The "Pay ALL your debt off by Xmas 2012" challenge

antonia1 · 12 December 2011 at 12:51PM

Morning all! Hope everyone had a good weekend. I was very productive - got 4 more Christmas presents, all at or under budget. So have 7 more plus 1 birthday left to get. If I'm really good at sticking to budget, I may even have a little left over to buy some B*ileys for me and mum as a treat for over Christmas:beer:.

Been checking my money spreadsheet and I've gotten myself all confused over £160 that I seem to have "spare". I think I have previously double-accounted, but am too scared to spend it in case I've just forgotten something. Will leave it in the "to spend" column until the end of the month, and if I haven't remembered by then it can go off the overdraft:A.

I was rubbish at the weekly challenge yesterday, as I really should have put back the Ollie Murs album, but I had £10 left over from my weekly budget and went for it anyway. Now people in the office keep looking at me funny as I hum along to "dance with me tonight":dance:.

In other news, boy from work wants to know if I'm free for dinner on Wednesday. He's been away for a week, and I'm heading home for Christmas on Friday, so it'll be nice to go out.

PedroMatias · 12 December 2011 at 12:56PM

antonia1 wrote: »

I was rubbish at the weekly challenge yesterday, as I really should have put back the Ollie Murs album, but I had £10 left over from my weekly budget and went for it anyway. Now people in the office keep looking at me funny as I hum along to "dance with me tonight":dance:.

In other news, boy from work wants to know if I'm free for dinner on Wednesday. He's been away for a week, and I'm heading home for Christmas on Friday, so it'll be nice to go out.

Have you heard of Spotify? It's an online subscription music service - the top level subscription is £10/month and allows you to download albums to a phone/ipod/computer, and in addition you can stream virtually whatever you like, whenever you like. It's fantastic, and saved me huge amounts on CDs!

Oh, and enjoy dinner!

kerri_dfw · 12 December 2011 at 1:26PM

I appear to have £108 left on my c/c (as I pay off balance in full this is spending money), how do I have so much left on there? This can't be right. Must try to not spend it and then will only have £390 to pay off instead of £500 *claps*

Oh and this weeks task is a "take your lunch to work" one. It's the week before Christmas, and I don't want you putting on anymore £'s or lbs

So make yourself a healthy lunch, and enjoy the penny saving.
If you already do this then well done to you, I'm still in the process of converting.

Ideas for packed lunches....:
- sarnies (homemade bread anyone?)
- carrot sticks with dip (hummus, moussaka, that avocado one)
- sausage rolls
- pie
- pasty
- homemade cake
- last nights leftovers

You get the idea.
If you already do this, then you have to try to make your lunch as homemade as possible

jimmytwoshoes · 12 December 2011 at 2:38PM

Hi everyone

Still here but not been posting.

I am still unable to pay anything off my totals as yet, and although I have still got a few more bits to get before I've finished the christmas shopping, I am trying to focus really hard on not spending anything i don't need to. Unfortunately OH still out of work but hopefully that will change in 2012.

Well done to everyone so far.

Hopefully by next year we will all have acheived our goals.

DF by Xmas 2012 : Total owed £3373.96

PedroMatias · 12 December 2011 at 2:53PM

kerri_dfw wrote: »

Oh and this weeks task is a "take your lunch to work" one. It's the week before Christmas, and I don't want you putting on anymore £'s or lbs

Great idea! Just made my go-to, default sandwich - pastrami, gherkin and mustard mayonnaise, with a healthy handful of spinach. *Awaits the retching from everyone else...*

rosiest · 12 December 2011 at 3:07PM

Ive just went through all my xmas presents and have bought too many so im going to take some back and get back £32.00. Would usually of wrapped them and given them anyway but think since my LBM ive become even tighter !

On a negative side just had an unexpected bill for £450 so splitting over 3 months and not putting on CC (although amount im paying to them will now decrease ) i am however going to keep trying to make extra money and pay it quicker.

So far have got £14.82 from music magpie to get
£12.23 from an old credit card in credit to get.
£2.23 from and unused bank account
£16.23 from ebay , once fees removed.

antonia1 · 12 December 2011 at 3:15PM

Loving this week's challenge - I've been really bad at taking lunch to work recently, so this should get me back on track.

PedroMatias - I used to have spotify when it was free, but I never really used it. I mostly listen to music when jogging or in the car. This is the first CD I've bought myself in (literally) years. Not that I have previously been adding my sister's CDs to my MP3 player:whistle:.

Rosiest - know what you mean about getting even tighter. I bought a dress for christmas day last weekend (reduced from £40 to £15), but am considering taking it back cos I could just wear something I already own and that £15 would bring my debt free date another couple of days closer.

lemonpopsicle · 12 December 2011 at 3:20PM

Hi peeps, part of my debt that I want to get rid of this year is for DS 's history trip to Berlin, the school have sent out the letter about the final payment and the cost of the trip has gone DOWN by £20 -yippee. So, I'm putting that down as a £20 payment- what do you think?

So, my total is now

£572.88 / £7719

DorsetGirl_2 · 12 December 2011 at 4:47PM

I only work on Fridays so will take lunch then. Its a good challenge as we have a canteen and I find it so easy to spend £3 or £4 each day.

jakes-mum · 12 December 2011 at 5:26PM

Aww I cant do the challenge again

I dont work so all my lunches are home made as are DH's and DS's :rotfl:

Went to co-op today, managed to get £46 worth of food for £14.31, so pleased as im trying to budget food at £25 a week for the 4 of us, so that leaves me £10.69 for bread, milk and other incidentals

anything thats left at the end I think i'll throw at a card, might make me even more frugal :rotfl: Am doubly pleased as in the £14 I cot 4 chicken portions, 16 rashers of middle bacon and 2 gammon steaks :eek: plus a load of other stuff, and the best bit is, its all stuff I would have bought anyway . . . well except the gammon, but 2 steaks for £1.96 was a good price and DH will be very happy on the saturday nights he gets served them

I do have a confession to make though, I did splurge last week and kind of go over my £25 budget as DH is from Wales and the Clarks Pie shop there have started seeling their pies online, im not sure that this counts as I DID pay with ebay money through paypal, and my dear MIL brought them down for us on friday, so DH has 9 pies in the freezer . . . there was 12 . . but you know . . . . its clarks pies!!! Plus we are now mini famous as it seems we are the first people to order online :rotfl: I had to send a pic to them of DH with all his pies :rotfl:

Oh and as a side note I did put back a 27p chocolate eclair that I only picked up because it was cheap, so total saved on the mini challenge was approx £1.50 this week . . . I really need to pay that off a card! but it will mess my numbers up

The "Pay ALL your debt off by Xmas 2012" challenge

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