The hilariously over-optimistic goals I am setting myself in 2010....

dalleDF

Mmmm. The lamb curry turned out to be utterly delicious, and nose-runningly spicy. I put toasted cashew nuts in it too, yum.

After the gym this morning, I spent most of the day pottering, doing chores and cleaning the flat. The room had been cleaned to a very exacting standard by outgoing tenant, I was most impressed. Have got it all ready for my new roomie's arrival tomorrow, the flowers look lovely.

Still trying to work my way through the toiletry mountain. I am putting hand cream on every time I walk past the bathroom! Did myself a mini pedicure and sat around with 'hair mud' in my hair all afternoon before washing it out. Can't tell if it's made much difference. I remember buying that from a posh spa I went to - it's by Espa and it cost £32 a tub. No wonder I am in debt. I've got a million products which I must have spent a fortune on, but the best two things I have used lately are coconut oil from the kitchen cupboard (amazing as a face and hand moisturiser and conditioner for dry ends) and a brown sugar, honey and olive oil scrub which I made myself.

juicyjackieb

I too have too many bottles and tubs of goo. I never use any of it, remember I have it, use it once and then forget and buy something similar with an oath to start using it. I have many body butters with finger marks spludged in them... did think about putting the OK ones together as a job lot and ebaying it all. Then I went full !!!!! and thought about warming the body butters on the radiator, letting them cool and reset to look like new. Yes, utter full !!!!!. Don't worry, I wont but the fact I thought of it surely must be some kind of mental defect.

Good luck with the new roomy... tomorrow is my food prep day... chicken strew and thai coconut curry with some dodgy prawns from the back of the freezer. Might add sprouts... determined to eat frugally and stop wasting things!

dalleDF

A sprout curry is weird food all right, love it! Hope you got your gas masks ready!

I bought myself a muffin tin today and I'm going to make bacon and leek egg muffins / mini frittatas which will be good to grab for breakfasts on the go.

Paid my new £100 cheque in, and cashed out £3.53 from Quidco.

Got £3 in vouchers from M&S as rewards from using my credit card, which I closed last month, so I might spend that on lunch one day as a treat. Have had about 3 letters from Barclaycard trying to get me to do a balance transfer ever since my balance started reducing. No thanks Mr Barclays! I've only got 0% debt left now thank you very much, and soon I will see the back of it.

Paid £35 towards my credit union savings, as budgeted for. Set aside subs for the gym.

I bought my brother YNAB for Christmas but he doesn't like it, so I thought I would cheekily email the company on the off chance to see if they would refund me, and they have! What a winner. So that's £38 refunded just for sending a polite email. Great customer service.

Not much else to report, just waiting for the month to be over now. Sometimes debt busting just makes you wish your life away.

dalleDF

Can't believe it's snowing outside! I thought I was done with Christmas!

News for today, got some housekeeping money from my friend who is staying with us, so that's going into the pot (or should I say pit). Should be due a few quid from Quidco this month, have been compulsively checking it!

Tried to contact man who owes me freelance money again, this time via fb, but no response, even though he has been posting this week so I know he has seen it. Time to bring out the nasty gal. Why should I struggle when this cash is rightfully mine? Am going to threaten him with small claims court today and see if that helps any.

Budget is looking pretty crappy. I saw a jacket I have been wanting for months in my size on eBay, so I grabbed it. Can't afford it at all but it is an investment piece and it should last a very long time. I tweaked the budget a bit to make room for it but I still have a big fat minus number.

Also, bike needs to go in to the shop, back tyre is flat as a pancake, think it needs a new inner tube, and my chain has got a habit of flying off every now and then so it needs looking at. God knows how much that will be. Will take it to the repair man tonight.

Had a row with lying, cheating, slimy estate agents yesterday. If someone started an ethical lettings agency which treated people nicely and not like mugs, I reckon it would do very well because it would have zero competition. Just a thought.

dalleDF

Bike repair only cost £12 in the end, which was a nice surprise, and it rides like a dream now.

