New Year New Me, the journey continues.........

thrifty_fifty

Ok so today I'm going to work on the positives. I'm half way through my journey and it's my one year DFW anniversary a week today. I have cleared half my debt in just under 12 months and considering this has been a 7 year journey in the last 12 months I've finally got some wheels under me and started to seriously clear it. Although I had thought I would be debt free by september, it looks more realistically in being by October, due to interest being added on Grrrr. But it will be this year.

Instead of moaning about not having any money to spend, I'm going to focus on trying to find things cheaply and getting a bargain, for those things that I need.

After leaving a charity bag outside the door yesterday and them not collecting it-this is the fourth time this particular charity has left a bag for collecting much needed items and not collected them-I have decided to lose the weight and keep the stuff. It will need drying off now, because it has spent a day in the rain, why oh why the bag has tiny holes in the side, I don't know. Anyway that saves me buying anymore clothes for a while.

Going to work out a way of getting my bike over here from mum and Dad's. The shed we have is not big enough to house it, so I'll have to chain it up outside and put a cover over it. I thought the biking would be good, because then I can run errands without having to use the car (save petrol), get rid of my weight and feel better about myself, plus biking always made me feel positive, and gave me time to ponder things along the route.

thrifty_fifty

Well today was a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Got back from lunch to see message that manager wanted to speak to me, then told to stay put and whole section to be spoken to. This is it, I thought, this is where we get told that we are no longer needed. Well our department is merging into another, the new structure will be in place by August, and with two of my areas going out to other departments I'm taking this as my early warning that I won't have a job come the end of July. I've spent half the day in shock, feeling nothingness, then motivation, I'm all over the place.

I'm rather tipsy now, because I accepted that I needed it tonight. It did get me round to thinking though, that the only way we get through life is to have something to believe in. I'm not a particularly religious person, but something has been niggling at me for the past few months, that there might be something to be gained from reading the good book, and perhaps attending church. There has to be something else to life than just trying to earn money to live.

Going now to join OH to watch Jeeves and Wooster.

little_h_2

hi thrifty,

sorry to hear about your day, that must have been a dreadful shock. hopefully you will be able to rationalise it a bit over the next few days and come up with some plans.

sounds like you have been very busy building your skills in all sorts of ways so it could be the start of a whole new chapter. and at least you are well on your way to being debt free now, so even if the worst should happen, you will be in a much better position than if you hadn't started on your DF journey.

re the questioning what it's all about, i'm on the same road at the moment. 'shopping around' as my vicar calls it (and i'm not religious either, but have also had cause to think more about such things over recent months). for me the church is somewhere to stop and think and reflect and contemplate. i feel peaceful there and that's nice and doesn't happen often! maybe there will be more to it, but i am not pushing. I found that all the people i met lately who seemed to be calm and collected and joyful, had one thing in common and that was their faith. Interesting stuff

ps - i was intrigued to read that you are going to give the clothes a try after all. i can understand your thinking re. why you wanted to give them away and also why your new self doesn't want to give them away. let us know how it goes and good luck! if it doesn't work for you, well at least you gave it a whirl

thrifty_fifty

Thanks little h

It really helps to be on here. I'm still all over the place, don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight. I just seem to have lost all direction. I really don't know what I'm doing any more. I'm tired of the struggle, I just want to have something to look forward to. I can feel myself going back to the way I was a couple of years ago when I had a bad time, I just feel panicky and then not caring, and then hopeful and then despairing again. I've just plain had enough. I'm thirty years old, and I'm envious of those who are retiring. I just want to be with OH and to make our home made stuff. I can't remember the last time I actually felt happy and didn't feel stressed and worried.

thrifty_fifty

Ok

So today was a bit more positive. kept busy by getting my cv up to date and taking a good look over the skills and experience I have gained over the last two years. It looks pretty good. This boosted my confidence. I will be applying for jobs, and going with the view that everything will be ok, because it has to be. I'll keep paying off the debts, and am seriously considering going the way of ebay again.

I've drawn my £10 spending money out for the month and taken switch card out of my bag. Went to the £ shop today and stocked up on toothpaste, screenwash, and a pack of mars bars, that I can cut a piece off, when I need a bit of a mood lift. Went to primarni today and bought pyjama bottoms £4 which are keeping my legs warm, as the house is freezing.

Have taken some more cost saving measures this month, got boots reheeled and had metal heel tips put on £6.95. Ok so I will sound like a tap dancer walking down the road, but they should last a bit longer this way. Downgraded another lady item to cheaper budget ones at 59p, and downgraded hand wash to from Molton brown that we just used up from last year, to 55p marine scent Morrisons own brand.

