RoseRed and the case of the Tapdancing Bankrobbers

RoseRed

Well, I think it is finally time to sort this out, I am in debt to the tune of about £12K. It really is rather a lot. It has gone down from its highest but it has taken so long that I feel it will never be paid off.

I'm a mature student and am finally getting some funding now, of course the majority of funding is really debt tied up in a pretty package with a nice big fancy bow. I'm just refusing to think of the debt at the moment and stickling to the magical free money line, although given that is what got me into this mess in the first place it is prob not a good idea.

I live with my lovely OH and most of the debt is mine, some is offically his too but in reality it was for things like repairs to my car. Luckily he is lovely and sees it as our problem, I helped to support him when he was at Uni, luckily we are now in a position that we will have no reason to rack up anymore debt apart from the tuition loans. I want to spend the long holidays having lovely adventures (he is a teacher) but we can't as this debt is holding us back.

I know the drill, I know what I should be doing. I can give great advice, brilliant even, unfortunately I'm carp when it comes to practicing what I preach. I have OCD and am prone to hypomanic episodes, I've given up trying to blame my debt on this, my responsibility after all. I did try and use it to my advantage and ask my psychologist if it were possible to tweak my OCD so I worried less about irrational stuff but instead about very real things like going overdrawn and not staying in budget. Apparently this is not taking the process seriously and 'a cause for concern' boll dacks I say.

Anyways that's enough drivel for tonight, I am going to keep a log of my process in here. May it do much good.

RoseRed

Sessie

Hi and welcome!

As I think you will see others saying in other threads, you've now done the hardest part, recognising the problem and resolving to deal with it. It's all downhill from here on in, even if there are a few bumps on the way.

I've only been here (posting that is) for a few days, though lurking for much longer and I've already had some nice welcomes and motivation, so I'm trying to return the favour here! They seem a nice bunch... *whispers* a few of them are a bit... mad though but ssshhh, they'll hear us!

Good luck!

x

RoseRed

Thank you Sessie! Today I'm raring to go, hoping to have a NSD today. Got a guy coming later to collect my old wardrobe which I sold on ebay. I'm also going to:

Bank the cash from yesterdays car-boot sale.
Pick up my packing boxes.
Sort out everything for the charity shop which i'll drop off tomorrow on the way to my friends house.
Sort out everything for the tip which I'll take when I go to get the carpet shampooer.
Ring Morrisons and make sure I can get said carpet shampooer tomorrow evening.
Blitz pack as much as I can.
Eat from our freezer/store cupboard. We can't take any chilled/frozen food with us as it will need to be out Thursday night and by the time we get our new freezer delivered and allow to sit/cool down it will probably be quite late on Friday.

Ideally I'd like most of our things packed and jammed into the living room by tonight, we can then paint the bedrooms/hallway and shampoo the carpets. We can then pile everything back into the rooms and paint/clean the kitchen/living room. We've only got a few days left and if I'm honest i'm starting to panic!

RR

RoseRed

I had a minor hypomanic episode over the last day, finally calmed down now, so I don't think my earlier postings made complete sense! As it is not at all clear we are moving house this weekend. Moving is costing a bloody fortune, especially as we need a fridge freezer, washing machine, sofa and bed. Fridge Freezer has been purchased 2nd hand and everything else can wait. We have chairs to sit on and a pretty crappy spare bed that will be going in the spare room that we can sleep on for now. Am going to get a decent mattress, a cheap divan base and a reasonably priced sofa when my grants come through. I'm also going to try and not go over the top when it comes to getting the place just right. I might need someone to monitor me when I get into Ikea though! I'm going to plan what I buy online and only go for items we need. I'm also going to take a calculator so I can keep an eye on how those little purchases add up.

Whilst moving is expensive we will be saving considerably when we move, our rent and insurances are much less than we are paying at the moment. We also have a coal fired central heating system which is backed up by electric so our heating bills etc will come down dramatically, we only have electric at the moment and it is very expensive. The OH's parents have a coal fired system so he is used to it and actually quite excited!

