Hummingbird's Progress....Well it's time she made some!

hummingbird · 4 March 2015 at 5:04PM

This month is very special, which is why I've decided to take the plunge and start a diary.

The reason it's special is that it's 10 whole years since I joined MSE!!! I only occasionally see other members who have been here as long, or longer than I have....and when I do see them I get to wonder why they seem to have written about 10,000 posts (when I've only just made it to 600 LOL!) have become debt and/or mortgage free etc etc when I feel as though I've made no progress at all!

I also see folks who have been here a lot less time than me who have achieved amazing things!! Huge congratulations to all of you who have turned, or are turning, your lives around.

I know some people open new accounts so perhaps some of those who have moved mountains in such a short time were here before under another name hehehe!

However it's got to be onwards and upwards for me. It can't be true that I've made no progress whatsoever so I'm spending a bit of time mentally going over the things I've achieved since that day in March 2005 (don't remember the exact date!) when I joined the site!

DawnW · 4 March 2015 at 5:36PM

Well Hummingbird, another long term MSE member here - I joined in January 2006, but am a long way short of 10,000 posts - I have apparently posted 2,998 times

Good luck with your diary, and plans to progress :j

hummingbird · 4 March 2015 at 5:41PM

Thanks Dawn, lovely to meet you! Perhaps I'll find lots of other long-term MSE'ers now! :-)

Hope you've made progress while you've been on the site - this is an "interesting" afternoon for me, thinking about my situation!

hummingbird · 4 March 2015 at 6:48PM

Well, a little bit of progress already, and very unexpected! I've just had an email from EON congratulating me on being accepted for a new tariff I applied for a few days ago.

It's a collective switch organised by our council, and should save me £277/year.

These collective switches work on the energy companies bidding to win the deal, and the winner this year was EON - but the problem I had was I am already an EON customer and have some arrears with them. I didn't think I had much chance of being accepted - so I'm really pleased I have. :-)

I'll now be working to pay off the arrears asap as it will raise the monthly DD amount otherwise.

hummingbird · 5 March 2015 at 1:25AM

Well I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about these last 10 years this afternoon/evening.

Definitely HAVE made some progress in terms of who I am as a person, even if not financial.

Back in 2005 I was newly divorced, and still in huge emotional turmoil and distress. I had become a shopaholic in order to cope, although at the time I was in denial over what I was doing.

A lot of it stemmed from feeling I couldn't stay in the house. I don't know why I felt like this, but somehow being around the shops made me feel as if I was in company and "doing something". It wasn't as if I wasn't used to being on my own, as my husband had worked away from home a lot and often was away all week and just home for weekends.

Even when I wasn't trailing around the shops I was buying things online and even from TV shopping channels (!!) and it's obvious to me now looking back that I was trying to fill a huge hole in my life. I had to be at work as well - if I got home early I wouldn't know what to do with myself!

I remember one Friday afternoon after I left work I burst into tears on the way home because it was the weekend and I wouldn't be able to go to work!!!!! (Yes, when everyone else was shouting TGIF!!!)

Since those days I have.....been on a college course, been to India and various other holidays (although I couldn't really afford them they did help me) bought a house, (or rather, got a mortgage LOL!) gained some new qualifications, updated my job skills.... and more latterly taken some time out to look after elderly parents.

Phew!!!! So I have been doing something after all.............even if my finances have not recovered. I'm glad to report that I can now live happily without going to the shops, and can be in the house happy and contented without feeling I have to go out. It would be lovely to turn back the clock knowing what I know now and say to myself "Hey, you WILL recover, but you don't need to spend all this money, let's start saving and paying off these credit cards". But since I can't do that I have to focus now on the NEXT 10 years!

Levi- · 5 March 2015 at 8:02AM

Subscribed to ya lovely

hummingbird · 5 March 2015 at 12:29PM

Aww thanks Levi - your diary has been a real inspiration to me, so thank you so much for that!! :-) x

hummingbird · 5 March 2015 at 1:47PM

Well they certainly are efficient! I've had my new Direct Debit details emailed to me from EON already!

