A New Start - A better Life

Fisyear

Over the years money has been wasted in our household, I can see that now, but it has been a long time coming.

We have just started the journey to become debt free and have opted for a Debt Management Plan. Our new bank account has been set up and we should see letters going out to our creditors pretty soon. This is a new start for us as we now have no overdraft and no credit cards and this feels very scary as there is nothing to fall back on. I now ring up a company if I owe money and explain that I cannot afford it and can I pay in installments, before I would have put it on a credit card (so far the companies have been very understanding and accepted installments).

It is a new start as we will have to budget instead of buying whatever we want, it has never been anything extravagant, but to accumulate just under £41,000 of debt I do wonder where we went wrong. Last weekend I went food shopping and only took cash with me, the bill came to £60.81 and I only had £60 on me, so I put something back, I felt embarresed, but also felt good as i had stuck to my budget.

I am going to keep this diary to log how things are going, how the budget is tracking and any savings I have made etc. If anyone has any ideas on how I can keep to a budget or anyways for us to make savings please feel free to post and welcome to my journey.

Fisyear

Not much saving going on today really. I have had to pay out £34.99 for renewing my norton protection, but do feel much better for doing so, as I have left it a couple of weeks while I have been thinking about it. But these days computer protection is so important and in the long run it saves against viruses etc. I went to slimming world last night and lost 3lb, so thats a total of 7.5lbs in 3 weeks, I know its not very moneysaving paying weekly for slimming world, but I have a total of 10lbs left to lose and need all the help I can get.

On the plus side I did win slimmer of the week and my prize was a bowl of fruit, including a melon, peppers, kiwi fruit, apples, bananas etc. So won't have to buy fruit this week :T

beanielou

Great start :j

well done on being SOTW too :j

Fisyear

Thanks Beanielou, my first poster, welcome

Some good news today. A week ago my sons xbox stopped working, I tried the leads etc, but it didn't go on at all. So I have just been into blockbusters to see if they knew anywhere I could fix the xbox and he suggested I blow into the connections in case some dust has got in. I was also trying to see how much I would get for his xbox kinect as he doesn't use it and whats the point without the xbox. Anyway I blew into the connections and hey presto it works. So money saved as I don't have to pay to get it fixed.

I also went into home bargains while i was out and picked up a few items from my weekly grocery shop that would have cost more in my usual supermarket.

beanielou

GReat news pn the xbox.

Fisyear

Its going to be a busy day today, we are off to my father in laws house to paint and brighten it up a bit. He died last year and the house has been on the market for about 6 months but no sale. So I suggested that we paint it as it should have had this done before it went on the market. Hopefully it will make a difference on the sale.

Also I must make sure I put some food together before I go, otherwise it will be too easy to stop off at the chippy for lunch and ruin my diet.

Fisyear

So i have done a meal plan for the week ahead and have a shopping list ready, will be off shopping later and taking cash only again. I will also have to fill the car up with petrol, I have a 5p off per litre voucher, so will use that to save a bit of money.

Fisyear

I managed to do the weekly shopping within budget and only used cash again. I didn't fill the car up, am hoping what I have will last a few more days. Last night was a busy night ferrying the kids to their weekly activities, it's the only night of the week they do any costly activities. So hopefully the next few days will be spend free.

I rang the council tax yesterday as I owe just under £400 and it has to be paid by 10th March. I had £200 to pay off this, but was hoping that I could negotiate a couple of payment dates for the balance, it turned out they couldn't do this as it is not in arrears yet and I haven't had a summons. To be honest I didn't want it to come to that, so now have to rob Peter to pay Paul so I can get the council tax paid by Thursday. I will have to try and sell some items to get the money back for other bills.

Not much happening today, work, housework etc and we are making pancakes for dinner tonight.

Fisyear

I had to take an item back to Argos tonight and got the £10 back in cash. So have an extra £10 in my pocket until payday on Friday. I also found out that I have £28 on my Argos Swalec Energy Card, so bought a caserole dish and a couple of roasting/lasagne dishes. They will come in very handy especially as I seem to be cooking a lot more planned meals, so now I have a lovely slimming world lasagne in the oven cooking for tomorrow.

I will have to fill the car up with petrol in the morning as the light has now gone on, thought it might last until Friday, never mind

Fisyear

I can't believe it has been over a week since I last posted. I have kept to the budget, but allowed for a little extra to take us away for the weekend at my parents caravan. It was lovely for us all to have a break. Good news 42% of our creditors have accepted our DMP payments and the letters only went out on Monday. The weight has still been coming off, I have now lost 9.5lbs altogether.

Fisyear

We managed to scrape enough together to pay the remainder of the council tax, however it turns out this weekend we will be left with about £20 for food, petrol, school dinners and everything else. So things are very very tight. I am hoping to do a car boot sale Saturday to get some money in. I will list a couple of things on ebay, but that will not get the money in for this weekend. Not sure what else I can do to get the money in sooner and now we do not have any credit cards or overdraft I am not sure how else we can get the money for essentials.

On the bright side 53% of our creditors have accepted our offers, I am just hoping the catalogue companies accept our offers as they take up quite a chunk of the other 47%, fingers crossed.