the maccas Debt Free Diary - 20K to pay in 18 months

moozie_2

Wow themaccas, well done!!! Whata fantastic achievement! I am really happy (and a little jealous) of you!

Hope you have many more good months until the debt is gone

Verbatim

Well done. 50% has a very solid ring to it. The debt totals will tumble quickly now that you've passed the half way point and will be paying off more of the capital rather than interest.

themaccas

Thanks for the encouragement everyone, I wouldn't be able to do it without you all and hearing all your stories gives me such inspiration:grouphug: I really mean it, without this forum I wouldn't have been able to achieve what we have, OH is great and just does as he's told moneywise:rotfl: He asks me permission to buy everything now, he can't buy a penny sweet without my sayso

Ali - regarding the land purchase we are going to pull out.Buying it will not be of any benefit to us so we are going to save our money and put it to use elsewhere - probably use it to recarpet our house before we move back in, after having tennants in for 5 years it will need it! Bit of a luxury though... we'll continue to think on that one though, there may be something more mse we can do.:think:

themaccas

I'm starting to feel my money saving/earning is getting stagnant due in part to my dissertation I am trying to complete and has to be finished in 4 weeks. So, no overtime, extra shifts, ebaying at the moment and I'll probably not do any until January now.

What I have decided to do instead is cut our pocket money spending and we are going to change our gas and electric suppliers if we can. We live in a married quarter and I remember being told a couple of years ago we couldn't change our suppliers so I'll get OH to look into it. I have noticed another drop in our grocery bill since we changed to using Tesco online. We don't get swayed by the bargains that we don't need and therefore stick rigidly to our list, on the other hand our clubcard points have rocketed and now we have enough clubcard deals to pay for our airport carparking when we go on holiday in March:j

We also have British Gas insurance on our house as it gives us plumbing/electrical/gas cover and annual checks including certificates that we need by law in order to rent the house out. However it comes to £300 per year and we might be able to find a cheaper option. - Save the money and pay for the checks and certificates when they need to be done every year. Isn't amazing when you sit down and think things through that there are always ways and means to save more money?

themaccas

Well I've a week off work so I'll probably have to spend most of the time studying and finishing my dissertation. I'm really cross right now as MBNA are trying to charge interest on a 0% offer:mad: . I was offered 0% on purchases until Jan 07 and thought this would be perfect to use to pay for our NY accomodation. I have just received our statement and they have billed us £45 interest, I have phoned them and they told me that I had to use this offer (make purchases) by a certain date . Fortunately I kept the offer letter and was able to read out word for word what it said and there was NO indication of a 'use by' date. They have backtracked and will refund the charges, we'll be paying it off on Friday though:D . Lesson from this - I will always keep letters of offers as this has really paid off - literally this time!

Another MSE thing I have done is tell my friends at work and wives club that I will not be going to the xmas meal out. I was really looking forward to it but can't justify the expense of £25 (each 'do') + drinks + travel costs. I LOVE meals/nights out and don't have many and I feel sad but proud that I have made this decision. I feel all competitive (determined it will be my cheapest xmas ever!) and quite miserly this xmas but it is all for the right reasons. I/we won't regret it in March/April.:A

I'll be updating my sig tomorrow-can't wait! Anyone else as sad as me?

anniestar

WOW you are doing SO well. Congratulations. Also, good luck with getting your dissertation finished (VERY happy memories of doing mine although have to say a lot of them involve 4am mars bar stops!!!!!!!) Another dissertation moment involved getting very wet, warming myself up with a LARGE bottle of wine!!!and making a LARGE cc donation to whatever televised Comic relief??? that was on at the time) Happy days! You take care and get some rest-you are on holiday you know!

dinkylou

Congratulations on your progess so far.

Don't worry about missing the annual events, after all, no-one will be able to remember them the morning after!!

You're doing the right thing and I'm just as tight as you there as have turned down some events myself.

Bet most of the others won't be off to NY early next year, will they? Then you'll be happy you missed the xmas do. After all, there'll be another one next year!

themaccas

Well I have turned down another xmas meal out- this time with DD's friends mums from school. I don't really know them but because it is such a small class (8 girls) it would have been quite nice I guess. Yesterday OH and I had a real fall-off-the-wagon-day in town getting our last xmas presents. We ended up spending - DS1 digital camera £99 down from £170 (he is going on some overseas trips next year - New York with us, and Chilie and Bolivia). DD we spent another £15 and DS2 we spent another £20.

So our xmas spending now looks like this:
DS1 (age16) - Original budget £35 - spent £99
DD (age8)- Original budget £20 - spent £35
DS2 (age3)- Original budget £20 - spent £40

OH and I are having a maximum £10 budget to spend on each other. I am going to buy him the aerosmith cd.

I am a bit annoyed we spent over as I was really proud of us all, the kids were more than happy with the original budget and totally accepted they would not be getting much this year compared with previous xmas's. I just get sucked into the whole xmas shebang and this year was no different despite my good intentions. Oh well at least it will not stop our debt repayments this month

beanielou

I think you have done really well to spend so little actually as its actually so hard.
Well done on turning down the Christmas celebration meal.
(Ive turned down one & pulled out of one & pondering on third.If lodger moves out before due to pay again it will be a definite no no).
Dont be too hard on yourself though

D&DD

themaccas wrote:

I'll be updating my sig tomorrow-can't wait! Anyone else as sad as me?

That would be me :rotfl:
I've turned into the cheapskate of the year I think..What a difference from last year my plastic was melting at this point!!!:eek:
Isn't it a great feeling though??? You've done so well this year here's to giving your debts another hammering in 07 :beer: