Mizmir's "Determined to be debt free by Christmas 2009" diary

hypno06

frugal - yes. Peaceful.......not a chance! (more's the pity!)

I am sure that everything will come together for you! If you are not about between now and christmas, I hope you have a good one!

taxi73

As above ..have a good christmas....frugal..yes..peaceful..who knows probably not as working.

boredofbeingathome

Frugal will be the by word in this house, although as eldest DD is coming home dad will be wanting to push the boat out...he always does.lol

Karmacat

Happy Christmas mizmir! Frugal - yes. Peaceful - as long as I take my computer to my mum's house, not too bad!

mizmir

Am off now for a few days! See you all at New Year. Have a great holiday whatever you are doing.

taxi73

Same to you.

mizmir

Back and done with the seasonal visiting - and raring to go on all fronts!
I have the rest of the week off so I am going to spend it getting started as far as I can on a number of longer term goals:

• financial
  • checking all current deals and making sure we have the best we can get
  • cancelling any stray payments that are no longer needed or which we can do without
  • setting up the offset account properly so that my annual budget money and emergency fund is helping knock down the mortgage too
  • updating the budget and snowball to take account of the pay increase OH and I both got recently
• organisational
  • sorting through as many cupboards as I can get to and clearing clutter
  • making my office usable
  • auditing what we have in the way of things to sell, things to use up (so many cupboards are full of stuff I have no idea what is usable!)
  • sorting out my computer files so I can find things more easily!
• personal
  • starting a healthier lifestyle plan and journal - am going to do small gradual steps and build up rather than aim to lose masses of weight and get demoralised - as actually my problem is that I am unfit more than anything
  • concentrate more on our own dogs than on other people's! Am still doing a fair bit of dog training but am not going to expand it and will focus mainly on doing a monthly workshop and a weekly class. One of our own dogs has her own issues and deserves more time spending working on those.
  • get work into perspective - have several projects finishing in the next few months so will be busy but I need to keep it in check. My ambitions don't lie in that direction so I need to do a good job for the time being but don't need to kill myself to exceed requirements since my main ambition is to be out of there in the next 3-5 years!
  • look after OH - especially as it looks like after next summer we will be spending more time apart due to her work.

Won't be through all that in 6 days but can make a start! In fact I have - rang BT saying we were moving and got our deal reduced to £20 a month including all calls and broadband - with a new router thrown in! Am also cancelling insurance on our oldest dog - M&S just came in with the renewal quote and it has jumped to £80 a month! :eek::eek::eek: Now I know she is 12 and a large breed but that is ridiculous! Frankly I would rather take the chance. She is highly unlikely to have any accidents etc. (she barely goes out these days and isn't very agile) and I wouldn't put her through operations and things at her age (she already has breathing condition). So the most likely thing we may have coming is long term medication - and I know the sorts of things she is likely to need and they are not £80 a month (and given the excess they ask is several hundred it is actually nearer to £100 a month before they actually would pay out!). If I am wrong we can raise funds and I will take that chance. So it is thanks but no thanks to them tomorrow - and I will put the £35 that I have been paying up to now into the offset as a bit of self-insurance for this.

Anyway - happy new year everyone for tomorrow! May we all reach our goals for 2009!

The_Dragon

I'm glad you had a good time away and everything sounds really positive! Eeep to th pet insurance though!

Karmacat

Mizmir, what a great post! I like it lots, sounds like you're going to have a great week.

taxi73

WOW..you really are raring to go!!!!...a very well though out plan there and all achievable.
Glad you had a good time away.