Heffi's new journey

Heffi1

Hello everyone, I thought as I had been away for a year it was a good time to start my own diary, I love reading others as they give me so much inspiration. I think I should start at the beginning so bear with me as this may be a long post - right things started badly in 2007 when I found I could not meet my minimum payments and so after finding this wonderful site I took some time to read other people's situations and realised I was in dire straits....I called the CCCS and things got better from there on in.

I did not want to ask my then husband for a hand out as I knew he would hold it against me (story of our marriage actually but I will come onto that later!) I decided for the first time in my adult life to take control of my finances, I am so thankful to all of the wonderful people here who for one reason or another found themselves in a similar situation.

After taking stock I realised I owed over £23K :eek::eek: how had it got to this stage I asked myself, well I now know that I had been very silly and let my ex take care of things money wise and realise that is exactly how he liked things to be _ he was and still is a very controlling person and I let things slide. When I announced I was doing this myself he was less than pleased :rolleyes:.

Jump forward to 2008 August he came home from working away for the week with a love bite on his neck he tried to get out of things by saying it was a one night stand and that he was drunk !!!!!! I decided at that point that I did not have to lie any further to myself or anyone else and that my marriage was well and truly dead ! We were supposed to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary the following month and instead I asked him to leave......we are now divorced and for once in my life I am happy again, I no longer have to account for my movements, I do not have to walk on eggshells any longer for fear of upsetting him - he had a terrible habit of sulking if things did not go his way :huh: He has since married his one night stand and they live further down south.....The children visit and I have attempted to keep my feelings to myself as much as possible where their father is concerned. (it has not always been easy :rotfl::rotfl:)

2009 has been a weird year as you can probably imagine, I buried my head in the sand where my personal life was concerned and tried to get on with things, well it all came crashing down around me a while ago and I have been off work for a while now with stress and depression, luckily my Dr is very supportive and I have a great boss who is understanding, I am on the road to recovery now and will be back to work very soon.

Right I will stop for now and carry on soon if you can bear reading my mutterings I do tend to ramble on a bit, but I suppose that is who I am and now I am able to see that I am not a bad person, I was just in a bad situation.

More soon you have been warned, remind me to tell you about Steve!!

Heffi1

As promised I am back lol, I am just back in the house after doing a little last minute xmas shopping, I have limited myself to £10 per person which is quite enough I think. Both children are now grown up so understand about the finances - it was one of the things I decided to do once I was on my own - my Son who is 24 now had no idea where my money went to each month and it was a painful conversation having to ask him for more money to be contributed to the housekeeping pot, but once he saw how much the bills were and how much I got paid he immediately went and set up a standing order at his bank to pay his board into mine each month. So a very successful if somewhat painful experience for us both. My daughter who is 20 already has a standing order at her bank and is very financially aware for someone so young. She realised how much stress and worry I was going through so took it upon herself to sort things out before she was asked. They are both great kids and I am so proud of them for their achievements to date :j

So here I am 44 years old and having to look after myself again, I was terrified of being on my own so stuck at the marriage because the alternative seemed so hard......I love being on my own........I should have done so 18 years ago :eek: but we live and learn I suppose.

Right that is the end of my doom and gloom I hope from this point on I want to look at the positive things I have in my life not the negatives...

Heffi1

I just realised I never updated about my debt - lol I am sure you may get used to me wandering off topic I will try to stay closer to the subject in future..

I have had my review recently with CCCS and so far so good, I had been paying £119 per month and it was going to be 14 years :eek:before I could say I was debt free. Well after my review and with juggling some more numbers I increased my amount to £282 this month :T it will be hard and I know I will struggle as well, but and heres the thing that is keeping me going, it has brought my DFD down to 5 years :j:j so if I can keep to that amount and no disaster befalls me I only have a small way to go now, seeing as it was 19 years on the first estimate.

So I am setting myself a target of a nice holiday all paid for in cash (well on someone elses CC in case of disaster and paying them the cash)

savingholmes

Good luck on your journey and well done for increasing your payments. Perhaps try the Make £10 a day challenge as a way of bringing in some extra dosh tax free

SarahNeedle1872

Hiya Heffi, have 'seen you around' and thought I'd pop in to say hi - and subscribe!

Sx

Heffi1

savingholmes wrote: »

Good luck on your journey and well done for increasing your payments. Perhaps try the Make £10 a day challenge as a way of bringing in some extra dosh tax free

Thanks for that I will have a look at that thread and see what I can do

Heffi1

SarahNeedle1872 wrote: »

Hiya Heffi, have 'seen you around' and thought I'd pop in to say hi - and subscribe!

Sx

Hi Sarah I have seen you around also lol thanks for subscribing, hopefully this will make interesting reading, and hopefully pick up a few new friends along the way so stay tuned and any comments are always well recieved even if they are of the kickup the bum type :rotfl:

Heffi1

Good morning everyone, I overslept this morning and now feel as though I have a hangover, but not from alcohol am I the only one this happens to...my head feels battered cos I slept really deeply, I should not complain really as my sleep pattern has been all over the place recently.

Plans for today, I hope I can complete the rest of the Xmas shopping and then I can relax for a little while.

I hope your day is going well keep up the good work savings wise everyone xxx

Heffi1

I have just paid £50 towards my Grattans bill so that leaves £90.34 left to pay so I feel good about that, but it only leaves me a little to play with for xmas presents now - oh well debt first pressies later is the way I am tackling life these days :T

Heffi1

Good evening one and all, I hope you have all had a good day - mine has been a bit slow, but I did manage to get to the Metro Centre (large shopping centre in Gateshead for those that may be wondering) and it was heaving with people, even though it's a work day.

I have now completed my present buying and it is a good job because I had to put petrol in the car and I also paid my Grattans bill as mentioned earlier so a good day all round, now onto cooking the tea, we are having pork chops which I think I will do with some nice creamy mash and some veg the weather is awful tonight so nice comfort food :j

Catch up with more mutterings as I think of them I expect lol

Heffi1

I think I am going to spend some time this evening doing some baking I find it calms me and I love the smell of home baking, probably some cheese scones and some fruit ones for my mum as she doesnt eat cheese, and maybe a cake of some sort. The sponge I made on Saturday was lovely and has made me realise what a lazy cook I have become