We’d like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum.

This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are – or become – political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.

📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!

The road is long, with many a winding turn....

1235716

Comments

  • Jules28
    Jules28 Posts: 265 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Afternoon All,

    I am feeling a lot more positive today than the last time I posted. There's been no change to my situation at all but rather than being depressed and moping about it, I have been working on my budget spreadsheet for next month and doing some work on my meal planner (food is always guaranteed to cheer me up!). I feel a lot better seeing how we are going to manage next month so that's good.

    I am also really looking forward to my dinner (I know, food really does cheer me up like nobody's business). I took it out of the freezer this morning - 6 big chicken legs (not wee drumsticks, big legs) in the reduced bit at Tesco for £1.61!! I am cooking it all tonight then putting the ones left over away for a risotto or pasta.

    I watched a brilliant programme the other night which we had taped from Monday night - Extreme Couponners. I recommend viewing it if it is re-run. It was a documentary in America about people who use coupons in massive amounts to buy their food. They went to great lengths to get huge amounts of coupons every week (some paid for them to be sent to them; one went on a 7 mile walk every day to get discarded coupons around the neighbourhood, another went through the paper recycling bin at the dump to get some out of chucked out papers). For them it's kind of an obsession to stock up with massive shops that cost them a few dollars (you saw their bills coming down from the hundreds of dollars to under 10 dollars in some cases). Some of them had converted garages or basements to hold tens of thousands of dollars worth of food, soft drinks and cleaning items. My OH was sitting there stunned and saying he could never hand over that many coupons, meanwhile, I was ready for us moving over there to stock a garage full of food on a couple of quid!! :rotfl:

    Hope everyone's having a good day

    Jules x
  • Woowoo
    Woowoo Posts: 4,603 Forumite
    Hi Jules

    Nice to hear your feeling and sounding positive again.

    I will keep an eye out for that programme, I can't imagine anyone in the UK doing that!
    LBM Aug 09: £18,650.47 - Current: £12,854.93 (£5946.79)

    Barclays: £2,928.34 Lloyds: £2,499.60
    MBNA: £3,788.99 Overdraft: £1,900.00 Mum: £1,738.00

    Surveys: £6.60/£40.00
  • Jules28
    Jules28 Posts: 265 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Thanks Woo. Hehe I know what you mean about people here not doing that. I feel like a complete amateur compared to them only saving up my clubcard points :D
  • Kepp
    Kepp Posts: 4,390 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    I'll have to keep an eye out for that programme - I'm so bad at saving up vouchers!
    Debt at LBM Apr 2010 £28,767 Debt free as of Nov 2013 :j
  • Jules28
    Jules28 Posts: 265 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    You will not believe the lengths they went to Beccie, for most of them it seemed to have taken over their lives - on the other hand, they were doing shops valued at hundreds of dollars and paying under $10 for it so they were certainly good at what they do.
  • Jules28
    Jules28 Posts: 265 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Morning All,

    I had a bit of bad news when I got home last night which has turned into good news.

    It was a letter from my old bank (I moved when I started my DMP) saying that my loan and overdraft monthly payments had not been paid. They are giving me 30 days to sort it before they go to a solicitor. They are both included in my DMP and my payment to them went through as normal this month and last month so I need to chase my DMC to see what has happened (couldn't get through to them last night). This happened a couple of times before and although it was a bit stressful and I got some nasty letters and phonecalls, in the end, my DMC sorted it as it was their fault.

    I was a bit worried of course though and so for ages never looked properly at the figures on the letter. They had included the balances for both which is good as they don't send me regular statements anymore so I keep a record of what I think the balances should be on my spreadsheet. It turns out that I had paid £300 more to the loan than I thought I had and a whopping £700 more to the overdraft!

    So I am chuffed to bits, I won't fully relax until the DMC sorts this for me and explains to me what has happened but at least there was good news in there too :)

    Hope everyone is having a good day

    Jules x
  • Kepp
    Kepp Posts: 4,390 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    At least there was some good news too :)

    Who's your DMP with?
    Debt at LBM Apr 2010 £28,767 Debt free as of Nov 2013 :j
  • Jules28
    Jules28 Posts: 265 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    I'm with Harrington Brooks. I keep wondering if I should change to the non-fee paying ones (I didn't even know about them when I started out) but I'm afraid it's partly laziness with me - incidents like this one are very few and far between, it runs very nicely and smoothly usually and I keep thinking I'll leave it as it was so awful getting it all set up, I don't want to go through all that again.
  • Woowoo
    Woowoo Posts: 4,603 Forumite
    Hi Jules

    That was a nice suprise, obviously not the nasty letter part!

    Have a nice weekend x
    LBM Aug 09: £18,650.47 - Current: £12,854.93 (£5946.79)

    Barclays: £2,928.34 Lloyds: £2,499.60
    MBNA: £3,788.99 Overdraft: £1,900.00 Mum: £1,738.00

    Surveys: £6.60/£40.00
  • Jules28
    Jules28 Posts: 265 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    Thanks Woo, hope you have a nice weekend too x
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

🚀 Getting Started

Hi new member!

Our Getting Started Guide will help you get the most out of the Forum

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 352K Banking & Borrowing
  • 253.5K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 454.2K Spending & Discounts
  • 245K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 600.6K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 177.4K Life & Family
  • 258.8K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 16.2K Discuss & Feedback
  • 37.6K Read-Only Boards

Is this how you want to be seen?

We see you are using a default avatar. It takes only a few seconds to pick a picture.