Walking the walk...

E2006

How thoroughly depressing my sig is now. I was down to within the £7k's, now Im back up into the £9k's :(:(:(:(:(

Trying to be positive, those debts on my signature will be reduced to only 2 - barclaycard, and santander come the end of the year (if all goes well), and hopefully santander will be gone by April 2012, and barclaycard should be down to £2900 by then. So in 8 more paydays, I should have reduced my debt to £2900 and one cc!

At least they're going in the right direction!

E2006

I havent posted for a while. Im feeling quite out of control with money. The food budget has gone waaaay over the planned £200. Im almost at the end of the month (payday next week), and I have enough freezer food to last, but I will need bits of fresh for next week. I have no idea how much Ive spent but I know its at least double what we had budgetted for :eek:.

The problem is 'borrowing' from the food purse when I cant get to the bank, not writing down what ive spent and what on, and basically not budgetting well! I spent the lions share of the money in the first shop, and then from then on felt that feeling of panic about how I was to get through to the end of the month, and that feeling of being out of control!

Thinking about it, this comes from my student days I think. I never had any money. I had two jobs and the dreaded student loan, but never had any money! I used to put money in envelopes (a food one, a petrol one etc)to try and last me the month, but it would always be gone in the first week. I was never a big spender then - just didnt seem to keep hold of my money. I remember having £4/5 per week for food (plenty of beans ). I remember driving home from work on a night on pure petrol fumes, realising i had to stop for fuel, but having no money at all, then praying that the fiver I had put in would clear on my cc.

After that, once I got a job and moved in with my DH I thought I had money, recently I thought we were doing well, but since taking away my cc's, ive realised that I never had enough to cover everything we were doing. We never had our own money - our money was gone is the first week after payday, and after that it was good old CC's giving us the lifestyle we wanted!

I think that why I feel that loss of control now. I dont have the card to fall back on, and its scary not having enough money to get through the rest of the month. But this is where I need to get creative I reckon. I have set the budget. I have slashed the food budget to enable bigger payments to be paid the the cc. It works on paper, so is completely do-able as long as we are strict with ourselves.

Phew..ramblings over, and feel better for it. Off now to gert ready for work...

Hovel_lady

I know exactly what you mean.
It is scary but remember why you're doing it - to be out of debt. You're doing great, this is just a blip on the road to being debt free.
xx

E2006

Thanks Hovel Lady. As I said earlier I havent been on here for a while so have fallen behind - how are you doing?? Hope you are well! x

I worked out all of my figures again today and Im still on track to pay off the majority of the debt by next April. It means a couple of bigger payments along the way, and sticking to the budget completely, but it is possible. Come April I will reduce from over £9k on 4 cards to £2900 on one card, so that will be a lot tidier and easier to manage.

It was my birthday yesterday and I was very spoiled . Got things that I had had my eye on for a while (like shoes, and bag and some perfume). In the past I would have just bought those things as and when I saw them/decided I wanted them.

DH and I are off for a few days away next week. I get paid next Wednesday and have budgeted for the days away. Breakfast is included in the cost of the room, lunch will probably be a sandwhich on the go (we will be doing lots of sightseeing) and dinner will be a teatime special or such like. With any luck we may come home with a little left over money!

Hovel_lady

E2006 wrote: »

Thanks Hovel Lady. As I said earlier I havent been on here for a while so have fallen behind - how are you doing?? Hope you are well! x

All things considered I'm OK.
Big mess on my diary last week so I'm not doing it anymore and have set up a blog instead:

http://hovellady.blogspot.com/

Using MSE for everything else as before.
xx

E2006

Oh dear. I will definately subscribe to your blog. Talking of blogs, have you ever read this one?http://notesfromthefrugaltrenches.com/ If you go to the archives the authur has been writing for a few years. Its such good reading.

BTW, I also LOVED Hovel in the Hills. The librarian even reserved it for herself when I returned it, hehe. She had read Hovel kitchen and said it was brilliant.

Take care, and I will be following your progress xx

Hovel_lady

No but will check it out thankyou xx

LivvyLoo_2

Hi there,
Hope you don't mind me popping in. Just reading your diary reminds me of my life when I was at Uni, having no money and then going and getting a job and when you got your first pay slip blowing it within a week.
Once I got married and got a house, everthing was spend spend spend, I used to pay that much off debt at the beginning of every month that I would leave us nothing for the rest of the month and then we would need to put money back on CC's. Think we paid debt off once but it grew again...simply by not budgetting.

