Debt Free by 40 Debt Diary

oakdale_minx

Knew it was too good to be true. :mad:

Phone the Abbey and was a bit shocked to find out I am having charges come out - it's tomorrow, and it's £118!! I haven't a clue why it is that much, so that's messed up my budgeting to put it mildly. :mad:

I've got £166 of my o/d left, and there is £27 NTL to come out tomorrow plus the £118. That's £145, leaving me £21 for the rest of the month. I get £63 from IMS fordoing mystery shopping some time around the 15th and I'm hoping to get £35 from greasypalm this month. I was going to use the £15 or so from the 20 euros I found to go out tomorrow, but I'm definitely going to have to keep it for shopping now.

I've worked out I don't need to go shopping until Sunday, which is the 9th. If I use the 'euros' money I'm going to see how much shopping I can get from that. If I aim for 4 days worth of shopping I will then have the £21 to get another 3 or 4 days worth until the £63 hits my account as well as the greasypalm money. It's going to be seat of my pants stuff this month, but I'm determined not to put anything on the credit card and keep asking my OH to contribute by putting petrol in my car.

Not good really, but I'll cope

think I'll need the pigsback stress pig I got in the post today over the rest of this month ! :rolleyes:

And, I've got another insect bite - behind my knee - it's really swelled and is DRIVING ME MAD!!!!!:mad:

oakdale_minx

well, yep the Abbey plundered my account and there is £21 left there now

My 20 euros yielded £12.66 and I had about £9 in my purse already, so I'm going to see how I can do shopping wise with that, without touching the £21 rattling around my account. I'm going to add the £118 in charges to my next Abbey claim, I'm not going to let them get away with it!

BUT, I want to go out.....I feel so down about never going anywhere. I managed to be good last Friday and I haven't been out in nearly two months now -not anywhere at all My BF never wants to go anywhere, there's no point in even asking if he wants to go out. I've been thinking about it all week, my BF has a couple of beers after football training on a Wednesday and last night didn't arrive until nearly 11. He'd taken some work around to some people he's doing some work for and ended up having a couple of beers there. Maybe I'm just jealous. Before we met I had a fantastic social life, but unfortunately, spent money like water and , looking back over my old Abbey statements was shocked how often the pub name was mentioned! If I go out, I'll be dipping into my precious £21 and as I've run the freezer down to beef in gravy and the 'free' chicago town pizzas, I'm going to have to buy quite a bit of food . The money in my purse should buy 3 days worth of food I think. I've done a list, but maybe I'll use a meal planner and buy exactly 3 days worth of food and see how I get on.

Feel sad today

EDIT: Been accepted by TNS mystery shopping, apparently there's a letter on its way, so that's another company that I might earn a few ££ from. Also had a letter from the Natwest telling me they want to 'investigate further' my claim for £76 charges to be refunded and they want another 10 working days. Nope. They get until the 14th and then they get the letter before action - all for £76 - which weren't even valid charges!! But, I'll get them back!!

Still sad

oakdale_minx

Well, I decided to go out! And I had a great time and am glad I've got it out of my system for a while!

Just had a slightly bleary eyed count up of the remains of the money in my purse and there is £5.50 left, so I spent about £15, so not too distastrous I don't think.

Had the letter from TNS today so I've filled that in and hopefully I'll get a few mystery shopping jobs with them soon.

Had a copy of the claim i've issued to the Abbey sent to me - seems a bit scarily real! Not long now before I can go for the rest!!

The Special Delivery letter was the return of my ID from citicards, I was hoping to have statements from either them or capital one today, but I guess it's still a bit early . Think I'm just a bit impatient.

RBS have opened an account for me, but it looks like it only has the equivalent of a cashcard rather than a debit card, but I think now I can move some DD's and try to cash in on the offer at the moment. Need to look back on Martin's thread I think. Now have two parachute accounts, although both are only basic current account. At least they are there if the Abbey close me down.

No escaping the OU essay. HAS to be done by the end of tomorrow. I've typed up some very brief notes and have 550 words so far. I'm allowed 200 words in quotesand the minimum word count is 1800. So I've got to expand my notes to fill another 1050 words.

Anyone an expert on postmodernism and the media who could throw me a few words??!!

CosmoCat

beginning, middle and end is how i always tackled my OU essays!! have you done an essay plan. it's really good to work out what you're going to say in each paragraph and then arrange your quotes and notes in that way. this way you can see what other research/ supporting arguments to make each paragraph a complete offering on its own.

just popping on to say morning! glad you had a nice time when you went out. and hope the dfwness is going smoothly.

oakdale_minx

I ve got as far as breaking it down into lots of 'chunks' (intro, point 1, point 2 etc) and worked out each chunk needs a minimum of 180 words. I tend to write different bits at different times - I often do the conclusion half way through! And then 'fill in the gaps' by concentrating on each 'chunk' and then joining them all together. I do lots of copywriting as part of my job, so the style etc is fine, it's just that I'm not very good at waffling when it's needed!!!

(although you'd never guess that from my ramblings thoughts on this thread!!!)

Yes, the DFWness is going good at the moment. I do get a bit down sometimes when I think about the mess I keep creating my not changing my spending habits, and howit has now created this situation where the only way out of it is to be so controlled for what will be quite a long haul . It's just a bit sad that all the money I'm claiming back will go straight on my debts. If i'd not run up the debt since moving, I would have had a really nice nest egg. BUT, knowing the old me, I would have frittered it away quickly, so maybe this way I'll be able to change my spending habits for good.

CosmoCat

no use crying over spilled milk i say.

the fact remains the debt is there and you're doing your darndest to get it down. 'woulda, coulda, shoulda' thinking is counterproductive. you're positively tackling it now, so you're doing very well.

it's like anything, it takes a while for habits to change. i read somewhere that it takes doing something 28 times in a row for it to be habit changing. so all you need is 28 days of good money-saving debt management, without the guilt. and even if the 28 times thing doesn't work, you would have managed yourself and your money for almost a month, now that can't be bad!!

re essay: if you have all the information to support what you need to say in each paragraph, then you'll find you don't need much waffling. maybe some points need expanding upon. imagine you're writing the essay for someone who's smart but has no idea about your field. that should push the word count up quite a bit.

glad you're doing well. stop beating yourself up.

oakdale_minx

thankyou melabarrie - I do tend to beat myself up.

Interesting about the 28 times idea - I can see how that would work really. I've 'played' at trying to get DF since last September, but it was only my OH finding out about the loan that meant I had to 'get real'. And that was...hhhmm...Friday 3 or 4 weeks ago. And the thought of randomly buying or shopping leavesme cold. I've been watching gems.tv over the last 24 hours as they've been doing a world record attempt and the old me would have jumped in and bought something just 'because'. Don't think my OH is convinced though. He picked me up from the pub and had already been at my place - he asked why the TV was on a shopping channel when he turned it on? I explained about the record attempt and that I found the idea interesting (my Masters is about Media and Culture ) and he just didn't believe me. I made him change the channel over to it to prove it to him. He just thought I was watching because I was going to buy/had bought something.

Anyway - somebody shout at me if I post before I say I've finished my essay!!!!!

oakdale_minx

finished my essay - yaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2087 words of utter and complete drivel. each sentence was like pulling teet, but, it's an essay, it's got the right number of words and it vaguely answers the question, so that'll do for me!

Next one is due in at the end of August, I'm determined to do the reading a bit more in advance, but that's what I promised I'd doafter leaving the last essay until the bitter end!!

Did bits of noseying around whilst I was working and found a webite looking for 'home based text operators' who do the 'adult' text stuff oo-er!!! i've downloaded the application form - I can just see myself sitting here in my scruffy housework clothes sendin out loads of texts pretending i'm wearing some naughty underwear - easy money!!! Not sure what the OH will say though!!

Mrs_Arkwright

oakdale_minx wrote:

Did bits of noseying around whilst I was working and found a webite looking for 'home based text operators' who do the 'adult' text stuff oo-er!!! i've downloaded the application form - I can just see myself sitting here in my scruffy housework clothes sendin out loads of texts pretending i'm wearing some naughty underwear - easy money!!! Not sure what the OH will say though!!

That's hilarious! What's the website address?:D

newleaf

I expect you'll be getting a text from him!