I did pretty well at my tasks, we got the packing boxes, went to the bank and most of the bedrooms are cleared out. Didn't manage a NSD though, we had breakfast really early and after finishing our tasks we were starving but still a 30 minute drive from home. Instead of doing our usual and spending £10+ at Subway we got sandwiches from the Tesco meal deal with was £4 for both. We also got oven cleaner and spray bleach from B&M bargains. I found a pound and bought a scratch card for OH, he won a tenner so we are quids in. OH only buys scratchies when he finds money and he always wins! Unfortunately he does not have the same luck on the lottery draw

I sorted through all our books etc and most of them only sell for 1p on Amazon so I will not be wasting time moving them. I've sorted through the clothes and bedding for decent stuff we no longer need/use and am dropping off a huge haul at the Charity Shop. It is a real pain as I live centrally but there is no where I can drop off a big pile of stuff easily. I'm going to see a friend tomorrow and there are a few charity shops in her area so I will offload there. As an added bonus they are the smaller local charities which I think often miss out so I am happy to support them.

Off for a hot bath now, yesterdays car boot is catching up and I have aching muscles.

RoseRed

Not updated as we were without Broadband until yesterday. We've spent a fortune over the last week money has been pouring through my fingers.

I also messed up my sums and I'm about £90 short :eek: for the month. I'm going to blitz the work this weekend and I also have a few bits to sell on BIN, hopefully they should go pretty quickly and I can scrape the pennies together in time.

I need to sort my plan on a daily basis. Tomorrow definitely needs to be a no-spend day. We have got a fair bit of meat etc and hopefully should be able to get by with only veg for the next 2 weeks. Unfortunately I'm on a low carb diet so our food bill is more pricey than it could be. I don't want to stop as I'm losing weight and I find my mood is much more stable, when we deviated last week I had a hypomanic episode. It also helps to manage my sugar and alcohol cravings.

Also, my plan does not include smokes! I've got a 50g pack of tobacco left. I'm going to read the Allen Carr book and steel myself to quit. My friend quit smoking recently and everytime she got a craving she went on her mini trampoline for a few minutes. She quit and got a fab bum in the process. Lets hope it works for me.

Plan for the weekend:

Lots and lots of work, 7 hours per day at least.
List bits on Ebay and Gumtree.
Eat from stores.
Get all the ironing done reading for OH going back to work next week.
Finish sorting out my study.
Get all paperwork organised and filed.
Do last years tax return.
Complete national insurance exemption forms.
Organise my many craft bits so I can start making pieces to sell again.
Clean and organise the living room.
If I get time organise clicks list and start doing dooyoo, free quidco deals etc.
Look up a new Doc so I can call in and get us registered on Tuesday.

Here's to a great money making weekend. :A

savingholmes

hi rose red - just wanted to welcome you to the diary boards... Do you spend more in your hypo manic episodes... if you do perhaps you need one of those pre-paycards where you can only spend up to a defined limit and perhaps ask someone you trust to look after your other cards? Just a thought...

I download all our bank information into a spreadsheet and then try and track all my expenditure - that could prove a useful use of your compulsions... I think I have a bit of an addictive personality and those sort of things help me...

honeybear_2

Hi :wave:

Just wanted to say fab diary name!!! :T

Best of luck with the debt busting

RoseRed

Thank you for popping by! Yes I do tend to spend when I get manic episodes, OH is getting better at recognising my behaviour and taking the cards off me. I'm trying to manage my moods better through diet and exercise and that is definitely helping. I also like having craft things to hand as I become very creative, last time I made some very fiddly and beautiful chain mail earrings. Normally I would not have the patience for such detailed work.

Plan for the day.

Blitz clean the house.
Organise my study.
List Ebay bits.
Get the paperwork sorted.
Tax return.
NI exemption.
Get all of my change of address, letters etc sorted.
Make a list of calls to make on Tuesday.
No spend day!

