The Ultimate Incentive natters on. Part 9
Dinah93
Posts: 11,463 Forumite
Wow, 9th diary. You'd think we'd have mastered this personal finance thing by now.
Five years ago my new boyfriend set me a challenge – clear your debt and I’ll move from Ireland to England when it’s all gone. So began a manic year in which I eventually cleared £16,456 of debt in 250 days (or £65.82 a day if you want to break it down like British Gas when they call trying to flog you radiator valve cover). He moved to England, we got engaged, we bought a house, we got married, we spent the first year of married life living in the barely habitable house, we finished doing the house up, I fell pregnant, we had a very exciting (with lots of hospital admissions!) 6 month pregnancy before our little Pea arrived at 28+0 weighing 1lb 15oz, we spent 4 months trapsing around Northern hospitals before the happiest day of my life when we finally brought her home. Pea has been home over 4 months now and apart from being an absolute titch is a gorgeous, happy baby.
On October 10th 2011 we'd just discovered we were expecting, and while we knew we were back in debt from the house purchase, wedding and renovation we had no idea how much debt really, we estimated about £15,000. On the 10th October 2011 we had £27,925.76 of debt. Exactly one year later we had £7622.13. That works out at £55.47 a day we cleared, despite a challenging pregnancy, spending 4 months at the hospital with Pea, and being on maternity leave. We paid off almost exactly our take home salary during that period, and still paid our bills, mortgage, and everything else. To say we're chuffed with how far we've come in a true best of times/worst of times year is an understatement.
Pea does have ongoing health issues normal babies don't face, and we've been advised to keep her out of nursery until she's at least 2. Regardless of this she very much needs 1 to 1 care at the moment that a nursery could not offer. So it's unlikely I'll actually be going back to work at the end of maternity leave, whether this means applying for an unpaid sabatical or applying for voluntary redundancy we don't know yet. Either way it's unlikely I'll have a wage again for quite a while after my last maternity pay in November.
To that end I've adapted the business I was trying to set up, and opened an online shop and facebook shop (please have a peek). It's been going a week now, and I've had 9 orders, which I'm thrilled with, and I really hope I can continue to grow. I made the decision to donate 10% of all my profits to charity, as while we might be skint, there are always people worse off than we are, and we would also like to give back to some of the charities that helped us when Pea was tiny.
In a dream world we'd like to have the last of our debt cleared by Pea's first birthday in March, but I think it near impossible with the fact that our wages no longer meet our outgoings. So I'm going to settle for her due date birthday - 18th June 2013. A link to the first diary and all the subsequent ones are found below.
The Diaries
Diary 1: The Ultimate Incentive to get debt free, can I do it by New Years?
How I cleared £16,456 of debt in 250 days (£65.82 that works out at!), leading to my DFD of the 24th April 2009. My Ultimate Incentive to clear the debt was that my boyfriend (known here as NIM, Naked Irish Man, poor fella was nicknamed by the girlies on my thread and it kind of stuck, he's not always naked, honest!) told me he would move to England from Ireland when I cleared my debt. I actually cleared more debt than I had take home pay in the same period, through doing a lot of little extra income earners mostly online. If you're fighting for ideas on how to clear your debt, this diary is chock full of suggestions.
Diary 2: The Ultimate Incentive worked! Now onto phase two...
My second diary, where NIM has just moved to England, and we start to save up for a house
Diary 3: The Ultimate Incentive proposed! Buying a house, wedding and staying debt free
My third diary, after NIM has proposed and we're faced with the task of saving for a house and a wedding, in the space of a year, and staying debt free.
Diary 4: The Ultimate Incentive proposed! Time for an ultimate challenge...
My fourth diary, where I set myself a challenge I failed miserably at and never really got started due to lack of time. Moving swiftly on from this one!
Diary 5: The Ultimate Incentive to have an amazing 2010
Where we started out with the best of intentions, underestimated the cost of our wedding and renovating the house and ended up solidly back in debt - but had an amazing wedding in the process
Diary 6: The Ultimate Incentive to get debt free...Dinah & NIM go head to head.
Our first year of married life, where we've nattered a lot but not really made any progress whatsoever on clearing the debt. We never did go head to head, we work much better as a team.
Diary 7: The Ultimate Incentive Threadies go all out
Bit of a Girls Gone Wild title, but this was a challenge where we all tried to clear/save £1000 over what we normally would, and the very lucky Cinny thrashed us all into submission. This was part of NIM & I's first year of marriage where we did things his way and tried to have balance... our debt grew.
