Catherine's "Stay out of debt" diary

mynameiscatherine

Went food shopping after work yesterday. Managed to only spend £3 over budget so that isn't too bad at all considering I had a hungry OH with me

It was payday yesterday, too! Got paid a bit of overtime which I had forgotton about so that's a bonus I'm gonna go on my online banking later on and move some money around into savings accounts and stuff - then pay my credit card off :j

One of my cats caught a pigeon last night. He must have got it out of a tree while it was sleeping (wandered why he'd been practising climbing trees all day!). OH came in all pale and said "Phillip's killing a bird" so I went outside and Phillip's sat there with a MASSIVE flappy pigeon in his mouth. It was horrible because it took ages to die and there are feathers EVERYWHERE on the lawn. We need a lawn hoover!

Anyway must be off, I have a very big cup of tea to drink

mynameiscatherine

I now know why I don't have money spare..


I SPEND IT ON FOOD!!

Seriously, the amount of food I now realise I buy is stupid...I don't even eat that much!

For example, I went food shopping on Monday, spend my normal £40 which got more than enough for the week, and so far I have bought lunch at work twice (make that 3 after today) and spent about £8 in the chippy on Wednesday night.
The fresh food we bought is going out of date so the fridge smells so I'm gonna have to have a big clean out and ORGANIZE my food.
No more buying McDonalds, Chips, Sandwiches, Crisps. It must stop!
I quit smoking cold turkey so I reckon I can quit "compulsive food buying" cold turkey too (if you'll excuse the pun :rolleyes:)

OK now there's the first step...admitting the problem

Now you watch this space - I am going to be rich!

Swinstie73

Way to go Catherine - the first step is always admitting the problem - now if only I can do the same, LOL

mynameiscatherine

Well, I am rubbish! I spent money on food at the weekend despite promising myself I wouldn't!

How the hell does a chinese takeaway for 2 people cost £25?!?! Sigh. So on Saturday night I had a chinese and yesterday I had a McDonalds. How I only weigh 8 1/2 stone I do not know, perhaps one day I'll pop - Nutty Professor style lol

Anyway I have decided that at the moment I have too much stress (redundancy, moving house, relationship problems) going on to worry about stopping spending money on food. I move back to my Mum's on/before the 20th and that is when I will stop. Promise.

After work I'm gonna go and get some lovely things from Tesco to tempt myself to cook dinner and take lunches to work. My budget is £20, I reckon I can do it combined with what I already have in the cupboards/freezer

:wave:

Dinah93

I'd reccomend taking £20 out of the hole in the wall and leaving your card at home, sure fire way to stick to your budget!

Have you seen the demotivator on this site? £30 a week on takeaways (rough McDs + £25 on chinese) is £1560 a year, it's the little overspends which get us in debt, but if asked did I want a £25 chinese takeaway or a £5 one from M & S and £20 off my debt I'd go for the M & S one every time!

mynameiscatherine

Dinah93 wrote: »

I'd reccomend taking £20 out of the hole in the wall and leaving your card at home, sure fire way to stick to your budget!

Have you seen the demotivator on this site? £30 a week on takeaways (rough McDs + £25 on chinese) is £1560 a year, it's the little overspends which get us in debt, but if asked did I want a £25 chinese takeaway or a £5 one from M & S and £20 off my debt I'd go for the M & S one every time!

Woah that is a lot per year! I'd probably go with the M&S one, too, but they don't deliver...it's laziness!
The fact that my last chinese takeaway was £25 has scared me off them for a loooong time now anyway.

I'll go and have a look at that demotivator though, that could help, thanks

crumpetmonster

Hi Catherine,

Just popped in to wish you good luck!

I take lunches to work every day now - I fnd things like cous cous and pasta form the basis for good cheap lunches. Today I've got lemon and coriander cous cous with feta and sundried tomatoes, and for the rest of the week I'll have things like Tuna asta sald, salad niscoise with boiled egg halves and tuna, which work out quite cheaply and are all nice storecupboard ingredients.

mynameiscatherine

Thanks crumpetmonster I have brought a home made lunch into work today - poppy seed roll with tuna and mayonnaise yum yum

For the rest of the week I have chicken wraps - the wraps were on offer in Tesco so I stocked up on lots of salady things so lovely lunches for me this week!

Free McDonalds tomorrow, woohoooo :j

My work-mate has just been recommending nice places to go walking. She's bringing me in a book of walking routes tomorrow so that will be good for when me and OH are stuck for things to do.


The bosses at work have made an announcement about the redundancies...
At the moment there are 3 clerks in my department and 1 has to go!! They're doing "last in first out" basically (which I thought wasn't allowed but apparently there's a loophole?) so I would be the 1 to go BUT...
1 clerk can't do shifts (apparently we would be doing 6-2 and 2-10 shifts) and the other clerk has applied for voluntary redundancy.
Now I can do shifts and I won't benefit from voluntary redundancy so looking at it that way I'm OK. But I'm still a bit in the dark

I shall update when I know some more

Swinstie73

Sounds like good news Catherine! Could work in your favour being able to do shifts. When I took (voluntary) redundancy from a job I thought I would be the one to go (between two of us and the other girl had been there years) BUT she was very lazy and was off sick loads so guess who got kept on - Me! Good luck, will keep fingers crossed x

mynameiscatherine

Wow I hope I'm that lucky!

None of us are ever off sick really and we all work hard. One girl has been here 4 years, one 2 years and me 1 year!

At the moment I think the only way I'll get to keep my job is if the girl who has applied for voluntary redundancy goes - but she has been here much longer than me so is "more valuable" and I don't know if she actually wants to leave now. She did a couple of weeks ago but I think she has changed her mind
But we need to know if we're getting shifts because if we are then one of the clerks will have to leave. Hmmmmmm.

It's horrible because I'm really good friends with the other clerks and I feel guilty for thinking of reasons why they should leave

We're having one-on-ones next week and that is when we get told if we're staying apparently. They only need to give me 1 weeks notice :eek: