Mrs. P's Diary

buddiebabe

Hey MrsP

Good luck with your targets for christmas its good to have something to work towards.

Need to set myself some goals give me something to work towards instead of just paying it all off!!!

Buddiebabe x

Money_Fritter

Hey MrsP,

Hope you are ok and doing well.

Two steps forward and one step back sounds familiar

Money Fritter

MrsPorridge

Hi MF,

Still struggling on with the steps forwards and backwards Really need to get a handle on it thought.

MrsPorridge

Right I have made my decision. DH and I are going on a couple of long weekends on the new motorbike stopping in Travel Lodges and B&B's. I have printed out loads of Pizza Expressy type vouchers for us to use for food. DS is off to France and Germany It's OK for some!

From 1st August I am going to try a new tack of using cash. So each month I will have £800 cash - that is between DH and self. Out of that money will come petrol (quite high); food and "spending". Things I term as "spending" are: a visit to the pub for a drink; clothes; DVDs; DS pocket money etc. I am sure there is plenty of scope there for saving some money.

Will also be doing a spending diary and am going to try and use this diary as the spending diary.

Will also be "padding" again and attempting to have NSD's.

Hopefully I can be motivated to do all the above and try and get rid of some of the debt.

I also need to update my total debts - those pesky CC's have crept up yet again.

I will also be doing my WW diet properly - I am still going each week but am losing one week and gaining the next - in fact over the last 10 weeks I am more or less the same - which I suppose is good.

On so many levels I cannot wait for 1st August - my D-Day.

Money_Fritter

Hi MrsP,

Hope you are ok. How are you getting on.

It is D-Day tomorrow.

Money Fritter

buddiebabe

Hey Mrs P hope your looking forward to D Day

I cannot wait.... Hope u don't mind but am gonna join you in starting all over again, new month, new start.

Here's hoping the 1st August 2012 is a new debt busting start for us all

Buddiebabe xxxx

MrsPorridge

Yay my D-Day has started. I am off to WW tonight as its weighing night and I haven't been for a couple of weeks. Don't care what the scales say I am starting again.

Had bit of good news on the money front as well - from the blue a few months ago received a letter from Northern Rock saying they were going to look into ppi I paid a few years ago. I had forgotten but this was a loan I took out and then managed to pay back just over a year later. Well the upshot is I have got £999 back from them! I am amazed. Most of that money will go towards my car fund as I need new tyres. At least I now have the money for those. I have re-looked at my SoA as well and as usual the place where most of my overspending is happening is on food. this goes well with my losing weight. DH has also said he is motivated to lose weight so it should be easier to do it together - although he will not come to WW with me!

I am off work today and for the rest of the week.

I have also got settlement figures for my mortgage and my secured loan and was shocked to discover that I owe £20K LESS than I thought I did

Need to pull my head out of the sand over the CCs - they are up to around the £8K mark yet again. I have a loan which is due to finish in May of next year and that is at just over £1K - if I can get that paid off I would be glad as it would free up another £100 per month.

Tomorrow I will write down all that I owe on this diary as my motivation. I will also write down what I weigh at WW tonight and I will start my food diary on here tomorrow as well.

So far so good..

Money_Fritter

Hi MrsP,

Good stuff, I am sure you can keep on track. Good news with respect to the PPI, that will really help. I have never looked into that, but I am pretty sure I never paid PPI in the past.

Good luck with the weight loss as well. I am trying to just have treats at the weekend. My main sin is I do like to have a glass of wine or several at the weekend.

Money Fritter

MrsPorridge

Well I had gained 4 lbs at WW - yikes I am almost back to the weight I was when I joined in January.

Today I have continued cataloging my book collection - I collect different covers of Agatha Christie books. I have started to photograph them on my phone - this to avoid buying duplicates - I now have over 5,000 and can't remember them all

I also had my hair cut - the last two times I have been to the hairdresser I have asked for a dry cut - this cuts the price in half literally. Although it still cost me £18 but I am pleased with it.

Did a proper shopping list for meal planning and did my bit of shopping. Was very "good" in Sainsbogs and did not deviate - it has been many a month since that has happened.

Spent some time watching Olympics and the day just seems to have gone.

tomorrow I need to get out all my paperwork and find out exactly how much I do owe and how much I can overpay on the CCs which are my priority.

food wise I had porridge for breakfast, ham salad for lunch with a little pot of choccy philly which I absolutely love. For dinner tonight have just had some garlic chicken (from Gok Wan's cookbook) and noodles. All followed by some ice cream and banana. All eaten in small bowls to help with portion control.

Jobs for tomorrow:

note down on here all my monies owing

continue photographing book covers

MrsPorridge

The first thing I need to tackle is my CCs. I am furious that they are back up to around the £10K mark - and I had cleared them a couple of years ago. Here we go:

CC1 £2,220.87 - 0% interest till I can't remember when but will leave it to run for the moment.

CC2 £2,976.42 - 6.9% fixed for the lifetime of it

CC3 £4,616.75 - no idea but suspect interest is quite high on this one. this is the one which I can transfer a balance to my current account and this is why this one is so high as this is what I have been doing - kidding myself that I am not using the CC but am just clearing an OD each month.

Obviously I need to stop transferring balances on this one - but as there is only around £300 left on it then I have run out of options to use this one. This is the one I need to concentrate on trying to pay off as quickly as possible. Am going to try and over-pay each month on this one. I am managing this one on the internet and am only given the option of either paying the minimum amount each month or paying it off in full. However, I can make extra payments so this is my plan.

So far today I have tidied up and cleaned the bedroom and bathroom. Tidied quite a lot of paperwork up from around the house and thrown away two bags of rubbish. Have put a bit of washing on the line to dry.

Had breakfast of porridge. Lunch will be ham salad and dinner will be special fried rice (from my Gok Wan cookbook).