Blinking in the brightness of the lightbulb moment

Cat2011

PAYDAY! :j
Off sick today which isn't much fun - just have a cold .

In May I saved/paid off £715.17

My new total savings are £14,872.90, bringing my debt down to May payday = -£1,974.47

I'm amazed that I managed to save that much this month - as you can probably tell from my lack of posting (at all!) my eye has been pretty off the ball. So very chuffed . I'm also under 2k!! Can see the light at the end. I worked out if I can earn an extra £160 or so a month, I'll be debt free in 2 more months. How awesome is that!
Had a bit of a shunt in the car this month, when someone drove into the back of me, but the car has now been all repaired. I had a 60 reg Merc as a hire car which was pretty lovely to drive. My car feels so heavy now! But still - I can't bring myself to spend that much money on something which will drop so rapidly in value! First job after I'm debt free is to save up to replace my current car in the next year or two, its getting pretty high mileage... Getting it serviced next week - really hoping that goes ok.

So have been off sick today, but am supposed to be doing an adventure race with a friend of mine tomorrow! As always my timing is amazing. I said I'd still do it, as it's only a cold, but we'll just have a pootle round the course if I don't feel up to it.

I've been thinking about buying another house once I've got rid of the credit cards (yay, more debt! lol!). My neighbours have just put theirs up for sale at ~60k more than they bought it for (we bought our houses at the same time). There's always the possiblity that they're having a laugh - but I figured the estate agent wouldn't let them put it up for a completely unrealisitic price? Anyway, the point is I could remortgage to get some more cash out of my house, and use that to buy a little place to rent out, much like I'm renting rooms in my current home. I need to do all the math properly first, and get rid of all the debt so I'd be accepted for a mortgage. Might not be financially viable, but will look into it.

I'll try and keep my diary a bit more up to date in future! Its good to help me keep on track....

Cat2011

Today has been a good day :beer:

I had my car serviced today. I was pretty nervous about the cost of it all. I used to take it to Ford as I didn't know any other garages in the area. The 3 services I had done there cost me £531, £971 and £1161. Now I know why I'm in debt!! I had planned to look for a new garage, and found one through a colleague at work. It got to 3pm, and I hadn't been rung by the new people to give me the list of things that needed doing, so I gave them a call and they said it was just being done now and will be ready that day. I arrived to collect the car and it cost me £107! :j. Not a penny had been added to the quote they had given me. What's more I paid for that out of money in my "Car" account so I didn't even have to raid my savings! And there's even enough left to pay for all the fuel this month Happy days.

I then popped to Waitrose to do a bit of a shop. I picked up some meat, vegetables, fruit and 2 lots of shower gel for £37. I discovered (very late in life I know!) that the meat and fish counters sold pretty much the same things that were available prepackaged, but for a cheaper price! How did I not know this... :S . The meat counter had some tasty looking mini burgers, but I left those for another day. I did pick up some fish from the counter tho - especially as it was half price. When I got home I opened all the meat packets and packaged them up into little one serving sandwich bags. Managed to get 24 servings of lamb, beef, chicken, turkey, haddock and trout (a months worth!), 4 servings of veg (I eat big servings!) and 8 of fruit out of that shop . I even bought some British Strawberries - I don't normally buy them as they're so expensive, but as I'd saved on my car, and discovered the merits of the meat/fish counters and they were half price... I thought why not... yumyum!
Will have to do some top up shops for fruit and veg, but they shouldn't cost much.

I've been through all my mystery shop websites to find some more jobs and get back to earning money to try and pay off the debt in the next two months. Already have several shops lined up . Will keep track of my potential income on here to try and stay on track.

Managed to get tickets for the road cycling at Box Hill today - only £15, so that will be a great day out with my friends - Allez Allez!

I had a super long weekend with an adventure race on Saturday (4hrs mountain biking, 1hr running, 1hr kayaking) then a bike ride on Sunday - a 74mile sportive, and I decided it'd be fun to cycle the 27 miles there and 27 miles back too! I did it with a friend and we both survived! Just! Covered 129 miles.... The Dragon Ride I'm doing in 2 weeks is 128 miles on some proper hills, so if I can cycle 129 after 6hrs of racing the previous day then I think I'm pretty much ready. My fitness has improved loads recently just from doing a bit of cycling.

Diet wise, I've been keeping to the paleo/Elimination sort of eating for about 6 weeks now and feel much better for it. I have no wheat/gluten/sugar/alcohol/caffeine 85% of the time, but allow little splurges when out with friends etc. So far I'm loving eating all the fresh and healthy food, I feel great, I've lost over 10lbs without calorie counting a bean and my fitness is finally returning. Tbh the best thing has been getting rid of the caffeine - it used to take me an hour to get to sleep at night, but now - as soon as I lie down I'm asleep, and gone til morning . Its great.... now I just have to work on getting enough hours by going to bed early enough! Still got a lot further to go before the beach holiday in less than 4 weeks. Eek!

My this turned into a long post.... in summary - Finances are coming together. Head down for the last stint... happy girl at the moment

Cat2011

June tally of savings
(Need to save >£160/mth in June+July to be debt free by 25th July. This is a list of things I'm doing to earn money to keep me motivated)

Saved £160.00 / £160.00 June *SAVED*
Saved £152.50 / £160 July (25 days down, 6 to go til June payday)

£16.00 Mystery shop (and picked up a present for my godson )
£5.00 Mystery Shop
£8.00 Mystery shop
£7.06 Interest
£6.00 Mystery shop
£8.00 Mystery shop
£43.00 Mystery shops
£33.50 Mystery shops
£100.00 Mystery shops
£2.44 Quidco
£19.00 Mystery shop
£57.00 Mystery shops
£7.50 Mystery shop

Cat2011

Went to a lecture by an amazing rock climber this evening which was pretty inspirational. Then went for a drink with my friends. Its nice to be sociable . Need an early night at some point tho! In the process of making plans for the bank holiday weekend, but still not sure what I'm doing!