Diary 8 - The Ultimate Hard and Fast Debt Clearing Mission
Where we find our we're expecting Pea, we report on how the pregnancy falls apart, and the early days of Pea. A few money updates on how we manage to clear £20k in a year, but mostly our focus is on our family.
Five years ago my new boyfriend set me a challenge – clear your debt and I’ll move from Ireland to England when it’s all gone. So began a manic year in which I eventually cleared £16,456 of debt in 250 days (or £65.82 a day if you want to break it down like British Gas when they call trying to flog you radiator valve cover). He moved to England, we got engaged, we bought a house, we got married, we spent the first year of married life living in the barely habitable house, we finished doing the house up, I fell pregnant, we had a very exciting (with lots of hospital admissions!) 6 month pregnancy before our little Pea arrived at 28+0 weighing 1lb 15oz, we spent 4 months trapsing around Northern hospitals before the happiest day of my life when we finally brought her home. Pea has been home over 4 months now and apart from being an absolute titch is a gorgeous, happy baby.
On October 10th 2011 we'd just discovered we were expecting, and while we knew we were back in debt from the house purchase, wedding and renovation we had no idea how much debt really, we estimated about £15,000. On the 10th October 2011 we had £27,925.76 of debt. Exactly one year later we had £7622.13. That works out at £55.47 a day we cleared, despite a challenging pregnancy, spending 4 months at the hospital with Pea, and being on maternity leave. We paid off almost exactly our take home salary during that period, and still paid our bills, mortgage, and everything else. To say we're chuffed with how far we've come in a true best of times/worst of times year is an understatement.
Pea does have ongoing health issues normal babies don't face, and we've been advised to keep her out of nursery until she's at least 2. Regardless of this she very much needs 1 to 1 care at the moment that a nursery could not offer. So it's unlikely I'll actually be going back to work at the end of maternity leave, whether this means applying for an unpaid sabatical or applying for voluntary redundancy we don't know yet. Either way it's unlikely I'll have a wage again for quite a while after my last maternity pay in November.
To that end I've adapted the business I was trying to set up, and opened an online shop and facebook shop (please have a peek). It's been going a week now, and I've had 9 orders, which I'm thrilled with, and I really hope I can continue to grow. I made the decision to donate 10% of all my profits to charity, as while we might be skint, there are always people worse off than we are, and we would also like to give back to some of the charities that helped us when Pea was tiny.
In a dream world we'd like to have the last of our debt cleared by Pea's first birthday in March, but I think it near impossible with the fact that our wages no longer meet our outgoings. So I'm going to settle for her due date birthday - 18th June 2013. A link to the first diary and all the subsequent ones are found below.
The Diaries
Diary 1: The Ultimate Incentive to get debt free, can I do it by New Years?
How I cleared £16,456 of debt in 250 days (£65.82 that works out at!), leading to my DFD of the 24th April 2009. My Ultimate Incentive to clear the debt was that my boyfriend (known here as NIM, Naked Irish Man, poor fella was nicknamed by the girlies on my thread and it kind of stuck, he's not always naked, honest!) told me he would move to England from Ireland when I cleared my debt. I actually cleared more debt than I had take home pay in the same period, through doing a lot of little extra income earners mostly online. If you're fighting for ideas on how to clear your debt, this diary is chock full of suggestions.
Diary 2: The Ultimate Incentive worked! Now onto phase two...
My second diary, where NIM has just moved to England, and we start to save up for a house
Diary 3: The Ultimate Incentive proposed! Buying a house, wedding and staying debt free
My third diary, after NIM has proposed and we're faced with the task of saving for a house and a wedding, in the space of a year, and staying debt free.
Diary 4: The Ultimate Incentive proposed! Time for an ultimate challenge...
My fourth diary, where I set myself a challenge I failed miserably at and never really got started due to lack of time. Moving swiftly on from this one!
Diary 5: The Ultimate Incentive to have an amazing 2010
Where we started out with the best of intentions, underestimated the cost of our wedding and renovating the house and ended up solidly back in debt - but had an amazing wedding in the process
Diary 6: The Ultimate Incentive to get debt free...Dinah & NIM go head to head.
Our first year of married life, where we've nattered a lot but not really made any progress whatsoever on clearing the debt. We never did go head to head, we work much better as a team.