The thing is, it's lower than I was expecting - in fact lower than I've ever paid by DD before. Hooray!!!!! And it should be a great cause for celebration except......

........it doesn't seem to have taken those arrears into account, as far as I can see. Not sure what to do now..... I don't want to ring them and upset the apple cart as I haven't been finding it easy to clear these arrears.

I think I'll just start chipping away at the arrears by making extra payments online on a regular basis. My first DD isn't until April 1st, and they may review my account after that anyway and raise the DD a bit.

By the way it seems amazing that I can be on a tariff with exactly the same provider using exactly the same energy and for it to be £25/month cheaper!!!!!!!!

TimeToChange · 5 March 2015 at 2:30PM

hummingbird wrote: »

Well I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about these last 10 years this afternoon/evening.

Definitely HAVE made some progress in terms of who I am as a person, even if not financial.

Back in 2005 I was newly divorced, and still in huge emotional turmoil and distress. I had become a shopaholic in order to cope, although at the time I was in denial over what I was doing.

A lot of it stemmed from feeling I couldn't stay in the house. I don't know why I felt like this, but somehow being around the shops made me feel as if I was in company and "doing something". It wasn't as if I wasn't used to being on my own, as my husband had worked away from home a lot and often was away all week and just home for weekends.

Even when I wasn't trailing around the shops I was buying things online and even from TV shopping channels (!!) and it's obvious to me now looking back that I was trying to fill a huge hole in my life. I had to be at work as well - if I got home early I wouldn't know what to do with myself!

I remember one Friday afternoon after I left work I burst into tears on the way home because it was the weekend and I wouldn't be able to go to work!!!!! (Yes, when everyone else was shouting TGIF!!!)

Since those days I have.....been on a college course, been to India and various other holidays (although I couldn't really afford them they did help me) bought a house, (or rather, got a mortgage LOL!) gained some new qualifications, updated my job skills.... and more latterly taken some time out to look after elderly parents.

Phew!!!! So I have been doing something after all.............even if my finances have not recovered. I'm glad to report that I can now live happily without going to the shops, and can be in the house happy and contented without feeling I have to go out. It would be lovely to turn back the clock knowing what I know now and say to myself "Hey, you WILL recover, but you don't need to spend all this money, let's start saving and paying off these credit cards". But since I can't do that I have to focus now on the NEXT 10 years!

I so totally get what you mean - i was spending money like it was going out of fashion just to try and fill a gap in my life! You are right, it must be fate that we started these together xx

Levi- · 5 March 2015 at 5:36PM

Hey Humming - well its a mutual appreciation society here because your replies always inspire me and I am looking forward to keeping up with your diary and seeing how everything is going with you. Really glad you started one

:heart2: x

hummingbird · 5 March 2015 at 10:21PM

Thanks for that encouragement Levi, it's going to help me a lot to have a diary I think - my reasoning is that if I focus on making progress I will get a lot further than before!

I've just started to track all my spends using a spreadsheet. I should have done this ages ago! It started off at the beginning of the month just to track my grocery spends but has been growing to include all spends that aren't bills.

I've never really known where my money goes - I've done spending diaries in the past but never kept up with them, but now with the spreadsheet I think I'll quickly get addicted to filling the items into the relevant columns.

I think it will be enlightening and i'm intending to put down every penny I spend on there.

Just a word on the lack of emoticons in my posts :-( I love them and I used to use them all the time, but for some reason I have a glitch on my laptop and all I get is a line of text, eg if I try to add the beer one this is what we get:http://static.moneysavingexpert.com/images/forum_smilies/beerchug.gif LOL!!!!!!!

Now and again you'll see I have the emoticons and that's because I'm posting somewhere other than on this laptop!!!

Hummingbird's Progress....Well it's time she made some!

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