Learning to Live on Less!

LianneH

thats excellent!! i always feel better when i read your diary ... you are always so positive and are able to turn things around! xx

L x

White_Iris

Good news - heating oil was about £100 less than expected, 58ppl instead of 75ppl last time we ordered. Should mean the credit card will be at about £450 once everything clears :-)

White_Iris

Sometimes I feel so envious of other peoples lives and just a little bit sad that ours can't be more peaceful or just a bit more "normal". DH and I contribute a a photo-journal website and some people seem to have fabulous lives and live in beautiful houses, built in gorgeous surroundings which they document through beautiful photographs and inspiring descriptions of their daily life. I hope once we are debt free and in our forever house I'll feel like our life is more like those ones I aspire to.

Sorry, just a bit of a self -indulgent ramble...

LianneH

White_Iris wrote: »

Sometimes I feel so envious of other peoples lives and just a little bit sad that ours can't be more peaceful or just a bit more "normal". DH and I contribute a a photo-journal website and some people seem to have fabulous lives and live in beautiful houses, built in gorgeous surroundings which they document through beautiful photographs and inspiring descriptions of their daily life. I hope once we are debt free and in our forever house I'll feel like our life is more like those ones I aspire to.

Sorry, just a bit of a self -indulgent ramble...

you may find that their "beautiful" lives have moutains of debt as a result!

I'm positive you will get where you want to be one day... and also be Debt Free... can you imagine how fabulous that will be!!

debtfreesomeday

Hi white iris

I've just stumbled across your diary and read the first and last few pages so far. Much of your situation struck a chord as is similar to our story.
We have a wonderful son who is now 6 months old and we're determined he should not suffer because of our previous stupidity with money. He is clothes mainly in 2nd hand and supermarket brand clothing and we have also bought some good condition toys from car boot sales for him for now and for when he is older.

My parents are also amazingly helpful towards us, but I totally understand the feelings you have in accepting the financial help of your family. We feel exactly the same - surely we should be able to afford everything ourselves - but the truth is we can't at the moment.

I wish you well on your journey to debt freedom, you seem to be doing wonderfully, and have subscribed to your thread to keep me motivated!

White_Iris

debtfreesomeday wrote: »

I wish you well on your journey to debt freedom, you seem to be doing wonderfully, and have subscribed to your thread to keep me motivated!

Hello debtfreesomeday, thank you for your comment! I noticed in your signature that your loan is going to end at a similar time to ours - it'll be so nice when it's gone. Even nicer for you as you'll be debt free :T. By that time our credit cards WILL be gone but we'll still have another loan left to clear (I'm not listing that in my signature at the moment as we've got so long left to pay on it, it looks a bit demoralizing :eek:).

Oil is being delivered as we speak, pet insurance cheque has cleared and as soon as I've got an accurate balance in my current account (which should be later today - there are still some payments which haven't appeared yet but I know are coming out) it'll get paid off the credit card, so I should be able to get an accurate total in my signature soon.

I can't believe it's nearly September already, where have the holidays gone? September has always seemed like the time for new beginnings, more so than New Year. Since I've worked in education since leaving University, my internal clock has always marked September as the start of the year. It feels odd not getting ready to start work, even though this is my second September at home with the children. Last year they were only 3 months old and I was in survival mode, trying to figure out how to cope with tiny twins on my own all day. This year feels a lot different - now I have to work out how we're going to live our lives not just survive.

debtfreesomeday

Hiya,

I can relate to the bit about 'surviving' with 3 month olds - we only have one baby who is now nearly 7 months old, but he has reflux and so we have been trying to get through the days one at a time. It does feel very much like surviving each day!

Our loan too was much longer, should've ended in 2015, but last year we took a new loan out to cover the old one, paid off an extra £50 a month, and cut the term by over two years. It seems a lot closer than 2015!

Good luck with everything x

White_Iris

OK, so I've decided not to pay all of the pet insurance cheque off the credit card but instead to use a small amount of it to have a few days of fun in these last few days of the summer holidays.

I've paid off the cost of the oil and will also be adding at least £40 from PayPal (accumulated from eBay and various survey sites) at the end of the month.

Along with the usual monthly payment, the credit card should stand at around £400 by the end of the month - not bad .

White_Iris

Got a letter from our electricity company telling us they're going to be putting our bill up by 7.5%. It was expected and I've increased our direct debit by an extra £10 a month to try to compensate. Forgot that DH has to go to the dentist for a filling next week, which will have to go on the credit card (about £47 I think), so fingers crossed my current eBay items sell well tomorrow.

Had a lovely morning today - we went for a spur of the moment trip to the seaside and found free parking spot as well :-) Not entirely a NSD though as I had to spend £6 on some medication in the chemist and we also splashed out for fish and chips and then a coffee later, which came to about £15 :-( but we did enjoy them!

White_Iris

Well my big-ticket eBay item didn't sell but it's now photographed and listed and ready for the next free listing day. The other item I was selling did go and made over £20 (which is about 2/3 what it cost new!) so very pleased with that and as it was a baby item I've got another one (the pleasure of having twins - everything in duplicates :-) ). Off out for the day, should be a low spend day but we haven't been very good the last few days (although nowhere near as extravagant as we used to be) - roll on payday on Wednesday.