Small steps - dreamer's journey to a more frugal life.

dreamer40

Hi all, :wave:

I am new and along time lurker, have decided to start a diary to keep track of my journey to a more debt free frugal life.

I have four debt totalling £5,000. I am setting my self a challenge to pay one of those debts by 30st of September.

CHALLENGE PAY VANQUIS C.C BY 30TH OF SEPTEMBER.

I owe £583.88. The yearly interest is 34.080%.:eek:

My plan is:-

• Continue to make minimum payments.
• Use Tax Credit payments.(instead of frittering away)
• Use travel expenses payment.(instead of frittering away)
• Come in under budget on grocery challenge, £240 budgeted.
• Have 12 NSD's in July , August and September.

This is my first small step to acheiving my long term goals.

Back soon.x

Lemon_Tree

hi and welcome to the diary threads. Lots will say that by putting it down on here you are more likely to achieve your goals and i have to agree. Good luck, it's better to break down the long term goal into a few smaller ones, then it doesn't out face you.

dreamer40

Thank you Lemon Tree for your welcome.I agree small steps are best.

My small step for yesterday was to pay £117.05 off the Vanquis C.C, made up of Tax Credit £111.85, Quidco £3.39 and Amazon £1.81. Feel pleased with myself for making the payment because I know that if I left the Tax Credit in the account it would get used up and I would not know what I had spent it on. Same goes for the Quidco and Amazon payments.

I also made the minimum payment of £20.00 a few weeks ago and I paid £10.00 from free scratch money.So far I have paid £147.05, very pleased with this amount, well on the way to clearing the card.

Lemon_Tree

well done for such a large overpayment relative to your minimum payment. Have you had a look at the payment a day thread? There's lots of folk on there who have really cut through their debts just by making little payments each day.

dreamer40

Thank you Lemon Tree. I have had a look at The Payment a Day Thread, everyone is doing really well.Making a payment everyday would not work for me, I need to pay a large amount when the money is in my account otherwise I would spent it. Next payment wil be around the 13th when all my D.D have gone from my account and I will transfer what is left to C.C.

Small step today will be to list books on Amazon, dont know how many yet as I need to go into the loft and find some.

Small step for yesterday was only spending £33.55 of my £240 grocery budget.

westiedog

Dreamer

Thats what I plan to do same as you is to put a larger amount aside then pay it off as and when it comes in xxx :T

claire0788

Ye I make larger payments aswell because of the way I get paid from my jobs and also I feel better making bigger payments than lots of small ones

Your doing great with hitting that credit card. Would it be possible for you to transfer it to another card with a lower interest rate while you paid it off?

Lemon_Tree

i'm not able to make PAD's due to the nature of my debt so i'm now having to start and save up so that i can make lump sum payments to close the loans down. it would be easier if i could keep seeing balances come down but there you go it's not to be.

dreamer40

westiedog, claire0788, Lemon Tree I have been looking at your sigs and you are all doing well. i had a large amount off debt a few years ago which I added to my mortgage at the trime it was right of me, this bit of debt has been around since then.Because of the debt I had cant get low interest cards.

Listed 31 books on Amazon on Sunday, two have sold :j another £20.00 towards C.C.

dreamer40

Paid £36.99 to C.C this morning,Amazon sales and minimum payment. I was hoping to pay an extra £100 by using my expenses, when my wages went into the bank there was no expenses included :mad:, the reasing being payroll have changed the date they need the expenses form in by. My extra payment will now have to wait until next month. Next payment will be made at the end of the month when I receive Tax Credit payment.

Not doing so go on my NSD challenge 5 out of 12 so far. One thing I have realised so far this month by writting everything I spend down is the amount of money I forget to put on my expenses, things like parking and buying tea's for my clients when we have meeting in cafe's, going to be more caerful in future.

Grocery challenge is going well and I have started to use my breadmaker again, the smell when the bread is cooking in wonderful. Our allotment has been very productive which helps with my grocery spending.

This afternoon I have a lot of documents to shread, started to de-clutter the loft and found the box of papers,some are years old. Also need to look at the Ebaying thread,there is a lot of stuff in our loft that needs to go, oh and in the garage.:eek:

Karen_30

Hi Dreamer,

Just wanted to pop in and say hello! You're doing fab already - you'll have that card cleared in no time.

Totally understand what you mean by using the money (like tax credits) to pay the debts rather than frittering away! I am good at that, think i'll just leave that there just in case and before I know it the money is gone :eek: Think I might have to take a leaf out of your book and pay the money off straight away

Wishing you lots of luck, so have subscribed and will pop back to see how you're doing! xx