The start of my debt free challenge.

mum2one

You had lovely weather for a picnic, good to let the cobwebs out, and have a worry free day.xx

Choc-addict

Ooh, your day out sounded lovely and very MSE I would love to win National Trust memebership, so many things to do! We had a MSE day, went down to Portland climbing and walking (burnt many a calories!) and took a picnic with us too for our lunch - was lovely given the weather, so busy though as the first good weekend for all climbers - i'm a novice but some of the things people can do are amazing, if not a little scary :eek:

Stole you idea of ISA and not touching it and have opened one myself I like this idea and spoke to OH about it yesterday, it's a good long term plan. We decided we need a long term savings that is never touched, general savings which we can dip into for big expenses, holidays etc and then our normal current accounts....finally my OH is started to get the idea of thinking about things the MSE way....only taken over 4 years!!!!

Anyhow, enough rambling from me.....take care x

devonmaid77

Yay to OH finally catching up choc!

NT membership is so great when you want a nice cheap day out, but you do have to force yourself to go a fair bit to make it worth while. We love it though and go quite regularly so it's already paid for itself this year.

Well, I have paid £165.00 off my credit card today with the money I got reimbursed from work for flights. So that's a little bit more off. Unfortunately I'd miss-calculated the amount owed so haven't been able to know it down to under £500.00 - but it is below £600.00 so that's one milestone I guess. Next to get CC1 down to about the same.

I have listed a few bits on ebay today so hopefully they should add to the pot too. I'll be paying in some more of our collected change on Friday too, but that might go to the savings for now.

I made a whole 45p on surveys today! Now just under halfway towards my first payout. Sadly no more £2 coins over the weekend, but in a way that's good as it means we haven't really spent much either!

Off to update the signature with my CC2 payment!

Hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine!

mum2one

I've done a little spreadsheets with each box being £50, great to see them being coloured in, very daft, but its something for me that shows I'm getting somewhere xx

devonmaid77

I think I may do the same mum2one! I've been reading through a few diaries tonight and have decided that I need to have a few smaller short term goals too. So, I'm going to have more of a think about this tomorrow but at the moment I plan to:

1. Get CC1 to 650 by the end of April.
2. Get CC2 to 520 by the end of April.
3. Get ISA to 20 by the end of April.
4. Try to add 6 to £2 pot by end of April.
5. Try and get survey total to 20 by end of May.

Not sure if these are in anyway achieveable as they are late night thoughts, but gonna try anyway. Will put some time into monthly target plan tomorrow!

Night night all!

mum2one

devonmaid77 wrote: »

I think I may do the same mum2one! I've been reading through a few diaries tonight and have decided that I need to have a few smaller short term goals too. So, I'm going to have more of a think about this tomorrow but at the moment I plan to:

1. Get CC1 to 650 by the end of April.
2. Get CC2 to 520 by the end of April.
3. Get ISA to 20 by the end of April.
4. Try to add 6 to £2 pot by end of April.
5. Try and get survey total to 20 by end of May.

Not sure if these are in anyway achieveable as they are late night thoughts, but gonna try anyway. Will put some time into monthly target plan tomorrow!

Night night all!

That sounds like just the plan,
My downfalls before have been planning every penny long term, and then if I spend I feel guilty, and that gets thrown out of the window, this is my 3rd lightbulb moment, I've got the overplan of action, done my snowball, but take it one week at a time, my card payments roughly the same time, so any extra is a bonus.

Feel like a big kid with my chart, but its working, xx

devonmaid77

Evening all, I hope anyone reading this is having a good week so far. I can't quite believe it is Wednesday again tomorrow. Where does the time go?

Well, I have had quite a productive day today. I have some change and a bit extra expenses money from work to pay into the bank. I really wanted to get it all paid in today so that I could update my signature, but the bank was shut by the time I got home from work. Boo! Hopefully I'll be able to sneak off into town on my lunch break tomorrow and pay it in. I have £55.00!

When I started reading though other people's diaries I wondered where everyone seemed to get all these odd little payments to pay off their debts from. I was amazed, and convinced that I myself would never have these little gems to add to my debt payments. Yet looking over my diary so far, I too have had the odd little bit of extra wonga come my way. I guess it's what happens when you start to pay proper attention to your finances. Normally I would have probably blown my £40 work expenses on a curry for me and hubs tonight, and the spare change? Well that would still be sitting in various pots collecting dust! Instead the change is bagged up and we had a very nice healthy salad for tea! I am reformed!

Sadly I think once this £55 is paid in that will be it for my debt busting for a week or two as we have two cars to tax, an MOT and some money we owe the garage for the last car problem! Eeeek! With a little careful balancing we won't have to use any of our savings, but I really don't think I'm going to be able to pay much off the CC's until May now. I knew my late night planning was flawed (is that the right spelling?)! BUT this is the last time we will be so unprepared for the car costs. We have now started paying a little bit per month to the car fund, and will continue to do so from now on!

Well, looking forward to paying in that cash tomorrow. I've also made about 30p today on surveys - every little helps! My balance is now £16.85, so only another £3.15 until I hit my £20.00 goal for April.

Is it all do-able? Time will tell...

Choc-addict

Hey there, hope you are enjoying your evening. Aren't cars a pain :mad:

Can I ask what surveys you do? Signed up to many but i'm so lazy

devonmaid77

I'm very lazy too when it comes to surveys - they can be sooo boring! I just do One Poll regularly, but also do Global Test Market, New Vista and Valued Opinions. Am only counting my one poll total, but have £8.00 in New Vista. I don't often get surveys from all the others and find that with One Poll I can just log on, see what's there and then go again. They're a bit more fin too, only problem is that it's usually only about 10p per survey.

It must be said too that I gain and lose interest in bothering with them regularly, but my debt busting has spurred me on to try again!

jacey98

hi devonmaid

wow you have done loads since i was last on well done you and some sunshine relaxing as well its all good.

it is amazing where you can get the extra few pennies from i have 4 pots at home with 2 1 silver and bronze all nearly full, very excited about emptying them especially the 2 one.

will pop back soon but keep going your doing great.

jc x