Diary 7: The Ultimate Incentive Threadies go all out
Bit of a Girls Gone Wild title, but this was a challenge where we all tried to clear/save £1000 over what we normally would, and the very lucky Cinny thrashed us all into submission. This was part of NIM & I's first year of marriage where we did things his way and tried to have balance... our debt grew.
Diary 8 - The Ultimate Hard and Fast Debt Clearing Mission
Where we find our we're expecting Pea, we report on how the pregnancy falls apart, and the early days of Pea. A few money updates on how we manage to clear £20k in a year, but mostly our focus is on our family.
Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81
Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off
Met NIM 23/06/2008Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off
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Comments
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Ohhhhh new thread I'm the first post yay! :j
Congratulations Dinah and NIM it's fantastic to read back your progress all written down like that. You both should be very proud
:A :heartpuls June 2014 / £2014 in 2014 / £735.97 / 36.5%0 -
Stupid multi quote. First 3 replies.... will add the rest on, but to be honest all comments seem a little redundant next to Birdie's jumper amazingness.Gosh, I do love a real tree. This year we've gone green and rented a tree. It was no cheaper than buying one, but it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that it will go and be planted in a forest to grow big with all the other little trees
Dinah, your shop is looking brilliant and it sounds like you're being kept busy! Does Grace let you get any crafting done?!
We got two trees this year (probably less green) but one is in a pot, it's the smallest one they had, and is about 10cm taller than Grace, so we can take it outside after Christmas and bring it in next year, and it can grow as she grows. One day it might be big enough to be the 'real' tree.
Erm, nope, not much! Yesterday her total naptime was an hour 20mins. She was awake from 11.10 in the morning through until 10pm at night, when she was so over tired she just screamed blue murder for 3 hours until I started crying because I thought she must be in pain and I couldn't work out what was wrong. We eventually got her to fall asleep in her swing, then turned off all the lights and left the music on and NIM gently carried her through to her cot.Tete_en_l'Air wrote: »Hi all! Happy Birthday to Archers!
Ooh Poddle congrats on the 5000th post, do you get a prize I wonder??
I was reading through earlier and thought you were all being very generous to non-date-boy, saying how it's scary to meet up etc - I was thinking more that he was just an @rse, then lo and behold I gets a message from him wanting to meet up this weekend he really wants to make it up to me apparently [IMG]http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/<a href=http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys.php target=_blank>[/img]
Well unfortunately for him I'm busy ALL weekend. Ha.
The prize is Fermi didn't close us down before I got a new thread up.
Scary maybe, but you want a man who isn't scared of getting what he wants. It might be a cute story but I'll be honest, I wouldn't have much respect for him after cancelling unless there was a great reason (if he turned up with a cast on his leg I'd let him off) so I'm not sure I'd give him a second chance.Tete_en_l'Air wrote: »I have a clubcard question - can anyone help? I've just received two vouchers in the post, one for £5 and one for £1.50. When I log in to my account only the £5 one shows up. Why is that? Can I add the £1.50 one manually somehow? Bit perturbed now as for the last year or so I've been ignoring the vouchers when they come assuming they'll be online anyway but actually there are only 7 dating back to April 2011. I definitely haven't spent them in store because the little Martin voice in my head won't let me
Good morning by the way!
Any chance you use a clubcard on your keys as well as one in your wallet? It sounds like you have two clubcards on the go to be honest. Dig out any vouchers you have and see if the numbers match up.Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81Met NIM 23/06/2008
Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off0 -
Huge second, you've come so far and done so much! You should be really proud of yourselves.
Is your India trip part of your Phd Lara? Either way, I'm sure it will be a great experience!
Work lunch was actually not too bad yesterday and definitely not as awkward as I thought it might be. Been left to manage one of the systems on my own today and so far *touch wood* its been not too bad. It's quite scary having no one to fall back on though if it all goes horribly, horribly wrong.
Hope everyone has a good weekend.Emergency Fund - £7992.62 / £10,000 :: Total Mortgage OP - £34,692LISA 24/25 - £0 / £4000 :: NSD 2024 - 13 / 180 :: Moving Fund: £838.83 :: Decluttering - 143 / 365Engaged 9th December 2010 :: Married 29th October 2015 :: Bought a House 13th January 20170 -
Hope everyone has a good day and the dreaded Christmas shopping is going well.......Dinah's website looks fantastic and I'm seriously tempted to buy her Reindeer hot chocolate pack but I must resist!!! :rotfl:
Ah it's £3... you know you want to (I feel like a demon encouraging people to spend money if truth be told but apparently I can't be shy AND run my own business)Had a talk with OH last night about money and saving and bless his heart, he said "I think we're very frugal!" And I asked him what he meant "well, if we have £50 to go out with we spend £60" I was just sat there like honey, what rock did you grow up under. Unsure if I should start my own diary or not. It's tempting! Plus it's be a place to move the chitchat until Dinah starts a new diary. Her shop seems to be doing really well by the looks of Facebook!
Completely and utterly lost..... isn't he saying you are good with money but always overspend all in one sentence?!Tete_en_l'Air wrote: »Now. Ebay help please! Buyer has just contacted me to say they haven't received their item which was posted on 26.11 - she wants a tracking number so she can ring royal mail ... I just sent it standard first class with proof of posting so it won't have a tracking number will it? I did offer the option of recorded delivery on the invoice for an extra £1 but she didn't take me up on it... What I'm worried about is that the post office lady has written an M from the postcode as a H so if she thought my M was a H maybe the sorting people did? If so, it could be in Chester rather than outer London :eek:
It will have gone to London unless it was going to say 12 Aberdeen Street, and there is also a 12 Aberdeen street in Chester.... with the same postcode a digit apart, which there won't be as Royal Mail try to ensure similarly named streets have very different postcodes. You don't even HAVE to have a postcode to send within the UK, it just gets it there quicker. Unfortunately if she chooses to press it you have to present the receipt to Royal Mail, and they will reimburse you for the value of the item, but that can take a month so you have to refund the buyer first. It's annoying but it's the reason over half of all ebay sellers only use tracked/recorded delivery methods now.
Facebook shop going quite well, although no orders since Wednesday so I'm out of things to make and getting worried it's all a big waste of money again. Been making a few new items, so hopefully get those up next week, all need a vital missing bit that is currently in the Royal Mail system.Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81Met NIM 23/06/2008
Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off0 -
I remember reading your first diary all that time ago! Just liked your facebook page and will have a proper look later.
Good luck with everythingTotal Debt [STRIKE]£36323[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]Dec 2012[/STRIKE]:eek: £19000 January 20160 -
Thank goodness! I thought we were going to get black listed if the old thread went on for much longer
I love reading yours and NIM's story back at the start of each thread. Makes me all proud of you two! Weird to think most of us (possibly all of us, including lurkers?!) have been here since very near to the start though.
Sorry if I sempt immensely rude on the old thread. Was on my phone and didn't see half the posts! Hope you get the internship in India, Lara Nice to hear from you again too!
And from the last thread:Completely and utterly lost..... isn't he saying you are good with money but always overspend all in one sentence?!
More like he had no idea what "frugal" meant! He had to google it after I corrected him, can't imagine how confusing the concept of superscrimpers showing ways to be frugal was to him
Best of luck with your next leg of the journey though!! Any challenges for this one?0 -
Hi Tinka, thanks for posting and liking xDebt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81Met NIM 23/06/2008
Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off0 -
Best of luck with your next leg of the journey though!! Any challenges for this one?
Well.... now you mention it NIM and I have agreed on a January challenge. I want to focus on trying to get a few more craft orders in the business (and organising Christmas) for the next few weeks hence the start on January 1st (plus I do just love the clean cut monthly time period), but I'll leave it as an extra suprise for after Christmas. All I'll say is that it will be a month long challenge, and anyone who might want to join in, look out for a post on around the 27th/28th December.Debt January 1st 2018 £96,999.81Met NIM 23/06/2008
Debt September 20th 2022 £2991.68- 96.92% paid off0 -
Ohh I'm excited to hear what the challenge might be.Emergency Fund - £7992.62 / £10,000 :: Total Mortgage OP - £34,692LISA 24/25 - £0 / £4000 :: NSD 2024 - 13 / 180 :: Moving Fund: £838.83 :: Decluttering - 143 / 365Engaged 9th December 2010 :: Married 29th October 2015 :: Bought a House 13th January 20170
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Oooh January challenge sounds intriguing!
Bless your OH for being so confused about the meaning of frugal Cinny!
Can't wait to get the weekend started, come oooooon 4.30! Cards and presents to make tonight and I want to get on with it before I forget what I want to do! Shopping and jumper party tomorrow and probably a little more Christmas crafting with some festive movies on Sunday, all in all some lovely weekend plans! :j
Dinah I really love the little onesie with wings that you're selling but I know no baby girls! Hope we have a girl one day to wear it! Overcome the notion that you must be ordinary. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary!Goal Weight 140lb Starting Weight: 160lb Current Weight 145lb0
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