The Ultimate Incentive to get debt free… again. Dinah & NIM go head to head!

clearmydebts

Yes, it is a gorgeus hotel! We paid €145 for 2 nights and got breakfast, a 3 course dinner, 3 mini spa treatments and 1 cocktail (mocktail for me!) and thai tapas up to our room on the 2nd night. It was very reasonable!

It's not far out from Dublin centre at all NIM. 20 minutes on the Luas to Stephens Green and it was a 5 minute walk from the Luas stop. Also 5 minutes by car to Dundrum shopping centre which is the reason we stayed there. It is shoppers paradise!

wendz86

Dinah - that is rubbish about ebay, how are you meant to improve if you can't list!

Birdie - glad you had a great birthday. Sounds like you got spoilt .

CMD - hotel looks lovely, and sounds like you had a great time.

I didn't do much this weekend. Had a bit of a rubbish night sleep with little one so will be chilling out today!

Cinny91

CMD - That hotel looks gorgeous, perfect for a girls weekend!

That's a mental amount of MS there NIM! But I guess if you need the money, you've got to do something. Pandora bracelets are lovely too. Me and my Sister have Sabo ones, though I barely wear mine as jewelry coincides with my metal phobia as it freaks me out when I think how dirty they get. And the smell, sweet Jesus!

Birdie - Love the sound of the gifts from your OH, proves you don't need a massive amount of money to give sweet, thought out gifts. And the printer sounds schmancy!

How did you get on with your list Dinah? Ebay banning you is weird, I mean I understand the reason but like you said, how are you meant to improve a rating of something that depends on selling when you can't?! Have you emailed them?

Set up a new budget for our little house next month. We're going down the 'every penny has a name' route. It looks pretty intense, and I'm worried just if I've put something down wrong; I don't really have anywhere to pull the extra from. But, we always have too much month left after our money so it's worth a shot!

N.I.M

Dont say Dundrum, took years of councilling to recover from that place.

But that is a good point.

clearmydebts

N.I.M wrote: »

Dont say Dundrum, took years of councilling to recover from that place.

But that is a good point.

Lol - did you have a bad experience? I must say it would be my OH's nightmare too!

Are you on an economy drive Cinny?

Sorry to hear you had a bad night Wendz. We didn't have a great one ourselves. Max was awake at 12.30, 1.30, 4.30 and then on and off from 5.30 to 6.50am. Am wrecked!

Dinah93

Glad to hear you have a new money plan Cinny, let me know how you get on.

I have to say we're a bit opposite at the minute, I don't even check the banking every day anymore! That's not to say we're by any means flush with cash, but I feel a lot happier in myself now I'm not worrying about every little penny. Life is for living and it seems I'm happier not being able to account for everything we spend, but have more time and less stress to enjoy life and stress a bit less. We decided to do one mega MS weekend rather than little ones every weekend a month, if some great jobs come up then fair enough, but NIM needs more balance than being out every saturday asking obscure questions about freezing ham and how a camera works, and our house is important to get in order too and that can only be done on a weekend really. Worse case scenario is we only pay off the debts at the minimum level. I'm still planning on trying to get it all gone in 9 months, but I won't be heart broken if the date goes wooshing past! I think my main priority right now is getting the house finished and on the market (need money to do that though) and getting the business up and running (need people to communicate more before I start bashing heads together!).

Did a quick supermarket MS at lunchtime, not a supermarket I go to often (mostly because it's like a cave!) but I got two carrier bag fulls for £11.47 and that includes pork tenderloin, ham, 6 packs of blueberries (reduced, they freeze, good for smoothies), 8 granary buns, 4 naan, rocket, 6 peaches and raspberries - I thought that was great value. Might go there intentionally in future, certainly put my usual few in their place. I like that the meat isn't overly packaged too, can see exactly how fresh/fatty it is. I was staggered by the price of grapes though - £3.89 for a smallish punnet!!!

Flower08

I think thats a good attitude to have towards the money Dinah.

I was absolutly determined that we would be debt free by the time the baby arrives, but I have since realised its not the end of the world if we dont. We can meet all the payments every month and we are also overpaying (which is obviously a good thing!). But at the same time I want to be able to buy something for the baby if I want to without stressing that it could have gone towards the debts.
This is our first baby and I want to be excited about instead of stressing about how much things are costing us the debt is going down thats all that matters.

clearmydebts

Flower08 wrote: »

I think thats a good attitude to have towards the money Dinah.

I was absolutly determined that we would be debt free by the time the baby arrives, but I have since realised its not the end of the world if we dont. We can meet all the payments every month and we are also overpaying (which is obviously a good thing!). But at the same time I want to be able to buy something for the baby if I want to without stressing that it could have gone towards the debts.
This is our first baby and I want to be excited about instead of stressing about how much things are costing us the debt is going down thats all that matters.

I know exactly where you are coming from Flower. I also want to get rid of the debts so we can start to overpay on the mortgage on our flat.

Dinah93

I think the only reason I want to overpay the debts atm is if we were to start a family, or I was off sick for a long period again, we would struggle to make ends meet with those changing circumstances. As things are at present we're fine, although it will be good to get the B & H loan finished in October as that will free up £240 a month to throw at other things. I think a lot of my mind is now saying 'finish the house, get it up for sale, then focus on ebay & MSing, because if the house sells quickly that could be all the money worries out of the way anyway'.

Birdie85

Sounds like a good money plan Cinny, it'll at least help you realise if you do waste money anywhere! I want to try taking cash out at the start of the month to go into actual pots for spending on food and petrol, don't know if OH's keen on the idea though but it's too easy to overspend on the joint account card! OH's decided to cancel his health insurance which was a fair whack every month, he's still going to be covered for the next 3 months then we're going to find a cheaper option. He won't need it anyway really because if he knacks anything else playing rugby I'll kill him so problem solved! :rotfl:

I think you've got things very right Flower, as long as you can make the payments then I don't think it's too important to clear the debt before the baby arrives, it'll do you no favours to be getting worked up because you can't afford to buy your baby the things you want it to have!

The hotel sounds like it was a really good deal CMD, I'll definitely be remembering that... not that we're going to have any spare money for weekends away any time soon!

Cinny you never cease to amaze me, a metal phobia?! I'll help you out with that honey... send the bracelet to me, I'll look after it for you!