My Debt-Free Plan...HOOS and the Case of the Incredible Exploding Oven!! :-o

Head-Out-Of-Sand

Great idea! Well, I've paid £200 off my £450 for the month, so I will pay £300 off later in the month now!

Going for my birthday lunch with a friend next week, we were going to go out anyway, but I managed to get a food & drink mystery shop booked in for that day, so I'll put the money I get for doing the shop straight into the OD as I would have paid for the meal anyway! Yay. It's all good.

Having a nice free day with my friend today, we're having lunch here (Aldi baked potato, smartprice beans and Netto cheese!) then going to the museum for a bit of (free!) culture, then we're coming back & going for a run round the park (for freeeee!) to train up for the 5k we're doing in May. Marvellous!!

And the trainers are definitely paying off (apart from the fact they're a birthday pressy and didn't cost me anything!) because I had absolutely NO aching in my knees last night, normally they ache like hell after a run, especially when I get into bed. None at all, what a revelation! So I guess sometimes you do get what you pay for. (I make up for this by having a wardrobe and shoe collection almost entirely sponsored by Primani, George and "Shoe Zone"!!)

Head-Out-Of-Sand

Just been doing some thinking this morning about what happens when the debts are all paid off...

Best case scenario is that I get them paid off by May 2010 (And I'm going to work really hard to make sure that happens!), however, although it's tempting to kick the boys straight out, I'm considering if I manage to make May then keeping the lodgers til September (i.e. have them leave beginning of October). This would mean that I could save approx £3000 in those 4 months. I'd like to save up for a deposit for a mortgage in 2012ish, so this would give me a great head start.

If my bank charges come through, I should get around £1000 for that. There's also a possibility of compensation from work for my arm, but I don't want to rely on that as it's by no means guaranteed (although it should be in the circumstances, but I wont get started on that one today...)

Debt-free and without the rent from the boys, I should be able to save at least £250 a month from my wages. I'd aim to make a further £50 from ebay/mystery shopping, so that would mean I could save around £7200. Added to the £4000 that means £11200 by the end of 2012. Wow. (I know that's a small deposit in reality, but it's something to work with anyway)

I know that I can't necessarily rely on this happening, a lot can happen in three years and it depends on my job being secure and mortgage payments not going up too sharply, and who the hell knows what the housing market will be doing by then, but as I said, it's a best case scenario. Just a bit more motivation for me to keep going.

I never in a million years thought I'd be anywhere near saving a deposit or daring to consider whether I'd be able to get a mortgage (considering that the thought of checking my balance or opening credit card statements used to fill me with terror!) I will be 30 in 2012 (:eek:) so I think that's a good milestone to aim for, first house by 30

So hopefully, in just over three years, my amount of savings will (I hope!) be £2000 more than my debts at their highest. This is too much, I think I need to go and lie down!!!:rotfl:

Lemon_Tree

sounds like you've been making great progress and lots of plans. way to go!!! I wish i'd made the same decisions when i was your age then i wouldn't be in the same mess that i'm in now

Head-Out-Of-Sand

Tell me about it, I just wish I'd got round to pulling my head out of my a..e a few years earlier!! But, no point in looking backwards, it's all about where we're going, not where we've been!!!

Head-Out-Of-Sand

Oh and I just wanted to reiterate how much :heartpuls my new trainers - been for two more runs, yesterday and today, and my knees don't ache one bit!! And I've improved on my distance too!! Hurrah! Life is good.

Oh and i FINALLY tidied my room!

tasha-debt

Hey,

What trainers did you get, my BF is taking me shopping to buy some at the weekend, I went for my first jog with him on Sunday, we ran only a mile and it killed me. lol

You are going so well, £1200 in such a short space of time, im so impressed. Who do you MS with as I have had no decent jobs in for ages now?

xx

Head-Out-Of-Sand

Hi Tasha,

I got Asics GT-2140, here's a picture;



They're really good, but I'd recommend going to a running shop and getting the gait analysis done as they might not be the right ones for you - there's different degrees of support and it depends if you put more pressure on the inside or outside of your foot.

Asics are a good brand of running shoe though, and have a gel sole for cushioning...soooo comfy! They do different styles so if you needed different support I would have thought you could still get Asics ones.

I MS with grassroots, TNS and GFK mainly, I guess cause I'm off work at the moment I'm getting a good amount of them, when in work it's more like one a month max.

Paid £250 off RBS OD last night, so that's £450 for the month. Going to hang on to that £50 I would have spent on a plumber in my main account just in case I need it - if not, it's going off the OD at the end of the month.

jamtart6

well done HOOS you have done so well

Head-Out-Of-Sand

Cheers hun

Must keep it up, it's all going too well so far...just waiting to find out what I'm doing wrong!!

Head-Out-Of-Sand

Struggling not to strangle the annoying lodger at the moment. Nothing specific, he's just so incredibly irritating I'm finding it hard not so react!!

It's like living with a cross between Wayne Slob and Mr. Bean Me and other housemate had put both washes on yesterday so all the dryers had wet clothes on them, he then put a wash on too before realising there were no empty driers. I'm sat in the living room (trying my best to ignore him while getting my weekly fix of America's Next Top Model) and instead of saying something like "Are there any more driers?" or "Can you let me know when these are done?" he kept looking at them, moving the drier around, mumbling like "mmmm....hmmm....right....er.....mmmmm". I don't deal well with this kind of thing, I'm not going to play "guess the noise" if you want to say something say it, don't grunt at me. He kept looking over at me and then going "hmmmm" and I just felt like saying "DID YOU NOT SEE THEM THERE BEFORE YOU PUT THE WASH ON???" I know it's annoying having to wait for dryers, but he's in a shared house, so it's just tough. It's just one of those things like waiting for the bathroom or the oven. Glaring at me and making a cacophany of throat noises will not resolve the issue.

Then he stands right behind me eating cereal really loudly with his mouth open and trying to talk to me about utter cr a p with his mouth full of cereal, and all he does is whinge about his job, which happens to be REALLY well paid and is a job that everyone who goes into it knows the score. I just do not have anything left in the tank when it comes to dealing with him. He walks around the house at 2am slamming doors, yet when he's on nights expects everyone else to be considerate about him being asleep.

He's also developed this really annoying habit of walking into a room an groaning, it's like Ross from Friends when he got into the habit of introducing himself with the sad "Hiiiii"...basically it's "Ask me what's wrong" but what's wrong is "I don't like the fact that I'm expected to go to work in exchange for getting paid". I'm at the point where if I hear him coming I find an excuse to go to my room, cause if I don't I know I'm going to have to listen to him whinge for half an hour. Awful, but he's got nothing to whinge about really and I'm so close to snapping and saying "Man the **** up or get a job that reflects the amount of effort you can actually be @rsed to put in."

I'm not sure if I can handle him being in my house for another year or so, he's just so frustrating. I think it's partly cause I've had to speak to him about so many things that should just have been common sense, I've just got no patience left for him - EVERYTHING he does annoys me now, even down to the fact it takes him 10 minutes to open the front door (during which time he stands there jangling the millions of keyrings he has while attempting to find the right key. The big dope.)

I think I need to take up some kind of meditation! :mad: