The Big One -My debt-free by 30 journey

dottyanne

Ahh, makes sense now, and thats a good flat mate you have, keeps it fair and square, your SOA looks quite good too, ive been going thrrough my debts, a fair few are paid next year and i wanna get rid of the smaller ones too, i broke that down into days, goot a put £3.60 into a NEVER TO BE OPENED UNTIL 31ST DECEMBER 2010 pot (lol) and they will be gone !!

SilkCutSilver

That sounds like a good plan - maybe I will work mine out like that in order to make it seem more manageable. It will probably help me stop spending on small things each day in a "ooh I can have sushi OR I can put £3.60 in the pot" type way.

My SOA is in better shape than it was. Only a couple of years ago I was taking brown rice and salad cream to work for my lunch at the end of the month as I had no other choice! So annoying that I earn about 3 times more now and I have paid off quite a lot of debt yet I still live to my income and not to my brain!

SilkCutSilver

Hmmm £7.25 a day. That sounds acheiveable in some ways but scary in others!

dottyanne

Well even i thought that, but im sure i can find 3.60 per day by hook or by crook, i was initially going to start on 1st september but sod it - im starting today, i want rid of these debts once and for all and they arent going to get rid of themselves, i made some bad choices and am paying for it now! BUT, onwards and upwards, hope you find it easier to break down too, im just off to hunt for a Pot to save it in

SilkCutSilver

Made £1.06 on Quidco today from purchase of train ticket for work. That's a start I guess, I also didn't buy lunch today..I ate my muesli and yoghurt from home so my daily allowance of £5 is in tact.

I did buy a couple of books at Waterloo to read this evening (I'm here on my own this week :-( ) though. I may consider that normal spending and the other stuff as going towards the debt while simultaneously trying to cut the spending.

dottyanne

I do find theres loads of great advice and tips on here but everyone and everyones circumstances are different - do whatever works best for you, i know that breaking it down make it seem less daunting for me so thats why im approaching it this way

SilkCutSilver

:mad: Arghhhhhhhhhh I'm so annoyed with myself. Just did my every-few-days-calculation of budget and discovered my little slurge last week as set me back on my plans. Stupidly I dipped into my expenses money to spend last week - it's complicated but basically we pay for things on our corporate credit cards, then we get the money back and it sits in an account for 6 weeks until the next payment goes out. Often the money paid is more than you have on the card i.e. taxis and things you have paid for in cash, plus your daily allowances, so often there is a bit left over which is actually 'yours'. Stupidly I miscalculated this amount massively and now I will have to pay some of next months credit card bill out of my own money which means I am officially skint for next month with no spare funds for the debt-free plan....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. :mad:

dottyanne

Hey, these things happend and altough we beat ourselves up about them, !!!!!! happens, ive been on these forums for ages, since about 2006 on and off and see all the things that everyday life throws up at us, some days it does seem that you are getting nowhere, i too am going to have nothing much for at least 9 months (thats a best case scenario) as my budget tells me im £200 a month short for all my repayments, it scares me but what can we do? you have my support if you need it, you will get there

SilkCutSilver

Thanks dotty - it's just so annoying when you know there is no one to blame but yourself for silly choices...most annoyingly is on paper my SOA looks excellent - I'd be sorted if I didn't make such mistakes!

Did you look at cutting the grocery budget to recoup the £200? I strongly recommend that Economy Gastronomy show - I'll find out what channel its on - they're bound to have recipes online - last week it was a family of four or five and they cut their bills something like 5K a year from what they were!

One good thing which just happened is that Vodafone have agreed to send me a new work mobile phone - my old one was so unreliable there was no way I could get rid of my personal one and just use that. Now fingers crossed when my upgrade comes up in September on my personal mobile I can cancel and just use the work phone which is free and unlimited and save myself £30 a month. Now I think I need to go investigate my cancellation period.........

dottyanne

Im defo going to look at the grocery shopping as a way of cutting down, although being realistic i doubt i will be able to cut my the whole of the £200, ours is a family of 5 too, i do know that cooking from scratch usually works out cheper and is better for you but im gonna ave to be more disciplined, its easy when you get in from work with 5 hungry ppl all screaming for their food to shove something pre made in or ring the take away but its not economical, i feel sometimes im doing this half heartedly and if i want to get rid of my 9 'pest' debts by end of 2010 then im going to have to buckle down more...

Good luck with the mobile, a £30 saving each month would be FAB !!