What are you doing to get debt free .... join in!

Bagpuss741

Good thread:T So far I have/am


1. Used MoneySupermarket.com to get cheaper car insurance and breakdown
2. Joined Pigsback
3. I use Microsoft Money and check it every day
4. Check my bank account online every morning
5. Use Stardrops for cleaning (I even cleaned my car mats with it yesterday)
6. Have this site as my homepage
7. Paid off Next, Freemans, Ace in order to concentrate on my two credit cards. (I know it wasn't snowballing but it made me feel more positive once the smaller debts were cleared)
8. Listed Books on Amazon
9. I wait for my local library to have the new cd's and then import them to I tunes:o
10. Reduced the amount of my donation to the RSPCA from £15 to £5
11. Cancelled subscription to Creative Papercraft
12. Try to walk the dog locally instead of always having to get in the car to take her to Bute Park, Cefn Onn etc.
13. I am keeping all my &More vouchers and Boots points toward christmas

funkymonkey

OH MY GOD!

ive just got back from work - and what can i say! what a great responce! and so many good ideas! When i was writing last night i thought i wanted a thread with possitive ideas for everyone so we can all share our goals and how we are getting there. to add some more if mine.......

i always use an ecoupon for 1000 clubcard points when buying online grocerys
(this is worth £40 in deals!!!)

i have my own vegetable patch! the spring onions are gorgeous!

I researched and found i (possibly) have a soakaway! so get a reduction on my sewage bill! (£40 a year - just drew them a picture of my garden and put where i think the soakaway is and they gave it to me!)

i make my own bread using lidl bread flour - works out about 20pence a loaf!

use my slow cooker loads so buy really cheap bits of rough meat!

take packlunches - no more expensive sandwiches!

use my national shopping monitor to scan in my shopping and get vouchers

USE MSE EVERYDAY! - infact using a great sugestion above, i will make it my homepage!

Everytime you do somthing, for example make an aditional payment or cancel a mobile phone contract to go pay as you go - come and tell us! its such great encouragement to keep up the good work!

finally - thanks for nominating me for best post of the month! and it would be great to have this as a sticky , but as long as its updated by people it should stay near the top!

love to you all!

keep up the good work. - i will, ive only £48000 to go lol!

Mrs_A.

well i have:~
got a new bank account
down graded costly royalities account to plain current account
began a spending diary
began budgeting
began menu planning
stopped all unnecessary spending
ebayed and amazoned
joined £2 coin savers club
joined 20p coin savers club
joined grocery challenge
changed lecky supplier
bought slo cooker and use it often
bought bread maker and use it daily
mixed my own soap powder using 3 ingredient recipe
cut dishwasher tablets in half
changed jobs to get promotion, more money and cut down commute
buy stuff from charity shops
started reclaiming bank charges back
everyone takes packed lunches
mr a had veggie patch
i have herb garden
look at freebies everday
use money off coupons for things i havent bought
beg borrow or steal instead of buying
rejoined library
log onto mse everyday
check bank accounts every day
now have ing savings account
cancelled unnecessary subscriptions
smoke only roll ups (just cant quit)
had a no spend day probably the best thing i have done yet
got others in family to pay for sky tv
set up a debt management folder so i can watch it all come down
taken brilliant advice, guidance and support from everyone on this site
probably more but thats all of the top of my head
regards
Mrs A

learning2save

Well as another comparitive newbie (lurked for a month or so then joined 2 weeks ago) was alos inspired to join this great thread. Unfortunately all my things are your ideas but here we go:

1. Joined MSE
2. Sent off DPA to start claiming charges
3. Joined Pigsback - already got a squeezy pig and a Pig money box so I can
4. Properly join £2 savers
5. Changed all cleaning products (vinegar etc £2.99 for for 5L!)
6. Started grocery challenge, ususally near £300 for 3 but only £50 in the last fortnight (have to go shopping tomorrow but will...
7. Spend time looking for deals
8. Applied for AQA - got rejected but sent them an email and have been given another test to do!!
9. Done 8 mystery shops and got 4 more booked
10. Joined LOADS of survey sites... they must pay off eventually!
11. Changed phone to PAYG
12. Listed loads of stuff of Ebay and Amazon
13. Got lots stricter about lights, plugs etc
14. Cut dishwasher tabs in half and used half washing powder
15. Got new C/A and am changing CC

And I guess the most important

STOPPED wanting to spend money!!!!
:T :T :T :T :T

Thanks loads everyone, am spending far too much time on the forum (fortuantely my boyf is watching the footy) but am so pleased to be getting involved in such a fantastic site!!!!!!!

You're all the best :A :A :A

funkymonkey

in january i bought a big 20litre tub of washing powder from costco f0r £4.00 and added 0ne bag of soda and one small surf for fragrance. Mixed it all up!

still more than half full!

bargain!