We're ditching waitrose for Aldi (it was nice while it lasted, but being out of this hell of a debt hole is all we want right now). Going out to get the potatoes for the allotment tomorrow.

Longer term we will be saving our deposit for our house, cutting down on alchohol and working on keeping jobs and trying to get better paid ones. We will be looking for an ex council type house in the country with plenty of land and as small a mortgage as we can possibly muster, and paying that off as soon as humanly possible. Other than that we will be trying to paid things up front, like car insurance etc, so that we have as few direct debits as possible. Oh and I will try and store bikes outside, covered up, as we have no garage, and the shed isn't big enough, but we want to cut down on the journeys we make by car-not easy when you live in the middle of nowhere with no bus route.

Making birthday presents and cards too.

There. Writing it down makes me feel better, because I know we have a plan, I know we are being sensible and cutting back as much as possible, so I know we are doing all we can to do better in the future. What else can you do?

thrifty_fifty

Yay! OH did the shopping at ALDI this week and got it all in for £13.76 a bit better than £40-£60 we were spending in our few crazy months at waitrose.

It feels good to be on the spending as little as we can road again. Going to get to the end of my DFW before we start on OH. So the shoes et al are going on ebay-god know I didn't want to have to go through that hell again, but I will clear this debt so I will. Trying to take plenty of relaxing time out to keep me in a good frame of mind, given the tough few months that lay ahead of us. Seems like the country goes through this every 10 years or so, and we're learning lessons all the time. I did get myself another bottle of quiet life though, they are herbal and help me to not be stressy all the time. Sometimes you need a little help when you are constantly strung out. Was hoping that I would have a few slightly easier years ahead of me, following the hell that was 2007-2008. Still there are technically only two hellishly skint years ahead of us, with me clearing my debt this year and then channelling all money that I have towards OH to clear his. After this we can pool our money together and start saving for the house. We hope to have 5k saved by the end of next year, all being well.

I now know that I will never splurge again, and never, ever on a credit card- in fact it is my challenge to never use a credit card again for as long as I live. OH thinks I'm crazy and that they can be put to good use, if used correctly. My own thoughts are, if you don't have them they can't come back to bite you. Full stop. So that challenge now is not to be debt free by september, but to be debt free as soon as humanly possible. I've bought a bunch of supplies in, so technically I shouldn't need to spend another penny this month. I've taken my switch card and money out of my bag, so there is no temptation atall. I can do this.I have to.

thrifty_fifty

Decided that I'm going to join the Feb NSD challenge, just to raise the spirits. Had a mostly positive day, noticed that it seems to be in the early evening when the blues set in. It's the most bizarre feeling, it just washed over me. Twice this evening I ended up in tears and completely lost my appetite. Might therefore keep a separate diary like I used to, so can get the feelings down on paper and try and work through it. I'm going to try and avoid alcohol as much as possible as it happened about an hour after I'd had some lager.

thrifty_fifty

Guess I'm the first one on here this morning.

Suddenly woke up with a start, thinking 'what if I don't get it all paid in time?', I've now got a lump in my throat and feel like I could wretch.

I didn't think I'd have to come here again, after the lonely nights spent worrying about this in 2007, but here we are again. Part of me wants to take everything in the house and sweep it aside. It makes me sick looking around at it.

Sorry for the posting, but I can't find my personal diary to write this in.

thrifty_fifty

Sorry, just trying to compose myself now. Still got the lump in my throat but had a good hearty cry, which seems to sort things. I have to take a hold of this, I've done it before all by myself and I'll do it again. My goodness though there's going to be one hell of a celebratory drink when I finally land on my debt free date.

No, this is the final hurdle and I will make it, I've not come this far only to be tripped at the last minute. I'll be peeling off my first creditor next month, so that only leaves two. I can do this.

Ok, so now I'm awake, what am I going to do about it? Well instead of sitting on my behind worrying about things, I'm going to get some applications done today. I'm going to re-open my seller account on ebay, it may be hell but if hell is what I have to go through to get this lot clear and finally be able to sleep easy at night, then needs must. I'm lucky in that this time I have OH, who is lovely and who I wouldn't be without. I'll survive this.

thrifty_fifty

And all is well again.

Just found Paul Coelho's blog. This is amazing, the words are so true. Highly recommend it.

Now I've had a chance to think and can see the way forward. So often we become blind to what we can do, because we are focusing on what might happen or what has happened. If one thing doesn't work then we have to try another. And a strange thing happened too. Now I have opened my mind up again, I managed to think of a way to tie my Christmas Garland I am making. See, it works.

Now I am going to have a rewarding and productive day.