So like you I am learning to budget and live within my means, don't give up. It takes time to get your budgets right and make sure you put money away for everything so there are no big surprises. I also love shoes and bags and I am looking forward to my birthday in 2 weeks so I can have a little splurge....all within budget of course.

x

E2006

Hi LivvyLoo, thank you for popping in :hello:
Everything you said is so true!! Paying so much off the debt every month that the lions share of the wages go to re-payments, meaning that we had to use the cards to get through and always ended up spending more that we had paid off, so one step forward, two backwards! We too have paid off the debt a couple of times, only to build it back up again, once was even by way of re-mortgage, which hurts the most

We had a lovely family LSD yesterday. We went to a local train museum which is free, DS loves trains! We spent all day there, and had taken a picnick (which we ate in the car as it was chilly). We then popped to a large supermarket close by to their cafe for a cuppa. I think in total we spent less than a tenner for a full day out, and it really was lovely.

DH is off to the football today. He is getting a lift there and back so today will be another LSD. Im going to potter about with DS and do some baking.

Off to London on Thursday so i need to start packing some bits today otherwise it will be a mad rush during the week. Im really looking forward to it :T

Payday Wednesday so the debts will reduce by a good chunk on Thursday :beer:. As we are away, and wont need to shop until Sunday, the month works out as being less than 4 weeks so hopefully will be easier to stay in budget this time. Im going to do the grocery and petrol challenge again and try my best to stick to it completely. Im also going to do 4 full weeks of slimming world. Ive been cheating quite a lot lately, so ive decided to pop it on my sig, and stick to it for 28 days. Out of that time I can have 4 non SW meals, but the rest have to be slimming world meals, using no more than a couple of syns if any. This will start on the Sunday when I get back from London and end when the schools break up for half term. Im going to weigh myself at the beginning and then again at the end of the 4 weeks and see how ive done. I will record here whats Ive had (although it may be quite repetative given the tight budget ).

E2006

Signature updated :T (well, it was updated Weds morning but I lost the post I had typed :mad:). Debts coming down nicely, but its going to be a really tight month again. Im feeling worried already as the bank acc is empty! I have the food and petrol money in the purses, but other than that there is nothing in there apart from the money needed for the DD's due out. {{gulp}}. Its a bit scary. The reason there's nothing is because the entire money I had allocated for London was used, which included the entertainment fund. I was hoping to bring some back to put back into the acc but we found it really expensive and the money soon went. We cvame home with maybe £10 is, which I will stick in the shopping purse as no doubt we will need to dip into that a little this month.

On a plus side it's 4 complete weeks until payday, no extra weekends to pay for. We have nothing going on other than DH's dads birthday and we already have the present. Just need a card. They will probably do something in the house like a meal.

I need to pop shopping this morning. Going to go for cheap meals this week - lots of jacket potatoes . I want to give us a head start this month by starting as we mean to go on. We've had loads of meat lately, so this week will largely be veggie/fish. Jackets and beans, tuna pasta, Jacket, tuna and salad etc. This should keep the cost down. Im also going to get as much as I can in Al** because I find it so much cheaper than Mr A which is our other local supermarket. I did almost a weeks shop there just before we went away and spent £21 for a trolley full of food .

Other than being expensive our few days away were lovely, although I do have DS's cold/flu so ive had to dope myself up with cold medicines. I had to go back to the hotel and have a lie down one day (which I hate doing - its such a waste of the day). Yesterday was a very long day. By the time we travelled home, picked up DS and popped into the supermarket for milk, bread and something for tea it was after 7pm. We had been on the go from 9am. I was shattered, and today feel worse than ever so think its catching up on me more now that Ive stopped. DH has taken DS to football this morning so I have the house to myself. Im going to have a hot bath and try to relax. DH has offered to do the food shop bless him, but I dont dare let him - he always comes back with 'extras' that we havent budgeted for . Its safer just to pop out and get it before he gets back. Other than that, and hanging the uniforms on the line to dry, Im doing nothing today.