My journey towards Debt Freedom!!

crapwithcash82

Hi All,

I've had diaries on the site before but they seem to get lost and I don't keep them up to date... bad me!! I thought this board would be a great place to start as I'm now determined that I WILL be in a position to offer Full and Final payments to my creditors by December 2009. My plan is to have around £5000 by December so that I can make offers of initially 25% to each of my creditors, while still being in a position to negotiate up to 30-ish% of each balance.

My current situation is I work full time, have a darling daughter who is coming up for 2 and am a "mature" student studying 2 nights a week to complete my degree. My OH is fantastic and extremely supportive (most of the time!!) about me trying to clear my debts. At the moment he pays the mortgage and all of our outgoings, which total around £1200 with me only contributing £200 per month, just so I feel like I am actually contributing. My finances will change again in May as our DD is going to a childminder, so this is another outgoing I will have to factor into my budget. I will get some sort of tax relief on this tho, as my employer operates a scheme where the money for childcare comes off before your tax does.

I started listing on the "what small debt free things have you done to today" daily thread and find this gives me LOADS of motivation - not only posting on it, but reading what other people are doing seems to give me new ideas... so thanks sophiesmum for the daily threads!! This seems to have given me the kick up the backside I needed to do something about my debts!

So I have a new savings account with Alliance & Leicster (done via quidco for £20 cashback!) that I will dump all this money in and hopefully be in a stronger financial position at the end of the year.

So far over the course of this week I have done the following to raise some cash, on top of my wages:

* Sold a mobile phone to a cash-back site via quidco
* Sold a batch of around 25 CD's to music magpie (trial batch as this is the first time I've used them
* Sold some bits and pieces at work on our for sale board
* Submitted my expenses at work for £190~ (Although we plan to use up to £90 of this to do our garden, lay some turf and make it nice for the summer - we moved in 2 years ago so this really needs done now!)
* Looked out some items for ebay / car boot sale

I also have a spreadsheet of all my incomings and outgoings, so that I know exactly how much I am spending on what. I've cut right back on buying lunches at work and am making packed lunches, so thats a few pounds each day I could put into my A&L account too.

I FULLY intend to keep this diary up to date so please feel free to give me a nudge if it looks like I'm not doing so! Any ideas or suggestions or just moral support are indeed welcome....

Looking forward to becoming debt free along with the other wonderful DFW's on this site!!

:j:j:j:j:j

yukkibear

Good luck with your saving / debt busting. I agree a diary really helps your motivation x

crapwithcash82

yukkibear wrote: »

Good luck with your saving / debt busting. I agree a diary really helps your motivation x

Thanks yukkibear! I'm aiming to update the diary everyday to keep my motivation up, I've worked out that £5000 before the end of the year is only £20 per day - I could have spent that each day easily in my old (pre-DFW) days, so I'll just have to find ways to save that amount per day with my new attitude!

Swinstie73

Hi crapwithcash,

Well done on re-starting your diary, I started one too and really find it helps, especially if you try and update everyday. Good luck, will subscribe and see how you are getting on!

crapwithcash82

Swinstie73 wrote: »

Hi crapwithcash,

Well done on re-starting your diary, I started one too and really find it helps, especially if you try and update everyday. Good luck, will subscribe and see how you are getting on!

Hi Swinstie,

Thanks! I'm off to bed now, but I will have a read through your diary tomorrow and subscribe too - the more I read the more encouraged I become, this site has definately been great for my finances!

crapwithcash82

Ooh I forgot to add to my original post that I have sent away a letter to Lloyds TSB to try and reclaim £2193 of bank charges too... I know this will have to wait until the test case is over but I'm now in the Q with everyone else! I only posted it on Thursday so I don't expect a response yet.

crapwithcash82

Morning All!

Just checking in, about to get back to my revision but thought I would post on here first. Hoping I can do a No Spend Day today, I should manage as I don't plan to go anywhere, just sit with my nose in a book most of the day!

Have a nice day

crapwithcash82

Well I have successfully managed my first NSD!! :j

Unfortunately I KNOW this won't be the case tomorrow as my car is in for its MOT :rolleyes: Hopefully it won't need too much, although I know the handbrake needs fixing too. I have left around £200 for the total bill, but any more than that I've got no idea what I will do. The car is coming up for 6 years old so its not ancient in the grand scheme of things - keeping my fingers crossed anyway!

Today I've done about three and a half hours revision for my exam next week, and have managed to nip on to ebay and stick on a few items. I think I might list some of my CD albums on Ebay - I didn't realise that if an item was 99p start there were no listing fees. I figure if I get even 99p and 50p postage each then its more that the 30p and 59p I am getting from Musicmagpie for them - if they don't go on ebay then I will 'magpie em!

Anyway, off to arrange a lift back from the garage tomorrow and then get my head stuck back into a book! Will pop back later to see if anyone has been on to say Hi!

kadiya

Found you

crapwithcash82

kadiya wrote: »

Found you

Yaaay!! Now we can keep a track on each others diaries!! Makes me update it each day if I think anyone is actually reading it! :rotfl:

Today I have started listing some CD's on ebay at 99p starting bid, I'm aiming to get at least 20 listed today - done 14 so far!!

My car is in the garage getting its MOT as we speak so I am hoping and praying it passes, I've not budgeted a huge amount for it (around £200) so it had BETTER pass!!

Have also advertised a couple more items at work for sale, if they don't go I'll ebay them, and if they don't go on ebay, its out to the shed to the car boot sale pile with them!

kadiya

Good work on the ebay stuff!
What course are you studying?I was thinking of going through OU once everything has calmed down a little bit around here, but may have to wait and see, kwim?

Any news on the car yet?Keeping my fingers crossed it passes!