower.
“I didn’t go to Uni, I started on the shop floor and I still work in retail but I have moved into a head office position and I do project management, still in retail.”
David CummingsYasmine suffered as a result of the pandemic and saw her costs rise massively[/caption]
Speaking on TikTok, Yasmine revealed how she ended up in debt.
She explained: “My income went down during the pandemic and my outgoings went up, a lot of people managed to save money I didn’t.
“I’m a single parent and I paid for anything I possibly could to make things easier. I was working a really stressful job at the time which I’ve now actually left.
“I’ve got a job that pays more now. I was paying for childcare when it was allowed because the kids weren’t in school so my expenses just generally went up.
“That said there were some things I’ve spent money on that I really shouldn’t have and that was just to cheer myself up because I was really depressed which I wouldn’t recommend.”
Yasmine also told Fabulous that she developed a shopping addiction after coming out of a long-term relationship in 2019.
Yasmine found herself in £38,000 debt on credit cards and buy-now-pay-later services.
TikTok/@yasminecamillaYasmine developed a shopping addiction and found herself using credit cards and buy-now-pay-later services for her habit[/caption]
In 25 weeks, Yasmine has managed to get her debt down to £12,800.
She said: “Before my relationship ended and Covid hit, I could spend anything I wanted.
“I’d happily put £3,500 on a credit card for a family holiday to Portugal and not think about how it would be paid off.
“I had a good job then and was earning well so felt that it didn’t matter.
“Many have attacked me for having so much debt and being careless — and they are right, I was.
“But others have told me I am brave for breaking the taboo.
“I’m proud of myself for working my way out of this and hope that in two years I will be debt-free.”
Yasmine has explained how she is paying back her debt and said: “I am attempting to do this without damaging my credit rating because I want to have options about my mortgage when I’m done.
TikTok/@yasminecamillaNINTCHDBPICT000704937316[/caption]
“Cutting costs and trying to earn more is my main focus.”
Yasmin is big on budgeting and she uses plastic folders each month to budget her money.
Every time Yasmin gets paid, she will withdraw money and put cash in different folders for her expenses – food, petrol, travel, spending and socialising.
And now Yasmine has two challenges for saving money and all you need is an envelope.
The first challenge that Yasmin is doing involves saving leftover money each month.
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She explained on TikTok: “The first is the remaining cash challenge so at the end of my cash stuffing, either weekly or monthly, I will try to use any money that I didn’t spend on a particular folder, so food for example, in my spending envelopes, if I don’t use all of that money, I wanna try and put it in one of these folders.
“I felt like this gave me the flexibility that I didn’t need to commit to saving a certain amount each week, but I was still making some progress and feeling motivated.”
And another way Yasmine is going to try and save money is what she calls the “zero challenge.”
She continued: “I want once a week to go into my bank account and round whatever number is in there down to 0, so if it’s got £15.58, I’ll take the 58p out to make it to £15.
“Or if you’ve got more money to play with you could zero down to the pound, so if I had £18.52 I could take the £8.52.
“You’ve got the flexibility to do whatever you want with this.”
So if you want to start saving money, why not give these a try?!
Many TikTok users were left impressed with Yasmine’s saving tips and took to the comments to express this.
One person said: “Zeroing your account is such a great way to save money, I’ve got very little outgoings atm so I’m able to zero my account after each purchase.”
Another added: “I’m going to try the rounding & also doing the envelope challenge. I will transfer the envelope amount to my savings if I don’t have the right money.”
A third commented: “That’s really good!”
TikTok/@yasminecamillaNINTCHDBPICT000704937317[/caption]
Meanwhile, I spent £5K on Deliveroo takeaways and ended up with £38,000 debt due to my shopping addiction.
