MY Debt Free Journey

Karmacat

Annamarie, use a cheap little notebook - because *everything* needs to go in, and you'll never remember it all at the end of the day when you get to a computer. By all means, log the totals online daily, but if you're anything like me, you'll need a little paper thingummy.

And freecycle is brilliant, btw - I did *exactly* what RAS gives as an example - my built in fridge in my kitchen broke down, no way I want to buy a replacement now and couldn't afford it anyway, and a local man was offering his fridge on freecycle. Its excellent. I've given stuff away as well - it encourages you to keep the flow going, its lovely.

Good news on the other stuff - the supermarket, the extra money in the account, the washing line, the heating and the mortage news! Yay! And then you snowball it (chuck it at the debt you're focussing on) - exactly as you did with that "spare" £50, you've got the hang of it, good for you!:A

TotallyBroke

That is fantastic news and progress, well done.
Now you have a surplus amount each month you need to decide what to do with it. It's normal to pay this onto what costs the most. But sometimes it's things we don't look at all the time that actually cost us money.
Do you pay your car insurance etc in 1 payment or spread over the year. If monthly do you pay extra for the priviledge. I say this because I found that by saving a few months money behind me for things like insurance etc, saved me money. Because I wasn't paying monthly I saved £50 in the year. It's looking at the little things that sometimes we don't realise are costing us more year in year out.
It's great that you was able to transfer that debt and still get in on 0%.

When I was with my ex I tried to convince him to be mse and agreed that any surplus money would be split 3 ways. 1 for him, 1 for me and 1 for the debts. It would be that third that I would save for hairdressers or clothes etc. or pay onto debts anyway. You could do 50/50 or still do the thirds. 1 for you personally, 1 for debts and 1 for savings. The savings can then be used as an emergency fund or to pay off the debt.

Well done again

I suggest that with the spending diary. Write it out before you buy it. If you are in a shop and are writing Newsagent Mars bar 35p for example. By the time you have done that, seen people staring at you like your a nutter. You won't want it so will have saved yourself the 35p

LilDevil

I think you're doing fabulously (is that a real word? :rotfl: ) well so far. If you want to keep a spending diary on-line, you could try here http://www.spendingdiary.com/ - I got the address some time ago from some lovely person on here (can't for the life of me remember who though!)!

Annamarie_2

havent been on in awhile just over the worst bout of tonsilititis ever i could harldy swallow so sore anyway feeling a bit better

nothing to report money wise as i said before dont get paid till the last day of the month

i could of ended up giving my doc 60.00 quid but i have augmentim antibiotics here so i am taking them i know its not right to self medicate but sure they are doing the job and i am up 60.00 i did have to buy pain relief stuff so i did spend 20.00 this weekend

i had told my hubby not to buy me anything today for mothers day but he got me a card a nice choccies so had a nice day indoors today

i have taken a pay cut in my job and was down about 500.00 euro in feb so i had a meeting with my boss to see if i could get at least half of it has i had budgeted for it (they only let us know of the paycut 2 days before payday)
anyway he has agreed to pay me 300.00 next week so that will be good

thanks lildevil i will look at that link now
i think the word fabulously is great:T :T and if its not a real word well it should become one


Thanks again guys for all your advise and tips this really is a fab forum and you have helped me so much in such a short time so thank you thank you thank you

Annamarie_2

:T oh forgot to add best weekend for sports

1.Ireland won the Grand Slam (triple crown)
2. Bernard Dunne boxer from Dublin won his world title
3. Liverpool kicked !!! today
4. Man u and chelsa lost yesterday




so best weekend ever for sports:beer: :beer: :beer: :j :j :j :j :j :j :T :T

Shoe_Gal

Annamarie wrote: »

:T oh forgot to add best weekend for sports

1.Ireland won the Grand Slam (triple crown)
2. Bernard Dunne boxer from Dublin won his world title
3. Liverpool kicked !!! today
4. Man u and chelsa lost yesterday




so best weekend ever for sports:beer: :beer: :beer: :j :j :j :j :j :j :T :T

Was loving your diary until the last bit!!! :mad: My beloved United will win through, remember Liverpool haven't actually won anything yet !!! :rotfl: :rotfl:

Annamarie_2

ha ha ha ha yea liverpool have not one anythinh YETTTTTTTTTTTT

ah sorry but we are major liverpool supporters in this house as my son who is five says

"MAN U ARE POO" ha ha ha

woops are you not allowed to say a s s it was covered up in my previous post sorry

Swinstie73

Hi Annmarie,

Just wanted to pop in and say hi and good luck on your journey to being debt free. I've been worse than I am just now, but it's all my own doing so don't panic. Will subscribe and keep looking for updates. x

WorkingHardDFW

Bit late in coming back to you to answer the question about the spending diary.

I use three very high tech tools.

• A paper spike onto which all placed before they are entered into - saves my OH having to do anything too labourious :rolleyes:
• A Excell spreadsheet into which I enter all the spending. This has enabled me to analyse how we spend our money and adjust the budgets accordingly. I managed to keep a spending diary all last year and even resorted to a note book whilst on holiday . Its been so useful though and helped us ID what we were actually spending against what we thought we were !! The difference was the debt!!!
• A Old chocolate tin to store the receipts in case i need them (and I have on occasion

As I say not very high tech but it worked for us.

Karmacat

:j And to cap it all, Annamarie is a Liverpool supporter! :j:j:j

The board's resident Scouser, thats me (long term exile tho).

KC