ZTD

Boomdocker wrote:

Thanks for this HomeJames. I only bought Iams hair ball formula as my cat rather attractively leaves me hairball suprises on my cream carpet much to my delight. Havent noticed a difference in that area since I switched her. To be honest they have had it for a while and are both in there teens. I don't get them the really cheap cack but I do get Sainsburys/Tesco/Asda own. Now you got me worried. Should I be?

Well, on my many journeys wandering through the internet, reading almost anything, I came across this. Obviously, I can't really say anything for or against it (I don't own a cat), but it is something to read and make your own decision.

Hoever, in other news...
I've saved by:

1/ Changing gas/electricity - left npower, best decision of my life. They are a large, steaming (and not only in cold weather) pile of sh!ttake. Saved almost £400 (until the prices go up with this company...)

2/ Changed ISP. Up front 2yr payment, so getting 1Mb for approx £9.60 pm as opposed to £26.

3/ Changed phone provider and dropped loads of BT's useless gimmicks.

4/ Joined quidco.

5/ Used some of my CC "points" for money off stuff.

6/ Use google to get stuff real cheap. Saved approx 35% on one item alone.

7/ Bought a wormery, maybe make a teensy weensy bit of compost in a year's time. However, get concentrated plant food (bit like baby bio) from worm pee, by the gallon.

8/ Shop at lidl's and then buy stuff they don't stock at Morrisons/Tesco.

9/ Make my own soft drink. Buy a number of half-litre bottles, carbonate the water with a soda stream, and put equivalent of 1/4 of a lemon into each bottle along with a pinch of salt. Lush. Tried it with limes, nice, but prefer lemon.

10/ I drive slower. Gone from a uranium right foot, to merely a leaden right foot. Gained about 10% fuel economy which is about 40 miles further on a full tank.

11/ Subscribed to http://www.petrolprices.com/

12/ Subscribed here.


Naughty stuff I do. (In terms of spending)

1/ Buy top-quality meat direct from the farm. Aberdeen Angus hung for 21 days - pretty expensive, but worth it. No injected water and tender as a well-spanked bottom. I find normal supermarket stuff has a "Clarks Start Rite - 100% pure leather" label in the steaks when you cook them. Never tried the supermarkets' Aberdeen Angus stuff as it's a few quid per kilo more expensive than the stuff I buy.

2/ Buy raw milk from Jersey cows - more expensive than supermarket, and I have to travel quite a distance to get it, however it's about 30% pure cream, lush, and...erm...well...lush.

3/ Buy free range chickens. The taste is so much better than supermarket ones, and they haven't been pumped with water either. Not sure if it counts as naughty, as really I'm saving as I'm not paying meat prices for injected water.

4/ Buy free-range eggs. Probably a mistake as I've watched them for a long time, and they don't seem to move at all.

pounds_and_pensive

I've only been here for a couple of weeks, during which time I've been busy with the process of selling up and moving.

However, I've still...

Discovered and signed up to MSE (and I *so* wish I'd found it sooner).

Set MSE as my start page

Ditched MSE as my start page owing to the dozens of (wo)man hours I spend browsing the forums when there are other things I should be doing.

Set MSE as my start page again because I can't look at it without discovering a brilliant money-saving idea that I can implement now or in the future.

Haggled with Telewest so that we'll be getting a better package in our new home than we do now, for almost £11 per month less.

Saved £9.50 on clothes we really needed and would have bought anyway, after reading on the boards of a '25% off George at Asda' voucher printed in The Sun.

Switched to Stardrops and micro-fibre cleaning cloths (judging by the rest of this thread, I'd best get more stocks in before we're in the grip of a nation-wide shortage )

Joined shed-loads of 'points' and cashback sites, and started taking a renewed interest in the ones I've already joined over the years, and seeing that they really do make a difference.

Learned to love Lidl (apart from their potato salad and baked beans).

***

Once the Incredible Elastic Completion Date finds it's own level and we're in our new home, I'll be entering competitions and sending off for freebies (I'd be doing it now if it weren't for the feeling that the goodies were going to be sent to the wrong address or left uncollected in a sorting office somewhere ). I'll also be lovingly retrieving my much-missed but packed-for-the-move crockpot, and pressing that into service again. Spare pennies will be thrown at the 'Therapy For My MSE Addiction Fund'

I'll echo the calls for this to be made into a 'sticky'. It's a great thread, with lots of money-saving and profitable ideas condensed into one place. It demonstrates that we're not Debt Free Wannabe's - we're Debt Free GONNAbe's

cheets99

Selling 15 XBL 12 month subs on ebay for £30 a pop

foreverskint

Working on adult chat lines to earn extra money:o

But it is a laff:rotfl: :rotfl: :rolleyes:

funkymonkey

lol @ foreverskint!

sounds like a job i could do for an extra buck! today my bankersdraft has cleared from my ca sale so am now gonna pay off two credit cards! woo hooo