I'm tackling my debts in 2010

Radish72

We love AI holidays and with children it will work out cheaper as they can have drinks and ice cream on tap (though some hotels limit the ice cream to certain times)

And if you come back without gaining weight then you haven't done it justice

emmie26

Well what a frivolous day, went shopping with mum which was lovely, however I spent £1.50 parking, £5 coffee and teacake, £50 on two tops for mums birthday, bless her she kept on looking at all the prices and putting things back and ended up picking up a plain vest top and saying that would be fine so I had to really encourage her to spend my money, but she deserves a treat she does lots for us we have never had to pay for childcare, so I felt it was money well spent.
When I got back we decided to book the holiday the reason being that if we go in June rather than August we will be saving ourself about £1500 and although we are not debt free all our debt is 0% and one of our cards is 0% until Feb 2012 on purchases so although we have increased our debt in the short term we will be saving money in the long-term. Now here is for the challenge, I am going to attempt to pay for the holiday through overtime alone, the holiday was £2000 I've worked out that after tax I earn around £10 an hour slightly more at a weekend, so that means 200hours of overtime, I generally do 6 hour shifts so that means I need to do around 4 per month to pay for it (I already have one planned for next weekend).

I really feel like I am in the land of the living again our life has really been on hold whilst we have sorted out our debt but all the changes we have made have become like second nature to us now and I can't see us changing any time soon. Today shopping with my mum I was not at all tempted to buy anything for myself because I knew I didn't have the money and didn't really need anything.

Bit sad to update the signature though but I am really looking forward to the holiday cannot wait 6 weeks to go or more importantly 2 more paydays!

InaPickle

Well at least you are trying to get the money through a challenge which looks like you can keep up your repayments as well, so it's a win-win situation!

Very best of luck with that, and keep us in the loop: 3 posts in 3 days and we are getting used to it!

emmie26

aahh pickle you can make that four in four days!

Today I have managed to swindle some extra hours I am finishing late on wed, thurs and friday this week an extra 4.5 hours, and then I'm already doing overtime sunday (time and 1/2) which will make the grand total for this week a good 10 hours. Tomorrows challenge is to see where I can fit in some extra hours next week!

Wednesday night the builder is coming round to have a look at the plans we have had drawn up to see what the cost would be to do the extension, we have got to really do our sums to work out how we can get as much as possible for as little money as possible so that it is worth our while doing it or else we will end up with the house worth less than we had actually spent on it.

I'll keep you posted!!

InaPickle

emmie26 wrote: »

aahh pickle you can make that four in four days!

I'll keep you posted!!

I hope so, too!

Well done on everything. It seems that things are really looking up for you.

emmie26

Just wanted to keep up the posting although nothing much really to report, I have managed to swindle a new FREE hd box from virgin media, I've been asking for one for ages but they keep saying it was going to cost me £90 for the box but they have finally relented because my old box is now on the blink - so a small victory!

I've been too busy to look at next week yet re: overtime I will have to do it tomorrow!

I've been looking on netmums and they have a really good section on meal planning so I have had some inspiration I'm thinking of devising a four week rolling rotation of meals we pretty much have some favourites anyway that we keep on having so might have a go at it, it would make shopping a lot easier and sometimes my hubby makes tea and uses ingredients I have already earmarked for other meals so it would stop confusion, I just might feel like a school dinner lady because I think this I what they do:rotfl:.

Radish72

Ha ha

Thats what I'm planning to when I move in with BF, have a 4 week rota

That way we can do 1 big shop/month and then he can some little shops with a list as he's a complete shopaholic in supermarkets and would spend a fortune. Even thinking of getting the big shop delivered :eek:

emmie26

Radish - I think it is a man thing in supermarkets they cannot think properly unless things are spelt out for them.

Good news on the builder front, he has been tonight and the cost are far less then we had thought its still going to cost an arm and a leg but at least we can actually afford it. We are still going to have to get a spreadsheet on the go to give us some idea of how much we can save realistically! (I do love a good spreadsheet).

I won't be joining the mortgage free wannabe board anytime soon with the amount our mortgage will be going up.

Radish72

You can still join in the MFW and just keep OP's to £1/month

emmie26

well I do think posting on one of the forums keeps me good, otherwise I just plod along without really giving much thought to what I'm doing with money!

My challenge at the moment is to pay for my holiday with overtime 200 hours to be precise, well this week I have done 10 and I have spoke to my boss and managed to get an additional 7.5 for next week, the week after is half term so I don't really want to do any then, but my target for the month was to do 20 so I've managed to pretty much do that in 2 weeks, all I need to do now is make sure that as soon as I get paid the extra overtime gets sent over to that debt so that I don't end up swallowing it up with my day to day expenditure.

As an aside me and my daughter have had a fun afternoon I've been wearing my wedding dress to show her and she has tried her baptism gown on, she was eight weeks old when she got baptised but she had one of those really long dresses and she put it on today (she is four) and it fitted her - it was lovely:)

Today I've been on a training day and am doing the same tomorrow, I'll have to try and stop myself daydreaming about moneysaving it becomes all consuming when I have a target in mind!