Debt Free by 40 Debt Diary

BullyCornedBeef

Hi Oakdale,

Cingrats on the bank charges! Im going to try and claim back my brother's bank charges because he is very unorganised and works long hours so can never get into the bank when it is open. Should be at least £300 this year! :eek:

Will let you know how I get on. Also keep up the good work!

oakdale_minx

Bum. The interest rate rise will wipe out my payrise. Bum.

oakdale_minx

Not happy the interest rate went up. I was going to call GE capital and look to reduce my term by a couple of years with my payrise and another £15 or so a month. I think I could have got it down to 90 months . Sigh.

Had another letter from citicards. They want another 14 days before they respond to me . Nope i'm afraid. They have until the close of Monday and then Tuesday my court claim goes in online forthem. That will be £375 plus about £100 interest.

Got my boss to sign off a study fee request. I can claim back 50% of my OU fees for my Masters each year as its job related. This year I can claim back £265 which will be fab!

Need to start thinking about losing weight. Again. I realised that my eating and spending habits are the same. Cyclical. They are similar in that I feel an emotion (happy, sad, bored, lonely), I then eat (or spend), I feel guilty, I do it again, I then eat (spend) in secret to pretend it hasn't happened, I pretend the problem (weght gain/debt gain) isn't there, I have a lightbulb moment (can't fit into clothes/OH finds out about loan application) I obsessively diet (money save) , I do really well (lost 4 stone last time/or Iclear my debt in some way) then slip a bit with a takeaway (or have a mini supermarket splurge), pretend it is ok, let it happen again (or buy something 'silly'), and it all snowballs into the weight going back on (the debt re-increasing).

From a DFW point of view, I've kicked the habit once and for all. I think. My extra income from AQA and mystery shopping is going to be a very very big test of my resolve not to get back in the old spending habit cycle.

Next I need another lightbulb moment for my weight. I need to lose A LOT of weight. My wardrobe is full of 100's of pounds worth of clothes. Not necessarily dear items, but just lots of bits I would buy 'to slim into'. Which I never did. And then the weight goes back on - as ithas been recently.

Think the crunch point came though last night . I have two work skirts (both too tight) one pair of very forgiving trousers and three tops. The top I had to wear today (I've worn the other two twice this week, alternating) had shrunk. I'd only washed it once since new. I got it from ebay, it was brand new, but it has shrunk and I've spent a very uncomfortable day trying to stop the buttons gaping as well as the very tight skirt Last night I nearly went to Tesco to get a new work outfit and I had to stop myself as it would have been £40 or so I guess - if they'd even had anything work wise I could buy. I have to tell myself that spending more money on more clothes that are a larger size is NOT the answer. Just like getting another consolidation loan to 'clear' bigger debts is NOT the answer.

Probably more thoughts on that soon. Never thought of the two habits being so similar. A psychologist would have a field day!

sparklymessygirl

Hi O-M,

I've been thinking :rolleyes: and it occurs to me that wearing clothes that make you very aware of your weight gain and feeling uncomfortable can only make you feel bad and may lead to more self-sabotaging behaviour or self-loathing - so I was wondering if you could grab something very cheap from a charity shop (just to give you some breathing space - in more ways than one;) ) or maybe put a request out on freecycle - lots of people on my local group ask or offer because of weight loss/gain.

Keep your chin up
Sparkly x

oakdale_minx

hi there sparkly (love that!)

I'm going into town tomorrow morning to do a mystery shop and hopefully I'll get my greasypalm cheque in the morning so I can bank that.

I'll have a wander round the charity shops, but the problem is that my dress size.........erm.........doesn't start with a '1'.......if you get my drift.......

I've been an ebayer since 1999 and bought and sold a fair bit (including all the clothes when I've lost weight and vowed I'd never need them )

I might treat myself to a couple of work bits of ebay that I know will fit. Anne Harvey is the best cut for me, i'm quite tall, but in the shops is very dear. Ebay prices can be reasonable.

