Cloudy's 'bring me some sunshine' diary!

Cloudy456

Hmm well I made it within budget last week, but I already spent just over £70 over the weekend so I have no budget left for the week and have gone a tenner over. Hmm. Well on the plus side, that included a food shop so apart from a card and some stamps that I need to get tomorrow, I should be able to get to Friday without spending. In theory anyway :-)

I've realised that I have a massive tendency to totally over estimate what I will have left over to pay to debts, then being disappointed when I don't achieve it. Every month I say 'oh well X, Y and Z were out of the ordinary, so next month I'll be able to pay off more' when in actual fact those one off things happen every month it just varies what they actually are! Apart from last month, that actually was a one-off but normally I think I just spend way more on trips and stuff than I would like to think.

At least my BF has been moaning about having no money and how much he's been spending this summer, so we're both keen for lots of cheap activities. It would be way harder if he was spending loads and I had to keep up! So hopefully the next two weekends we can stay in, watch DVDs etc and just buy food. That's about the only way I have a hope of getting to the end of the month without having to reach for the credit card, which I am so determined not to do! If I can get through the next two weeks and two days until payday on £88 I will have £100 left over at the end of the month to make an extra payment to my card which would be nice.

Cloudy456

Nothing much to report, had a NSD today (yay!) and just generally plodding along, struggling to stay on the straight and narrow :-)

Oh and I worked out today that if I clear £300 per month it will take me exactly 3 years to be debt free. Hmmm, that's very depressing! I seriously need a new and better paid job so that I can up my payments a lot!

Cloudy456

Very quick update as I'm seriously sleepy! Just got back from 3 days away with work which means I have been living off the company for that time, had some nice meals out totally guilt free! Well apart from the deserts :-)

Some good news - I got accepted for a 0% card with Egg which I have somehow unbelievably been given a £4000 limit on! So I am going to clear my whole overdraft of £2k which is currently costing £25 per month as well as 2k from my Barclaycard! So basically in about 2 weeks time when its all gone through only 1k of my entire debt will charging me, the rest will be on 0%!!! So as soon as I can clear that grand I will pay only the minimum payments and save up to make larger payments just before the deals expire. And its only 5 days until payday woooo!!!

clippy_girl

yey well done! thats much better than paying interest! now you can save it in a savings account and you can keep the interest! should be paid off quicker now

Nichelette

That's great news about the 0% card

Cloudy456

Payday! Yay!

I'll update my signature later when I've done the exact calculations, but its looking as though I paid off just over £200 this month, taking me to about 7% cleared overall. Not too bad but I'm hoping to do far better over the next month! Still no sign of the Egg card in the post - I'm inpatient to do my balance transfer!

I've done a big online food shop which will arrive tonight - spent £60 but got absolutely loads, over the next month I should only really need to buy bread, milk and fruit and veg. I find that its so easy to save money doing it online as you can go through all the offers systematically and compare prices of everything, plus you have a running total as you go along and can ditch things at the end to get the price down- much less embaressing than doing that in the shop whilst at the checkout!

This weekend I'm away for the bank holiday but am going camping so should be quite a cheap one. I just need to chip into the food kitty and buy some drinks.

Oh and my target for the next month - get to 10% of my total debt paid off! That will mean paying off a massive £350 (plus paying interest charges and the balance transfer fee) so basically I will need to make all the payments I have planned for, then find an extra £100 ish somewhere! Might be a bit ambitious, but I'll give it a go!

Cloudy456

Not a great start to the month money-wise. Apart from the £60 on food, I have spent another £60 on food and drinks to take away camping this weekend :-( That is for my BF as well, but I paid as he is doing the driving and so will be paying for petrol. Oh well, I knew this first week of the month would be the most expensive but I really don't want my budget to get out of control in the first few days after getting paid! So I need to stay focussed and make sure that I don't make lots of expensive plans for the rest of the month! Having dinner with a friend tonight but that'll be with a voucher so should only spend about £6.

Cloudy456

Pretty quiet start to the month really, I spent a lot of my budget at the weekend but I expected that and am being frugal now to make up for it! Had a NSD today and spent a grand total of 40p yesterday - went for a drink after work and had a soda water and lime instead of a £4 vino, go me!

My Egg card arrived today and I did a balance transfer to my overdraft but for some reason I can't do another one (I'm planning on moving one and a half of my credit cards onto it too to max out the 0% deal!) Anyway I'll ring them tomorrow and try and get that all tied up. Which will leave me with two credit cards on 0% (which I'll just pay the mins on for now) and one with about 2 grand on which will become my main focus from now on. Hoping for another NSD tomorrow :-)

Cloudy456

Well I called Egg today and completed the balance transfers, so once they all clear I will be down to 3 credit cards, two of which are on 0% and the other one with about 2k on which will become my main focus now.

I should be feeling happy today as the last payment from my HSBC loan was debited and that has now been settled and closed. But instead I just feel annoyed with myself for racking up a whole heap of other debt once I consolidated - that old trap! But I have well and truly learnt my lesson and I am on the right path now, I just wish it hadn't taken me so long and so much spending before I cottoned on!! Its so annoying to think that I could be debt free today, and I actually feel quite down! So I am trying to focus on the positives of my situation instead :-)

I returned a top today that I bought last week as it was £30 and I just couldn't justify it as it was a lot for what it was and I didn't really need it. But then I bought another (nicer and more useful one) for £7 in the sale - felt a bit guilty but at least I took back the more expensive one! Other than that no spending yet though and I shouldn't spend anything tonight as I haven't got any plans. So the budget remains roughly on track for now!

Kepp

Hi Cloudy,

Have just subscribed!

It can be a struggle clearing debts on just your normal salary, my main job only has a 19K salary so my main debt-busting is done from earning extra.

Well done on getting so much to 0%

Good luck