Went clubbing with a friend last night alcohol free, fuelled only by caffeine, was very impressed with myself. It meant it was a (relatively) cheap night as we split the taxis there and back.

Lovely boyfriend took me out for amazing lunch today as part of my Christmas present so that was really nice.

Listed a pair of trainers and a pair of boots on eBay, both of them hardly worn so hopefully will get a decent bit of cash for those.

Tweaked direct debit for my Lloyds CC by £1 so it will go below the psychologically important £500 barrier this month.

Now to quickly shove a stew in the slow cooker and sort out my food for work next week. Tonight is going to be an early night, still tired from the very late night out dancing. I must be getting old.

17 days till debt free, 37 days sober today.

dalleDF

Not much to report today. Walked to M&S at lunchtime to use up my vouchers, got a stew on the stove bubbling away for tomorrow which has used up all the manky bits of veg which were malingering in the fridge. Got a nice fresh veg box coming tomorrow, yum. This evening has just been spent doing chores, laundry and so on. Feels like it never ends!

Got a bid on one of my things on eBay ending on Sunday so that's good.

Realised we've got a tonne of tea bags in the cupboard left from last 2 housemates, so now it is Operation Drink All the Tea so we can get rid of it before we move. Making gradual progress with using up the shampoo and hand cream!

Really going to struggle for the rest of the month, have not been sticking to budget at all so I'll be all the way up to my overdraft limit by payday. Am planning cheap / free activities to do to keep myself occupied - Saturday I will ride my bike over to meet a friend for coffee, Sunday I have invited a couple of friends over for tea as we were planning to cook a roast anyway. I have signed up to a site called Borrow My Doggy after reading about it on someone else's diary - it sounds like a great idea, I've been missing a dog to take for walkies. I'll have to give it a go and report back.

dalleDF

Had a look today at an app I use on my phone, think it's called Debt Manager or something, to look at all the many different accounts I have paid down this time around. Then I started thinking about all the other debts I have run up and paid down and then run up again since I started getting credit at the age of 19. It makes for terrifying reading.

This is what I had outstanding in 2009 (I think there were a few more but they have been lost in the mists of time)

Abbey CC £1800
HSBC CCC £1500
Credit Union £1100
Overdraft £1200

TOTAL = £5600

And before that I had

Egg loan £4300
Egg CC £1000
Hitachi finance £2200
MBNA CC £2000
Capital One CC £1200

TOTAL = £10700

This time around I had

Lloyds CC £1200
Barclaycard £1200
Capital One CC £1200
M&S CC £2000
First Direct CC £1100
Overdraft £1000
Credit union loan £7000 (consolidating multiple payday loans and previous CC balances)
Apple finance £1200

TOTAL = £15900

So in total, over the years I have paid off £32,200, just on the balances, not even including the astronomical interest I must have paid during that time. As I look at that number, which is actually higher than my current target for a house deposit, it just makes me feel sick.

However, I actually think this was a good exercise to do because it will serve as a reminder that debt has held me back so much as I have been struggling with it my whole adult life, and I never want to fall in to that trap again.

dalleDF

And have just realised there was actually a House of Fraser storecard in there as well back in the early 2000s, so add another few hundred quid on to my running total! What a mess.

juicyjackieb

It must be quite painful to look at that list, BUT if someone had told you at 18 your financial path do you think you would have avoided it? I'd like to think that we all would, but when we are young we can never envisage the impact of our financial choice. Oh to know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

dalleDF

Yep, very painful indeed! I think I still would have been somewhat reckless, and I did enjoy spending a lot of that money, no doubt, but if I had realised how long it would take me to get out of debt, no way would I have been so careless with money! To be fair, a lot of it was run up while trying to cover living costs while a poor student in London, but this could definitely have been reduced if I had known how to budget, says Captain Hindsight. Oh well, it's done now, lesson definitely learned.