Squizz's Fizzy Diary

hypno06

Ah well, if you are putting the kettle on........

redsquirrel80

:rotfl:

*passes round jaffa cakes and tea/ champagne (whichever you prefer at this time in the morning*

Well, as of about ten minutes ago, I am officially debt free :j

elantan

Champagne it is then .... Brilliant news squizz ... Well done u deserve it honey ... Sitting with a smile on my face now

The_Dragon

:j:beer::j:beer::j

Brilliant news Squizz!

hypno06

Sod the champagne - crack open another packet of jaffa cakes :j:j:j

Superb news! Congratulations :T:T:T

redsquirrel80

Thanks! It's not really quite sunk in yet - got all the figures for what I paid off when but it still seems quite bizarre to me that I paid off £10k in just over two years (I had joined MSE two years before that but spent a while faffing about and not really doing it properly).

There were a couple of fortunate things that helped - new job in early 2010, second job which appeared at just the right time, moving in with Mr S helped massively with cutting the bills down.. but also budgeting so that I didn't feel like I was missing out terribly - I still had a life, bought a few treats.. I always found when I tried to be absolutely frugal I felt like I was being 'punished' and then rebelled against it, then felt guilty... negotiating a settlement figure with one of the DCAs helped a bit too of course. More recently having specific goals and reasons to get the debts paid off has helped me push to the end - I want to be able to save up to do more studying, and eventually so we can have a house with a decent big garden/ bit of land. I want to be able to work part-time, and I can now get some savings in place to support that, and I know I can live off a certain amount if I need to so I can afford to earn less.

Weirdly I have very little desire to go and spend loads of money on things I previously treated myself with (I can't this month anyway as that last payment has left things a bit tight, but manageable!) - I think for me there's a lot of truth in the link between unhappiness and debt. I'm not saying I'll never buy another pair of lovely shoes just because they make me go 'oooh' but I freely admit that I've done things like that in the past to try and 'fill a gap' - didn't work. The things that genuinely make me happy aren't always free (course fees, music lessons, stuff for the garden, membership of the community farm) but I've found that it's the doing and not the having that actually matters.

I think I'll always get a thrill from getting a bargain or freebie - leaves more money for everything else after all! I think when I do buy things it will be less but better quality - something I've not always felt able to do in the past.

For the next few months at least my basic budget looks a bit like this...

Income
£1350

Outgoings
Rent £350
Phone £36.50
Food £150 (groceries, lunches, meals out)
Music lessons £60
Books/ clothes/ other bits and pieces £50

---

£646.50

That leaves me just over £700 of which the majority will be saved... and we'll see how it goes from there!

Cheery_Daff

Yay! :j :j :j :j :j :j :j :j :j

elantan

redsquirrel80 wrote: »

Thanks! It's not really quite sunk in yet - got all the figures for what I paid off when but it still seems quite bizarre to me that I paid off £10k in just over two years (I had joined MSE two years before that but spent a while faffing about and not really doing it properly).

There were a couple of fortunate things that helped - new job in early 2010, second job which appeared at just the right time, moving in with Mr S helped massively with cutting the bills down.. but also budgeting so that I didn't feel like I was missing out terribly - I still had a life, bought a few treats.. I always found when I tried to be absolutely frugal I felt like I was being 'punished' and then rebelled against it, then felt guilty... negotiating a settlement figure with one of the DCAs helped a bit too of course. More recently having specific goals and reasons to get the debts paid off has helped me push to the end - I want to be able to save up to do more studying, and eventually so we can have a house with a decent big garden/ bit of land. I want to be able to work part-time, and I can now get some savings in place to support that, and I know I can live off a certain amount if I need to so I can afford to earn less.

Weirdly I have very little desire to go and spend loads of money on things I previously treated myself with (I can't this month anyway as that last payment has left things a bit tight, but manageable!) - I think for me there's a lot of truth in the link between unhappiness and debt. I'm not saying I'll never buy another pair of lovely shoes just because they make me go 'oooh' but I freely admit that I've done things like that in the past to try and 'fill a gap' - didn't work. The things that genuinely make me happy aren't always free (course fees, music lessons, stuff for the garden, membership of the community farm) but I've found that it's the doing and not the having that actually matters.

I think I'll always get a thrill from getting a bargain or freebie - leaves more money for everything else after all! I think when I do buy things it will be less but better quality - something I've not always felt able to do in the past.

For the next few months at least my basic budget looks a bit like this...

Income
£1350

Outgoings
Rent £350
Phone £36.50
Food £150 (groceries, lunches, meals out)
Music lessons £60
Books/ clothes/ other bits and pieces £50

---

£646.50

That leaves me just over £700 of which the majority will be saved... and we'll see how it goes from there!

Thats gotta be a contender for post of the year .... It deff seems to be about a change in thought process for me ... I dont see me wanting to go out and spend send spend either when i am finally debt free ... It wont make me happy

hypno06

Had to laugh.....I buy shoes. And underwear. Lots of. And it makes me very happy :rotfl:

But that is just because I is shallow

redsquirrel80

hypno06 wrote: »

Had to laugh.....I buy shoes. And underwear. Lots of. And it makes me very happy :rotfl:

But that is just because I is shallow

Not at all Hypno! It's whatever works for you.. I thought it did for me, and then I realised that it didn't - at least not as a fix for the things that were actually wrong. What I mean is it would still make me happy to buy nice shoes but it would be the icing on the cake, where before I was trying to put icing on when there was no cake. Of course, I might just buy cake