Noselfdiscipline's 2010 Diary

Noselfdiscipline

Imaginative title huh! If anyones seen my thread on what I spent in 2009, you will see that I have issues with my spending! Something I'm going to try and change in 2010. This diary may make boring reading, but its more of a tool for me to try and keep track and motivated.

I'm single, mid 30's, no dependants, live alone. Have been in debt since University, it tends to hover between 5-10k. Since I have been working full time, I have spent more than I have earned virtually every month, but seem to rustle up extra money from time to time to cope. My debt currently stands at about £5,764.28 (not entirely sure as I got paid early in December, so not 100% on what my overdraft is). I also owe £3,895 to the bank of mum and dad! I'm excluding my mortgage from my debt. These are my aims for 2010:

1) Spend less than I earn in 2010.

2) Reduce debt by end of 2010 (not putting an exact figure on it, just want it to be less, rather than treading water like I normally do).

3) Lose 52lbs by the end of 2010. I'm in the weight loss challenge thread, and if your going to have a target, you may as well aim high!

4) Spend less than £1,500 on food. This may seem generous to you, but it represents a big cutback for me!

5) Spend less than £1,000 on booze. As a young (ish!) single person I do go out now and again! Again this might seem like a high figure, but if you added up what you spend on booze over a whole year, I bet you would be surprised at the figure!

6) Spend less than a £100 each on Books, DVD's, Games, Comics and CD's. If I can get zero on some of these I will, but want some wiggle room without feeling too guilty.

6) Spend less than a £100 on non-work clothes.

That'll do for a start!

Noselfdiscipline

Not a bad start to the money raising effort, I bought a DS Lite Game a couple of months ago for £10, just sold it on Amazon Marketplace for £22! Now to sell the DS Lite itself, another impulse buy I didnt need!

firestronaut

Shiny new diary! yay!

Just a suggest... I cut a small piece of a label off and wrote DFW on it and stuck it to my cards.
Seeing that sticker before I hand my card over the the cashier has saved many of impulse buys for me, even though it does cause a few moments of embarrassment after the "sorry, I don't want it now...".

Have you tried selling your books on ebay? I think the average is about £1 a book depending on the author, not much, but if you have plenty of books, this means plenty of cash! :cool:

As you lose weight, buy clothes from ebay first. If you see something you REALLY want, write it down and come back to it.


Also, to help with the food budget... drop a few brands and don't buy ready meals... As a single person, if you spent a few hours a week over the stove and made 2/3 big pots of food a week, you'd be sorted. You won't be able to taste the difference between the cheap and expensive food once it's all cooked together and freezing food really does save money! :T:j


And have you thought about joining the "Payment A Day" challenge? I'm bi-polar and never used to have any concern for the cost of things when I was manic. I used to buy buy buy and have have have. The reason I'm telling you this is... the high I got from buying, I can re-create it in the PAD challenge. :beer:
I update my sig everyday and every time I pay something off my debt, and it really does give me a buzz watching it go down! Maybe you could try this? Even if it's only pennies, every little helps! :beer::j


Sorry for the long post. Just trying to help

Noselfdiscipline

Hi Firestronaut!

I have sold some books on Amazon Marketplace. I like it because theres no listing fee, and the listing is open ended rather than being a set number of days.

I'm afraid cooking is something I'm really bad at! My rule is, I dont spend longer cooking something than it takes me to eat it! I'm strictly a microwave/George Forman man!

firestronaut

Yay for selling books!

Boo for not cooking!

:rotfl:

An hour cooking a hotpot for example, that you could get 5 meals out of is surely worth it? I'm not tempting you even the slightest?
I could PM you one or two VERY easy low cost recipes if you like

Noselfdiscipline

Does that mean you eat the same meal five nights in a row? And before you say about freezing stuff, I turned my freezer off, only have a small freezer section in my fridge now.

rictus123

Good luck, all you need to do is find out how to self disipline then you will be away. And no more !!!!!!! lol

firestronaut

Mix and match. When I lived alone, I used to cook a big pot of food on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Then I'd have three different meals to choose from for the week and always had the option to have something different if I got REALLY bored.

I see your dilemna with the freezer though


Rictus - Are you following me? :rotfl:

rictus123

I think its the other way about

Oh wait you posted first:j

firestronaut

:rotfl:

Noselfdiscipline

Dang, just been done over by my Water company! My Direct Debit has been £14 for 3 years, as they hadnt altered it, I just assumed it was enough. I dont really understand the bills when they send them! Based on my latest reading, I had £112.16 arrears! Tried to haggle but no joy, paid that off, and even then my new Direct Debit will be £20.50. Water is free too, it just comes out of the sky!