Sashybo - Stray thoughts amongst the wilderness of debt

sashybo

Hi all, thought I would start the new year with a new diary. See previous diary here. It's been up and down but we've still managed to reduce our debt overall. :j

I'm Sashy and live with my OH of 8 years and our 3 cats. We got into the majority of our debt when we bought our first flat on a 125% mortgage 6 years ago. :eek: Started last year with a total debt of approx £18,000 - mostly from the unsecured loan part of our original mortgage (Northern Rock bleurgh) plus credit cards and another loan. :eek:

Have still been using the pad thread as my main method of paying extra off debt on top of our DMP and agreed payment plans, though haven't been padding as regularly the last few months. *slaps wrist* Still doing surveys online for vouchers which pay for treats but have been a bit lax with reviewing as it's paying even less these days.

Will still be starting this year having paid off an extra £1294 of debt through pad though. :j Have also reduced our overall debt to £13,424.69. :T We have also paid off our car loan so should be £165 better off every month as well. :j

The NR loan is sitting at £8,155.37, DMP at £3,206.54, credit cards at £480.78 and 0% post-grad bursary at £1,582. This is a fairly good reduction over a year and just hope that we can keep it up - hopefully the ccs will be gone altogether within the next few months. :j

Still need to learn to budget better and will be putting away money for the car (MOT, servicing etc) and factor fees every month starting this month - instead of scrabbling around in a panic and going into the O/D to pay for them every time.

We are also going to try and have a holiday as haven't had one for over 5 years but will be saving for it instead of just booking and panicking trying to find the money when it's due. Have already found a good hotel deal and will be getting away for a weekend in March so at least we have something to look forward to. :T

Another thing I would love to save towards would be laser eye surgery as I'm extremely short-sighted but it will probably be very expensive for my prescription so will have to be a long term goal I think.

Anyway - I tend to ramble about lots of things here as well as debt battering - including but not limited to; nephews and nieces, making sock monkeys, learning to knit, baking and my naughty cats. :rotfl: Do feel free to join in, there are even pictures occasionally.

sazzle81

Hey Sashybo!
Just popped over fro your old thread, which I was catching up on after my disapperance. Good luck with the knitting. I find it great for relaxing and as I'm someone who can't seem to do just one job at once helps me to watch the tv!

sashybo

Hi sazzle. :hello:

I'm struggling with the knitting tbh and can't make head nor tail of patterns. I think I'm knitting quite tightly so it's more difficult and sometimes it hurts my eyes (very bad eyesight!). Need to get my mum or my friend who knits a lot to help me with the pattern deciphering! Find sewing a lot easier, though have only done simple things like sock monkeys and heat pads so far.

Really want to make some cushion covers as exisiting ones look worse than ever. Still can't find the right colour of wool though - you know when you have an idea in your head of the perfect colour and just can't seem to find it anywhere?! Annoying!

Kayleighpea

Hi Sashybo, congrats on the huge amount paid off through PAD! I keep thinking about joining that challenge but just dont think I could find the extra money to be able to do it. Looking forward to seeing your progress! *subscribes*

sashybo

Hi Kayleighpea :hello: thanks

The main way I do PAD is by paying £1 a day and that way I don't miss it as much and if I need to I can stop. As I said in my first post I've not been padding as much as I should have and really need to get back to posting and doing £1 payments to my Barclaycard every day as it does make a difference for me.

I also try to do some online reviews and make some some money on surveys which goes towards my padding as well. Most of the survey sites I'm on tend to pay in vouchers now though so we save them towards treats instead. I used to do daily clicks as well and did do well with them over time but they are time consuming and it took months to get any money.

I'm not very organised when it comes to budgets etc though so it can all be a bit chaotic. I'm trying my best to change my spending habits as well as my OH's (he likes shiny gadgets and then gets bored quickly :eek:). I think we're both improving but still have relapses - after OH's last £500 relapse with his (then recently) cleared cc I took custody of it and it lives in my purse now. :cool:

gilligansyle

morning sashy!

Shiny new thread, will be randomly popping along to see how you're doing. Like you, I need to PaD more regularly, even if its only the odd change out of my purse, it made a lot of difference, f_f got debt free mainly through PaDding.

*subscribed*

sazzle81

Hey Sashybo.
Most people when starting knitting tend to knit a bit too tightly so don't get too disheartened!! At first I didn;t have a clue with patterns but once you got beyond the lingo it seemed to fall into place - I thought teaching was bad for using shortened versions and acronyms!! I'm impressed witht eh sock monkeys mind - they sound really cool!!

sashybo

Hi gilli. :hello: Haven't been to pad today. :whistle:

Thanks sazzle, I will keep going but think I'll ask my friend to come down to help me out during the week with the pattern I've been looking at for cushion covers. She also has a knitting machine that she said I could have a go at if I wanted. :T

The sock monkeys are quite fun - there should be some pictures on my last diary of a few I've made.

sashybo

Well I went back to the PAD thread last night and again this morning, so will need to keep it up.

Back to work today for 2 late shifts then off for 2 days - unfortunately OH has the 2 days I'm at work off and is back at work when I'm off again! :cool:

Haven't really been up to much this weekend, just relaxing with OH and playing games - some PS3 and some PC.

Last year we started playing LOTR (Lord of the Rings) online and it's actually pretty good. We paid £75 (each :eek:) for a lifetime subscription and don't need to pay for it ever again. :j It's really worth it compared to WOW (World of Warcraft) which we used to play and had to pay for two accounts monthly. That was probably costing us over £200 every year which is why we originally gave up playing - too expensive.

Need to get some sewing done and some progress with the knitting but hope to do that on my days off later in the week.

Just caught my youngest cat (male chocolate-point Siamese) drinking the leftover milk from OH's cereal bowl. :eek: On the kitchen worktop. :eek: Can't leave anything lying for a second!

gilligansyle

Re: the online gaming, my DS is hooked on something called Eve(?) so much so that I often go and find him on the PC, one of his mates playing it on the laptop, and them chatting to other mates.

Glad you've had a chilling weekend.

sashybo

Hi gilli - my OH used to play Eve as well but I've never played it so not sure what it's like - is it set in space? My OH has tried just about every Multi-Player online game going!

Just heading to bed - got home from my late shift and had a burst of energy so did a bit of cleaning and tidying and then washed my hair. I'm definitely more of a night owl.