Lots there to keep me busy but I'll feel much better when it is all done.

RoseRed

While I've known I needed to pay off my debts for a while I think I have finally had a real lightbulb moment today. I've worked out that even with the return of our deposit and my student loans/grants when we have got what we need that is the funds depleted.

We owe nearly £360 on water and old Ctax, that will be paid off immediately.
£350 to family which has to be paid back.
We need sofa, washing machine, bed, office chair, new hard drive, sills on my car, new mobile (mines on its last legs), paint. I also need new clothes for Uni as I've lost weight and don't want to go in baggy rags, I also need new shoes as I only have a pair of battered trainers and some flip flops! DH needs new suits for work as well, his old ones are getting a bit tatty and he is hopefully up for promotion this year so needs to be smart.

I've done a lot of ebaying etc recently but as I have not been budgetting properly the money has been absorbed into our general costs.

I'm having a brain storm (or is that not politically correct anymore? I can't keep up) and come up with a long list of things to get done.

RoseRed

Been thinking more about my priorities. Too often I want everything lovely NOW. It is sinking in that this has caused me lots of problems and debt.

Top priority is the sills on my car, they are the only bit that gets rusty, although old my car is mechanically very sound and cheap to repair. When I had my last MOT the guy told me to keep the car and get the sills cut out and new ones welded on. He said it should not cost me more than £200. This is top priority as we live in a remote village and buses are highly overpriced and unreliable.

We do need a sofa, we only have 2 chairs and so if we have guests we need to sit on the floor. As I don't want to spend money on eating out I want to be able to entertain. I like an Argos corner sofa that my friend has, it is £400 and very comfy. I'll hunt around to get it or similar as cheap as poss and also look for cashback. I'll then sell my chairs as they are no longer needed.

Wardrobe can wait, we will use the canvas wardrobe in the spare room for now.

Bed, we will get a divan base and a mattress topper. If we have guests me and OH will sleep on the rubbish bed in the spare room. We'll get a new mattress in January.

I'm going to keep extras to bare minimum, there are a few car boot sales near here. I can hopefully get bits and pieces from there. I'm good at reupholstering simple things and renovating furniture so I can do this. Most of the nicest things in our home where bought for a few pounds and renovated so I have no need to hanker after identikit Ikea. The paint i'm after is on BOGOFF at Homebase for the next 3 weeks, it is definitely the cheapest I can find. I'll make sure I scrape together the pennies before the offer ends.

Washing machine: we need one of these as the Launderette is expensive. I might get a real cheap or freecycled second hand one to tie us over and get a new one in the new year or when it dies. I've seen them on Gumtree for £20-£30 and as I spent £6 at the launderette for one weeks washing it won't be long till we are quids in.

Garden can wait till the spring, we already have the tools to tidy it up and kill weeds. Making it pretty can wait.

Ditto the upstairs bathroom, it is dated but clean and solid. We'll live with it for now.

I need a new hard drive as I study and write. I use the main PC for this as it is uncomfortable to work for long periods on my laptop. The new battery and keyboard for the laptop can wait.

Clothing, I'm dooyooing for Amazon vouchers so I will hit this harder and get myself some trainers and boots from Amazon. Clothing can be got from Ebay, Tesco and Primarni, I can jazz it up with my lovely jewellery. Make a list of what I need first.

I'll buy hubs a new suit from the M&S outlet store (about £70 for a quality one) and get him second on his next payday. We could find it cheaper but figured like cheap shoes cheap suits are a false economy and rarely last.

I'll do some searching for a cheap O2 PAYG phone, I have O2 internet and if I get a phone with them I'll save £5 a month.

From my rough sums this will allow me to pay off my final outstanding tax saving £100 month and also pay a huge chunk of the overdrafts. :A

Combine this with spending the next month devoted to money making/saving and we will be quids in and worry free.

If anyone actually read this then well done and have a cookie.

beanielou

Happy shiney new diary
Keep posting!