Single and in Debt Part 3- The problem of surplus and excess women

sarahb123_3

Hello all:)

My car is playing up again:mad: So sick of it! Am taking it to the garage in the morning.:( This is on top of the enormous gas bill I received last week :mad: May is going to be a very expensive month methinks:mad:. I had to drive to two meetings today and it was quite frightening as I was afraid of breaking down on the motorway so I need to get it fixed asap but I am sick of spening money on that car:mad:

In honour of this I am going to declare May as my most frugal month ever. Back to the £20 food budget, only one trip to the supermarket a week, no treats and plenty of decluttering and ebaying and not a penny unaccounted for. I feel exhausted and depressed just thinking about it.

On top of all this the NM has dropped his recent stance of trying (and failing) to be pleasant *shudders* and returned to his old ways:mad::mad::mad:. I actually prefer this to him trying to engage me in conversation as if nothing has happened, when we both know he is an underhand little !!!!!!.:mad:

I have also had a card from the Post Office to say there is an item for me to collect but the sender hasn't put enough postage on so I need to go pay £1.30 to collect it, I can't think what it is but I have been ordering a few things off the freebies board recently and am not going to be impressed if something free ends up costing me money on my first day of super frugality.

I need to think of some positive things to concentrate on. My job is going okay at the moment, I have made some overpayments, I am due some cashback and I have made £95 this month on ebay. (It would have been more but I saw a nice skirt earlier in the month and my hand slipped and pressed Buy It Now:o). I have put some more things up on ebay to compensate though:D

Hope everyone has had a good day and has nice plans for the weekend:)

Lula-Hula

Hi sarah,

sorry to hear about your car, sounds like it needs to move on to a new owner as sson as financially viable. Since all the drama with my previous car, I have been very determined to always maintain enough savings / credit card facility to fix my current one. I can live without many things if necessary, but cars & washing machines are not on that list.

Grim that the gnome has returned to previous habits, but try to view it him actually helping you to keep motivated to save ... just think how furious he would be to know that you were benefitting from his loathsomeness

Ah, the perils of 'buy it now' been there, done that ... .

Dare'nt tot up my final accounts for April , all I will say is that I was over £800 before buying wardrobes & the 2 dresses that found their way in way earlier this week.

NB - another plus of having a cat is that parcels that dont fit through the letterbox, will fit through the cat flap :rotfl:.

I have to clear my debt within the next year, I have set myself a £200 a month budget for general living expenses ... scarily, I have already done a quarter of this.

Will be decluttering over the weekend, but all to the bin I think .

sarahb123_3

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Grim that the gnome has returned to previous habits, but try to view it him actually helping you to keep motivated to save ... just think how furious he would be to know that you were benefitting from his loathsomeness

:j:j:j:j

Lula-Hula wrote: »

Ah, the perils of 'buy it now' been there, done that ... .

I tried not to look:o But I was looking at prices for skirts so I knew how much to sell mine for so it was hardly my fault;) and I used my ebay funds so it was more of a swap than a purchase.:) And it was a bargain.:) *stops justifying and remembers this sort of behaviour is what got me here*:o

Souk08

Hey ladies,

April was carp for me as well Lula but it's over and I need to look forwards. Asda have been tonight and so has an FWB so uber chilled now. Made lunch for tomorrow at work already and determined to keep to food budgets etc this month.

Enjoy ladies X

Lula-Hula

That may well be your best justification speech yet :rotfl:

I have been utterly dreadful in April, as if having debt at 0% for a year somehow negates its existence ... hence wardrobe expenditure .

I have a sort of clip on a stand ( meant to be for photos I think) that I attach all my receipts to, before filing them away at the end of the month & April is positively bulging.

I have definitely been both rewarding & compensating myself this month & although I now feel sated & have alos made some good long-term saving style purchases, I have also not been keeping on top of things.

I've decided not to worry about NSDs this month as I can easily achieve over my target every month, yet it doesnt prevent massive over spending on the in-between days, so not really effective at reducing outgoings in total.

I am instead, going to focus on actually living within a budget. It's taken me a year to see the results, but I have finally got to grips with saving for future expenses & by sweeping the money into a separate account every payday, I dont even have time to miss it.

I tend to cheat at the grocery budget as home-job is paid in cash so its' easy to just spend an extra £10 - £15 & use DD as an excuse to 'need' to buy stuff .

I'm not sure why I'm so scared of living within a budget, but I really need to or all the hard work that's gone into reducing my original apr from 29.9 % to 0 % will have been for nothing.

My main method will be to just avoid shops altogether, both real & virtual

We can do this, you need to get yourself a house as I need somewhere to go for a drink when I run out of wine at 20 past 11 on a friday night

Lula-Hula

ps - anyone heard from Shoe Gal recently ? I'm hoping things have 'developed' with flirty text guy

Need my bed now as have hideous weekend of painting ahead ... yet another reason to become DF ... so I can afford to hire professionals to do it for me

niccatw

Lula, if you figure out how to live within your budget, can you let me know how you did it? Sometimes I think I'm just playing at debt-busting!

I'm most upset thatthe snooker is now on and I can't watch more of the lovely Damon Albarn on Jools Holland! Might as well go to bed now then!

Lula-Hula

niccatw wrote: »

Lula, if you figure out how to live within your budget, can you let me know how you did it? Sometimes I think I'm just playing at debt-busting!!

Hmmm, have been 'playing' at it myself for quite while now, but having the 0% deal has given me a deadline to work towards. The trouble is, I have always been able to rustle up spare money from one of many stashes if I felt the urge, so have never actually had to live within a budget

I have learnt so many things on the dfw journey, now just need to conquer this budget one.

Failure is not an option :mad:

I'm most upset thatthe snooker is now on and I can't watch more of the lovely Damon Albarn on Jools Holland! Might as well go to bed now then

Absolutely with you on that too - tedious game at the best of times, did try learning to play but having double D s is not conducive to all that leaning over the table malarkey .

Bar billiards on the other hand ... :cool: I was a bit of legend in my local back in the day .

Right, off to set up my afternoons entertainment now ... watching paint dry :rotfl:

Souk08

Happy decorating lady! Apart from last month I have been sticking to a budget quite well this year. I use my budget calculator and divide whatever I have left up by 4 or 5 weeks, draw it out once a week and try to make it last. Not saying it always works as some weeks there's more happening than others but at least then I can choose to offset the expense of a busy week off with some money from another one and I know where I'm at. I also write down my spends EVERY day in a wee diary and have a seperate purse for my food money. If I can do it, anyone can HTH XXX

Shoe_Gal

Lula-Hula wrote: »

ps - anyone heard from Shoe Gal recently ? I'm hoping things have 'developed' with flirty text guy

I'm here

Nothing to report from 'flirty text guy' Now he's back in the UK has practically ignored me all week - oh, well

My April has been really bad moneywise, £200 on my credit card just for day-to-day stuff :mad: Not really bought stuff this month but have been out a lot - so not the end of the world. I've always said I want to have a life as well as pay off debt. Will pay it off over the next couple of months, and try really hard not to add to it

Only 4 weeks to my hols now :j and I have lost 2lbs - trying to have a bit of a 'goddessing blitz' before I go

Hope eveybody has a good weekend