Polesalot's Climb to Debt Freedom

pixiechick99

polesalot wrote: »

He didn't stop talking! We chatted for ages (mainly ).

Sometimes a nice quiet evening is all you want. Do keep us posted and I promise to pop in a bit more regularly.....

Knowing that I have to drive to my mums and go out for a meal sat night is kind of putting me off going out on Friday...just a few glasses of wine on fri and I'll feel exhausted on sat:rotfl:

I have a work night out tomorrow too that I'm probably going to pass on for the same reason...typical, I never go out and then several possibilities in one weekend!:D

vasseur

Lots has been going on so I will try to update here.....

My bike ride was just brilliant. It was really easy going, the weather was just beautiful and we took in loads of sights along the way - Thames Barrier, O2 (which I will be walking over on 4 November ), cable cars across the Thames, Canary Wharf, Royal Naval College at Greenwich (which is just beautiful anyway) and finally Cutty Sark where we stopped for a sandwich and a cup of tea before cycling all the way back . So far I've raised £215 which is great because I was only aiming for £50 as I agreed to do it last minute. We ended up doing almost 29 miles because it was quite badly signposted and there weren't enough marshalls at key junctions but it's all good exercise and we were having such a nice time it didn't really matter.

London to Brighton for BHF is my next aim

I've knocked things on the head with The Knight. It wasn't quite right and there were loads of different things that contributed to my decision and I told him last night. i do feel a bit of a heel especially as he brought round a lovely bouquet of flowers for me on Monday night but there's no point stringing him along. He'll be fine - he certainly wasn't backward in coming forward IYSWIM??

Big financial news this month is that my mortgage has finally come down :j by £225.78 to be exact. I'm not exactly flush as that has largely cleared my overdraft and I still have 2 weeks till payday but things are looking a lot healthier than this time last month. Just need to reign things in a bit....

I have enough petrol but food account is looking at bit sparse at just £19.87 - I can probably do this week's with that as we have enough stuff in the freezer but next week is looking a bit dicey :cool:

I've paid for 2 days holiday club for dd during half-term -£51

Still need to book the after school club up to xmas but I'm going to leave that for as long as I can and book it as close to next payday as possible.

PAD of £1.89 today I'm only paying £100 off the barclaycard this month which will leave a balance of about £230 - theoretically I should be able to clear that next month and be debt free for the first time in goodness knows how long, about 20 years I reckon.

Must go - dinner is almost ready - it really cooks much quicker when I'm on MSE forums

vasseur

I failed on the grocery spends tonight. It came to £25.85 but we now have lots of 'ingredients' so can make whatever we've got in the freezer into something marvellous....:rotfl:

We are finally going to visit the nearby cyclopark tomorrow but we can't go until 4pm because the place is booked out for cycling groups. FGS! So much for it being easily accessible for everyone. Still, I'm sure I'll have plenty to get on with before then.

DD has been having problems with girls from her class (so called friends). I've tried to tell her to just ignore them but I know how hard it can be at that age. I think she's coping OK but I just want to slap these girls about a bit :mad:. Thing is she's not a nasty child herself and just wants to get on with everyone.

vasseur

I have fallen off the DFW wagon (briefly). I went to the nearby shopping centre on Saturday to get my nephew his birthday present and ended up spending close to £140 on bits and pieces! What a nightmare.

I did manage to get my sister a birthday present and I needed some toiletries, then as I was in 'total spending mode' by this time I decided to get the lush boots that I liked from M&S back in August. Well - they weren't there any more :mad: Honestly there is nothing to be gained from waiting until you can afford something. This has happened time and time again to me. I have my sensible hat on (rare) and decide to wait until I have the money and said coveted item disappears from the shop never to be seen again :wall:

So, I had to buy a similar pair and some cupcakes to ease my disappointment

By this time there was no stopping me and I treated DD to a new pair of pumps and a top to wear to her school disco this Friday.

As a consequence I felt quite guilty and disheartened about my bank balance so today I worked out next month's money and it really doesn't look too bad (so long as I don't have another spend up like saturday ). I've still got to book and pay for the after school club but I have factored this in already and I even upped my payment to barclaycard by an extra £50. The bottom line is there is still money left after everything has been paid for and even better by this time next month the cc will be down to less than £80 :T. I would love to be able to clear it within October's pay but I just don't think that's going to happen but I will do it on November's payday

Last week was National Chocolate Week and boy was I embracing that fact so much so that I had a really bad headache all weekend. We still managed to get to the cyclopark though. Twice. On saturday dd and I managed 11 miles. It was quite easy going really. Then on Sunday my friend and I did 8 miles. Feeling quite virtuous and I'm hoping it will have burned a lot of the chocolate off

The Knight hasn't been in contact since last week. The coward in me is relieved. I've been looking at some of his fb statuses and they are just a bit too weird...probably best out of that one.

WLM is still texting

£1.16 PAD

Think that's it for now...off to book up the After School Club.

ZTD

polesalot wrote: »

I did manage to get my sister a birthday present and I needed some toiletries, then as I was in 'total spending mode' by this time I decided to get the lush boots that I liked from M&S back in August. Well - they weren't there any more :mad: Honestly there is nothing to be gained from waiting until you can afford something. This has happened time and time again to me. I have my sensible hat on (rare) and decide to wait until I have the money and said coveted item disappears from the shop never to be seen again :wall:

In all the times this has happened, has the world come to an end? You know, fire/brimstone and that kind of stuff?

Nope?