Treated myself to a can of cider and it's so long since I've had alcohol, my cheeks are going pinker and pinker as I type as I'm half way through the can!!!

oakdale_minx

I'm exhausted . Really shattered. I'm not sure if i'm getting a cold or if it's the hours I put in this week. I did nearly 60 hours Mon - Fri between my two jobs so I wonder if I've fried my brain. Thing is, I'm at the computer reading MSE for probably the same number of hours that I AQA'd this week, so it's not as if I wouldn't have been sat here anyway.

Got my statements today from Capital One for the card I now hold. There was £100 in charges on them, so I can claim those back as well! I'll send the first letter Monday. I'm too tired to even do that and post it!

I'm too tired to go into town and do the mystery shopping today. There's no set day for it as long as it's done by the end of Monday. My greasypalm cheque hasn't arrived yet, so I will wait until Monday. To be honest I'm not sure I'd be awake enough to drive. Maybe I am coming down with something!

oakdale_minx

Went back to bed at 11am yesterday morning - woke up and it was nearly 4pm!! Felt tired again by 11, but had managed to do an hour or so AQA inbetween.

Printed off my prelim letter for my second capital one claim this morning. Just need to do the schedule of charges.

Found a brand new dressing gown still with the tags on to list on ebay. I bought it about a year ago and it didn't fit then. £30 for a cotton dressing gown that is now three sizes too small because I've put weight back on.. What the hell was I doing/thinking?!

Need to do the shopping. Tempted to try Lidl but unsure whether I'd get everything I need and would I really save that much money for the slightly longer journey? And, more importantly, could I resist all the lovely German sausages and cakes they sell?!

oakdale_minx

Was still awake at 4am this morning, everyone at work thinks my new boss is harrassing me/close to bullying. I've started a diary of events, but it's worrying me.

Got my first AQA payment for the hours I did at the end of July. I've transferred it straight onto a credit card as an extra payment.

Having my shopping delivered by Asda this afternoon. Found a £10 off voucher I hadn't used so managed to get shopping for the next 9 or 10 days for about £32. I'll be able to update my budget in my sig. later today.

Was able to reduce my secured balance sig by a little bit more. I'm checking my balance each month, every little helps!

Moneyclaim Online has changed status for my first Abbey claim (the 610 one). It now says 'Defence' rather than 'acknowledged', so I guess i'll be getting a letter from the Abbey's solicitors very soon.

oakdale_minx

Got a nice surprise. Checked my Tesco points thinking I had about £23 worth of vouchers coming this month, and its £38 worth! Excellent.

I have £250 worth already to turn into £1000 MFI vouchers for my bedroom - I must send them off! I don't need anymore to put towards this now.

Think I'll keep the £38 worth as shopping. I reckon I could get a huge load of meat for the freezer for that amount. I don't use Tesco much at the moment, I'm going through an Asda phase, so I might as well use the £38 in vouchers against food rather than keeping them to pay for something else - to be honest there is nothing else in theTesco clubcard catalogue I'd use them for.

Mucked up with Asda. No food arrived. Checked online and when I changed the order yesterday I forgot to check out and it's all sitting in the basket. Whoops. It's coming Wednesday now so I just did a mercy dash for some mince and chilli is bubbling away.

oakdale_minx

Had a letter from the Abbey's solicitors yesterday (I must be a psychic!) offering me 50%. As tempting as £305 is, I know its just the next stage in the process, so I've written and rejected the offer. Next stage is Allocation Questionnaire.

Put in my next court claim - against Associates/Citicards last night. £375+£100 interest. Another ball rolling that lttle bit faster!

Got a days extension on my mystery shopping and I'm doing that this afternoon. Keeping my fingers crossed that my greasypalm cheque arrives today.

My paypal money arrived in my account this morning. Only £14+ but its part of the monthly budget. My account doesn't look very healthy at the moment so I need the greasypalm cheque asap really.