The Final Furlong......well almost!!!

May2013

Hello Diary

Well September has now been put to bed and I'm pleased to say that I came in well under budget which means that I've been able to throw an extra £165 at my M&S card.

Armed with a steaming hot cuppa and a pile of biscuits I plan to spend the next hour putting together my shiny new budget sheet for October....the highlight of my month...hahaha....I really need to get out more!

Loving the lovely weather we're having at the moment and making the most of it with wall to wall BBQ's....happy days!!! :cool2:

Lewby

Hi May. Have just read through your diary as it touches so many chords with me. I'm in my mid 40's, have grown up kids and have become totally fed up of living with debt in our lives! Our debt levels ar high but it's all relative as we have two incomes to throw at it.

It made me smile that this morning you are excited about doing your October spreadsheet I have got up and left OH in bed to get mine done too. I love playing around with making overpayments and working out how much we will have spare to throw at the debt. Only problem is that no matter how accurate I am with my budget something always comes along to throw me off track!! This month it's a £900 car repair bill ... totally unexpected and from a MSE point of view very upsetting!! I have to forego my overpayments for this month and just accept that the bill has to be paid. It will leave things tight for Nov too and with Xmas heading towards us at a rate of knots it looks like I'll be lucky to make many overpayments at all.

Nevermind ..... on the bright side I am in control of it, I know that we can afford to pay the bill without putting it on a card and that feels good in itself.

Great news that your daughter wants to save for the wedding and not be in debt after it. Well done you on a good job of bringing her up. I'm proud that my kids also know the value of money and like to save .... they have no idea that we have the huge debt we have and I'd be ashamed if they found out. That's my biggest motivation for getting rid of it .... together with being able to not worry about those 20p's .... like you!

Hope you didn't have too many biscuits with your cuppa and the weight you lost is still gone. Again, another similarity, I've lost 3 stone and 5lbs has crept back on!! Determined it's going again this month as 5lbs will soon turn into a stone if I don't address it now

Hope you have a great rest of the day and sorry for hijacking your diary. I'll subscribe if that's ok and keep in touch.

All the best, Lewby

May2013

Dear Diary….apologies for the long absence (again), I seem to making something of a habit of this

Lewby – thanks for dropping by, I can’t see that you’ve posted on the forum recently.…I hope the set back with the car hasn’t thrown you too far off track….this is such an expensive time of year it doesn’t take many unplanned expenses to make to the DF journey feel that much harder.
I was (still am) very ashamed about the amount of debt I’d built up…kept it a dark hidden secret for years but over time it became necessary to share the situation with my OH and children…..I was working so many hours and no one could understand why I couldn’t afford as much as a bar of chocolate. I hate the fact that I haven’t been able to help my children as they’ve made their way into adulthood but at least they understand why and know I’m here to help and support them however I can on a practical level.

Not a huge amount has happened in terms of debt busting since my last update. I’ve now cleared everything but my M&S, Capital and HSBC CC’s so in terms of activity things have slowed down with just three payments coming out of my account each month but the effect of snowballing is really kicking in with significant dents being made in the M&S card each month.

I’ve recently joined the ‘Pay off all your debts by Xmas 2012’ thread….with rigorous budgeting and a liberal dose of good luck, this challenge will be the one that will take me to my debt free future….suddenly it feels like the end is in sight.

Trying very hard to get underway with Christmas preparations / shopping, I think it’s fair to say that I’m talking the talk but most definitely not walking the walk…might lean on you a little ‘dear diary’ to track my progress, I don’t want to be doing the customary panic round the shops the week before Christmas….far too stressful!!

May2013

A quick update....

I've made a little bit of progress with the Xmas shopping.... all of it online, but think I need to brave the shops sooner rather than later, might drag myself into town this afternoon (hate, hate, hate shopping )

Hahaha....I've just worked out that I need to buy approx 48 presents and have bought 8 so far....so only 6% of the job done....OMG that's hilarious, there was me thinking I was making progress....I really do need to pull my finger out

The good news is that I've ring-fenced the money for Christmas...so just need to decide what to get everyone....and that sadly is the hardest part :think:

On the debt busting front I was able to throw an extra £125 at the M&S card at the end of November....not sure I'll have anything over at the end of December but I guess that's to be expected.

Right, off to the shops for me.....

May2013

Only 33% of the Christmas shopping done :eek:.....why do I always leave it till the last minute??
I've got a day off tomorrow so hoping to get a chunk of it done then, along with popping to the farm shop to book the turkey....starting to panic now about all things I still have to do - I can feel a few sleepless nights coming on.

The good news is that my tree is up and looking lovely and my spends so far have come comfortably below budget...just need to make a list of all the things I need to do and set myself a goal to tick as many tasks off as possible each day...I might post it on here a bit later to shame me into pulling my finger out