Then it probably wasn't that important. There was probably something you would have liked even more just waiting for you.

polesalot wrote: »

The bottom line is there is still money left after everything has been paid for and even better by this time next month the cc will be down to less than £80 :T. I would love to be able to clear it within October's pay but I just don't think that's going to happen but I will do it on November's payday

And there is the good news.

vasseur

I've been AWOL yet again! Don't really have time to pop on here at work and similar situation at home too - there always seems to be loads to do!

It was payday yesterday so I have shuffled money around and have allocated it to food, petrol and emergency accounts. Credit card payment will take the balance down to less than £75. :T

Four weeks of maintenance has been paid by CSA

Also got email from Quidc0 today and my cashback from my car insurance that I only bought last month has been paid - £75.61. Theoretically this means that I could pay the credit card off but I think I will just keep it for any extra spends that I might need this month and just clear the card next month.

DD is still having problems at school. I know she needs to toughen up a bit but it's hard to turn her into something she isn't. She's very quiet this evening and she says there's nothing wrong but feels weird as if there is something. I don't like it when she's this quiet . Still - there's only one day left till half term, hopefully everything will sort itself out.

WLM came round on Monday night. He's been working on his house in this town and there's no hotwater there or in his flat (20 miles away) and he wanted to use my shower (!!!) It made a really nice change and we just had a really nice chat although I couldn't help thinking that the last time we were sat on my sofa we were both in floods of tears...still not sure what's going on (not that anything is) in his head but it's nice to keep it on the simmer.

I've been to a Titanic Exhibition at dd's school this afternoon which was really interesting and they all worked really hard on. Consequently we have been home since before 4pm and I have had time to put a casserole in the oven It feels so weird to have all this extra time!

vasseur

Good evening to anyone still reading my witterings.......

Financial news..

Am just about clinging on to all my money. Still got 19 days till payday though! Petrol and food should be OK (although we had a rather hairy half hour on the M25 the other day when I was trying to eke out the fuel on a trip back from Brighton and the warning light was blinking like crazy :eek:). I've never been so pleased to see a petrol station

I've just paid DD's school dinners for this month. I overpaid by 3 days last month as I forgot about half-term and paid for those days too so I've adjusted my payment for this month.

I've been PADding when I can, only small amounts. I think the CC balance is down to about £70. It will definitely be paid off on 24 November anyway

Other news..

WLM came round again:). This time to bring me some CDs to download - the new Muse album and he'd bought another album by a band I'd mentioned briefly :) he also brought cheese and wine so we had a nice evening chatting and drinking. There's still nothing going on but I am feeling guilty as he has to turn up at least an hour after DD has gone to bed. I feel like I'm having an affair! On Saturday I sneaked off to his house that he's doing up (while dd was at my nephew's birthday party) and helped with some of the work there.

We (dd and I) have had a few really nice days out. We've been roller skating. There was a halloween disco and she got the runners up prize for her costume and won a free pass to the next roller disco we go to so that will save me £8.50 :T

We went to Greenwich and went round the Cutty Sark. It was really interesting. I thought we'd only be in there for about 25 minutes but there was so much to see and do that we were there for an hour and a half! We had a Nand0's for lunch and then went to a cafe in the afternoon. It was really cold and windy as we walked back through the park to the car on the edge of Blackheath (where I'd parked to avoid paying parking charges )

We've carved pumpkins and done the usual trick or treating and went to a fireworks dispaly in Saturday night.

We've been to see my cousin (who took our kittens from us) and we had a meal out on Friday for my nephew's birthday. I went for an 8 mile bike ride with my dad and got my first puncture and had to limp the last 2 miles home...I've made friends with the local cycle shop as I think I will be making a few visits there in future.

Yesterday I did my O2 climb with my sister. It was really good fun especially as it was torrential rain when we got up. It stopped just long enough for us to do it and the views were amazing although it didn't feel very high up. My sister said she was aching last night but I still feel fine.

vasseur

I will be debt free next Friday :j I made a small PAD today of £1.82 which was a Qu1dco payment from doing a comparison search on G0Compare (I think?) which has now taken the bCard balance down to £60.50.

I've worked out next month's money - after taking everything into account, including After School Club fees for January, pole classes, my current overdraft and a couple of big xmas presents for dd I have still got money over . I might spread the cost of the ASC over 2 months though as I would like to buy myself a new dress for our work xmas party and I'd like to do the bulk of my xmas shopping too. I don't really have to buy many presents (at times it really is financially beneficial to be single ).

It will really be nice to actually have almost my whole salary to play with as it were .

Other news...

Things seem to have fizzled on the WLM front. Never mind. I'm sure he'll be back in touch as soon as I've met someone else which seems to be the case....at least I'm not feeling as miserable as I was this time last year and there are far worse things that can happen. Besides I actually don't mind being single - I just enjoy the attention

I've been keeping up my cycling. Only seem to manage one trip out a week but I'm still enjoying it.

DD and I went roller skating last week again. She's getting really good and is even attempting a few tricks.

pixiechick99

polesalot wrote: »

Things seem to have fizzled on the WLM front. Never mind. I'm sure he'll be back in touch as soon as I've met someone else which seems to be the case....at least I'm not feeling as miserable as I was this time last year and there are far worse things that can happen. Besides I actually don't mind being single - I just enjoy the attention

.

Lucky you...I don't get any of that:(
Working surrounded by women doesn't help:rotfl:

Brilliant news on the dfw-ness, that's brilliant.

ZTD

polesalot wrote: »

I will be debt free next Friday :j

:T

polesalot wrote: »

Other news...

Things seem to have fizzled on the WLM front. Never mind.

Less the 'never mind'. Get your swizzle stick out and give it a quick stir. Some things work better agitated.