Taking the Plunge - desperatelyseekingmoney's diary

desperatelyseekingmoney_2

Hi

I feel such a failure. I had every good intention of getting myself out of debt and I blew it within a week of starting!!! I bought some conservatory furniture on my credit card (it did have £300.00 off due to being ex display!). It felt good at the time of purchase but when I got home home I felt physically sick! If I am honest I am pleased that I bought it and I have managed to sell my old furniture on ebay (100% profit as the furniture was free when we had the conservatory built). But since that day I have taken my cards out of my purse and have not considered using them again. I learnt a valuable lesson that day and intend to carry that forward with me.

I have managed to do 2 things this month and that is I have reduced my grocery shopping and I have kept a spending diary (I shall carry on with this). It has been quite interesting to see where my money is going and I am now thinking twice before I buy things that I don't necessarily need.

I have not updated my signature yet, I shall do this sometime this week.

Sorry for the waffle but I needed to write this down.

desperatelyseekingmoney_2

Well I have updated my signature and was horrified to see that my debt free date has moved by 3 months!!! I am gobsmacked. It serves me right I know.

Today has been a positive day for me, I found out how much I will get paid on Friday and hopefully I shall be able to make an overpayment next month. I am also planning on doing a car boot near to the end of May as I am running out of items to put on ebay so hopefully that will be extra money to pay off aswell. I also only spent £15.00 today for my d2 rainbow club.

I am hoping to only spend 40p tomorrow on a TV guide. Will keep you all posted.

Ali-OK

Hi

Don't beat yourself up on the furniture front - we all do the 2 steps forward, 1 step back sometimes and you've learnt something valuable to take forward with you. And you made a profit on selling the old.

Excellent news on the extra pay - however small an overpayment, it does make a difference. No more ignoring the pennies for me - I only did £s before!

You've just reminded me about sorting stuff for a car boot!! I have too much stuff to sort and really dislike the thought of getting up early on the 2 days a fortnight I get to lay in!! I need a car boot mantra to get me going!!

GreyPilgrim

desperatelyseekingmoney wrote:

Hi

I feel such a failure. I had every good intention of getting myself out of debt and I blew it within a week of starting!!! I bought some conservatory furniture on my credit card (it did have £300.00 off due to being ex display!).

Well welcome mate. As a newbie myself its good to identify with someone else (and hundreds of others). Don't beat yourself up over this too much. Maybe you have screwed up, but getting depressed is really only going to make things worse. Learn from it. Try and make a firm distinction between things you NEED and things you WANT (I'm not preaching I'm talking from experience)... I've done similar things (but not on a similar scale I must admit).

I realised what an idiot I've been in the past when I walk past special offers in a supermarket...."Buy one get one free" for example. Logical response is "Ooooh...what a bargain", so I buy it...Except I hadn;'t even intended to buy ONE in the first place. So I haven't really saved. I've lost. And because there's twice as much in the fridge, I'll generally eat twice as quickly...doh...

desperatelyseekingmoney_2

Thank you Ali-ok & Greypilgrim for your kind words. I know I will get much pleasure from my new furniture and will spend lots of evenings in the conservatory. I just need to buckle down and pay it off!

At least I have managed to reduce my grocery bill by a considerable amount this month, and this is all down to this website do thank you guys.

desperatelyseekingmoney_2

I was very pleased with myself yesterday. I spent £1.00 on a raffle ticket at a virgin vie party that I was begged to go to last night. I only took cash with me and was horrified at the prices of the make up, I don't wear a lot of the stuff to be quite honest so I was not really tempted.

I have spent quite a bit today as it is pay day but the majority of it was on debt so I shall adjust my amounts again at the weekend.

Hope everyone has a nice break this weekend, I shall and hopefully it won't be very expensive!!!

desperatelyseekingmoney_2

I cannot believe that I have achieved by target for April! I am so pleased. I haven't set myself an actual target yet for May, I am aiming to do a car boot and whatever I don't sell I shall try on ebay. Will keep you posted.

Emmzi

Well done dsm! How much did you get your spend down by?

desperatelyseekingmoney_2

I managed to reduce it by £30.00 and I am aiming to reduce this further this month. It's funny I never really took any notice of how much the grocery shoppping was, but now I look at every item to see if I can get a cheaper version. I have also started going every other week instead of every week and that has helped me aswell. Its amazing how good it feels when the bill comes to less than what you have been used to. I have also started planning our meals and cooking a lot of things from scratch, which means we are eating more heathily.

desperatelyseekingmoney_2

I have had a great couple of days. I had a no spend day on the 2nd. On the 3rd I made an over payment to my credit card of £5.86 (every little helps!), On the 4th I spent £6.24 on groceries, 40p on a tv guide and £19.91 on birthday presents for d2 birthday on Monday, today at the moment nothing and I plan to keep it that way!

I am starting to feel more in control of my spending now and I am finding it easier to budget for things.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.