Marching On

bevan840

Hi Roxie
You seem to be doing really well, especially as you have £2.13 left and that's after all your budgetting Let's hope that little amount stays there You do know you don't have to spend the whole £50 don't you You could have a jar/pot somewhere and anything left over could go in there Or maybe any random coppers lying around

How do you work out the percentage of what you've already paid off?

Liliboo

Hiya Roxie

Couldn't read and run, I wanted to say a huge WELL DONE as you seem to be doing pretty well with the motivation. Knowing where that £100 went this week is a massive step to becoming more disciplined with your money.

I'll be subscribing and popping back regularly to see how you're getting on...no doubt you'll put my diary to shame.

xxxxxx

salduck

Hi Roxie,
I have to say I am an avid lurker and secret reader of debt free diariesm however something about yours has struck a note with me!
I understand you are in debt and trying to balance the books BUT i also whole heartedly agree with you tring to stick to reasonable budgets. i know some on here can and have very admirabley got their spending down to practically zilch but I for one take some hints and tips and not others as I dont really want to be scraping the barrel all the time!!
I dont mean that nastily to anyone but sometimes you have (if you can!) got to just have that £30 p*ss up or that big bag of expensive crisps!!! lol Life is for living and you sound like you are on the right track to getting the right balance!!One thing I do is take money out for a night out say £30 and if i spend it all well no treats the next day if I have a fiver or whatever left I let myself have chips/crisps whatever and put the rest in my piggy bank no matter if there is 2p or £20 left as I was planning to spend it all the night before anyway!! But if there is nowt left then no treats!!
Best of luck and I will follow avidly.

roxiepie_2

Hi guys, its really nice to have people reading - I thought I'd be all on my own here! Feel free to pop in anytime

Thanks bevan, my trouble is I find it difficult to not look at it as an amount that needs spending! Good idea with saving what's left, I was thinking about transferring the leftovers each month onto my credit card. I work the percentage paid off as the following:

100 _________X__ AMOUNT PAID OFF = PERCENTAGE PAID
TOTAL DEBT

Hello Lilboo, thanks for the kind words! Writing it all down really has worked, I'd recommend it to anyone. It changes your attitude to spending as you don't want to add anything unless you absolutely have to! Where's your diary, I'll have to have a nose...

Salduck I completely agree! Whilst I admire some of the lengths people are managing to go to clear their debt, I know its not something that would work for me. I find - and it sounds like you do - that having 'treats' such as nights/days out is what keeps me going whilst doing all this crazy debt clearing business!

In other news I have been super geeky and worked out how much I spent in each area last week. As it was £100 it easily converts to pecentages (see, I told you, geeky).

£ 26.08 Food
£ 6.09 Toiletries
£ 33.00 Going out
£ 2.76 Entertainment
£ 14.08 Petrol
£ 14.99 Houshold
£ 2.00 Presents
£ 1.00 DF Reward Pot

Can't believe how much I spent on food, not meals out just snacks, lunch stuff etc. Main aim will be to cut it back this week. Have sandwiches from home and haven't spent a penny of this weeks budget so far. Also managed to pay another £50.64 of credit card. which means I'm just that £14.21 of my challenge. Come on eBay!

SilkCutSilver

Hi just thought I'd drop by and say hi after I joined your DF Reward Pot challenge. Love the diary - and looking at your £100 I thought to begin with it seemed like a lot but broken down that seems about similar to what I can easily spend in a week! I'm budgeting through my piggy banking instead of a set amount each week but seems to be (sort of) working so far.

CaroleM_3

Hi Roxie,

Sounds like you are off to a great start, you seem so motivated!

I always plan to do the £50 per week thing and it never works out, I always go off the rails in the 1st week after pay day and then there is never enough left over for me to have £50 weekly. But I like your system of increasing it in the first week intentionally, I may try that next month, thanks for the idea!

Good luck with everything,

bevan840

Thank you for telling me how to work it out, been confusing myself over that one for ages lol, apparantly I've paid off 9%!!!! :rofl: need to try a bit harder I think hehe only problem is I got no idea where I can find any more lol never mind.
After seeing how the £100 was broken down it made much more sense just a shame having a life has to be so expensive I got rid of mine after I moved, I don't know anyone up here so no-one to go with on random shopping trips, means more money in my pocket though

Keep going, your doing really well and I hope you manage to find the last £15 to hit your target x

jonnyb1978

Hi

One thing i have really noticed since i started is cutting out buying silly things. I work shift and a big thing was buying chocolate or a sandwhich at work.
When you walk into a shop and think i may but a mars bar. Ask yourself do you really need it? Either skip it or buy a cheaper alternative.
May sound daft but ive noticed a big difference this month. Keep what you would of spent to one side and you will find a good few quid in your pocket at the end of the month.

roxiepie_2

Thanks for your support guys!

Bevan it can't be nice being in a place where you don't know anyone, but maybe you could look at is as all being part of a master plan to help you pay off debt! Out of interest, where have you moved to?

I know what you mean jonny. I thought I didn't spend much on snacks etc, but since I've monitored it I've found out non-essential food accounts for a quarter of my spending money!

No progress on my Birthday challenge, but I have a couple of ebay listings ending this sunday. One's already up to £21 so that should cover it nicely.

Now focusing on my birthday itself. Would be nice to have a little more than my allocated £50 budget to spend across the week. Even if its just for a few extra treats like meals out, takeaways and dvd rents (I'm so very wild!). With that in mind I am trying to save as much as I can of this week's budget. So far I have spent £26.70, and this is inclusive of treating myself and BF to a M&S Dine In For £10 deal tonight. Lovely it was too!

I have a party to go to tomorrow night, but gifts/food have all been bought (I've even using the wine from tonight's dine in deal to take as my alcohol contribution!). Rather than buying expensive prepacked food - as I normally would do - I am planning to prepare a few dishes to take myself. So all it cost me was £1.74 for ingredients I didn't already have.

Apart from this, I don't have any other plans for the weekend, so hoping to save at least £20 of this week's budget. This should give me a nice fat £70 next week. I would normally put this 'surplus' towards paying debt, but I hope no one will begrudge me blowing it just for this one little special week of the year

Cashwitch

Hi Rosie - welcome to the diaries! Good idea about the £50 weekly budget...mine is less at the moment - I've just paid off a load of personal loans that were costing me just under £300 a month and now limbering up for getting off the starting blocks saving-wise in 2 weeks. Totally empathise about the night-out-snack weekend scenario...unfortunately this is the main reason why I and OH ended up in so much debt...Thankfully LBM put paid to that!! Good luck