On a money note - I did a few hours extra work at the weekend/late evening a few weeks ago. Normally I just add it to my flexi sheet and take a half day or two, but I have lots of spare hours at the moment, so enquired about getting it paid as overtime. My boss said that'd be fine. I get paid time and a half for overtime, and hopefully an extra supplement due to it being weekend, and late at night AND I get paid mileage. So I'm hoping to net >£75 after tax etc. Will have to see how much it comes out as...

Cat2011

Yay its the bank holiday! I have loads of mystery shops booked this weekend, but stressed about fitting them all in. I was hoping to get away Mon/Tues on a climbing or mountain biking trip, but looks like thats not going to happen . Debt must come first.... so nearly there - then can climb til my hearts delight after

Cat2011

I've worked my butt off this weekend on mystery shops. Been getting up at 7am everyday to drive off and do them all. I've managed to smash my target for the month, earning £226, when my target was £160, and I'm only 10 days into the month. Its amazing what I can do when I put my mind to it.... However earning money is different to being paid money - so hopefully they'll cough up quickly. Not got any shops planned for tomorrow - so get to have a day off! So looking forward to it. have a few things to sort out, like changing gas/elec supplier as I reached the end of the discount deal. I'll try and get some cashback for that . Also got to get started on the tax return

Cat2011

Managed to get the gas/elec sorted out. On the cheapest tariff, with an extra £40 cashback, tho I suspect that'll go in the house account, so not directly to my debt, but its all good to have, doesn't really matter where it goes. Tried to sort out some more mystery shops, but away this weekend, so getting nearby ones for during the week has been a bit hard. Will be nice to have a few days off the shopping. Am off Friday-Monday (another 4 day weekend whoop!). Have the parents visiting Friday, then off over to Wales with a friend of mine for the Dragon ride (128miles across the Breacon Beacons). Distinct possibility that I'll die.... hopefully not. Done a bit of training for it, but suspect not enough! Will just have to try and enjoy it . We've booked a super cheap Premier Inn. Thought about getting mystery shops to cover the dinners, but too much hassle when I'll be worrying about the race and internet connection might be difficult.

Had a date last Saturday which went well . Seeing him again Tuesday. He seems really nice and looks yummy, so we'll see how that goes.

Fridge freezer is still causing me grieve. Supposed to have a technican come out this morning, but the servicing people rang me at 7.30 this morning to say they'd booked the wrong person. It needs to be the superior, so they can write it off and order a new one for me, rather than just the guy that tries to fix it. Rebooked for tomorrow morning, so get a morning at home which will be nice. Need to do some cleaning before the parents get here!

Cat2011

PAYDAY! :j

In June I saved/paid off £608.47

My new total savings are £15,373.29, bringing my debt down to June payday = -£1,366.00

Needed to get another 400 off to half the debt left after last month. But I'm happy with that amount . The aim is to still be debt free at the end of this month. Eek! I really struggled toward the end of this month. I went to the shop and bought crappy food, spending about £10-20 every night last week. Been feeling pretty miserable. I'm not really sure why. Well its partly because I found out an old friend of mine had died. We were childhood friends, then didn't see him for about 10yrs, then we were at the same party last November. It was good to have a catch up. Six months later he was dead. He's my best friends uncle, he was only 31. He was the loveliest man, but always a bit of a troubled soul. I had a good chat with my friend about it, and she's ok, which was my main worry.

Anyway, I had my appraisal last week, and my boss basically asked me if there was anything troubling me, as I'd seemed really distracted for the last few months. I said that there wasn't anything really wrong, but mentioned I was a bit stressed about my debt. He went on to say that although he knew I was working all my hours, it seemed to others that I wasn't. I'd been taking a lot of flexi time to be home for the engineer, and then making up the time. I also tend to come in at 9.15-9.30 as the traffic to work is awful otherwise. But apparently one of my bosses often comes into the office at 9.15 and asks to speak to me and he always gets told I'm not in, which doesn't give a very good impression.... So now I'm trying to get into work earlier, and just generally be a bit more switched on at work.

So with this debt - £1366 to go. I can do that in 2 months - but I really really want to be debt free this month - so I can be debt free for my birthday in August . Can I do that in a month?? If I don't spend a penny over my allocated budget - and I work my butt off with mystery shops, and sell lots on eBay I just might. I did a lot of work last month, but haven't been paid for it yet - hoping that'll help boost the total. I'll keep a running total of payments like I normally do. I've been procrastinating about eBay for months, but haven't actually done anything about it! I do also have a set of windsurfing kit which I could get rid of. I've been hanging onto it as I wanted to try and get out and do some more windsurfing, but I didn't get out once last year, and right now my priority is my debt. I can always save up and buy another set for next summer..... will have a think about selling it. Should raise at least £250.

ZTD

Cat2011 wrote: »

Been feeling pretty miserable. I'm not really sure why. Well its partly because I found out an old friend of mine had died. We were childhood friends, then didn't see him for about 10yrs, then we were at the same party last November. It was good to have a catch up. Six months later he was dead. He's my best friends uncle, he was only 31.

Wow - that's young.

Cat2011 wrote: »

I also tend to come in at 9.15-9.30 as the traffic to work is awful otherwise. But apparently one of my bosses often comes into the office at 9.15 and asks to speak to me and he always gets told I'm not in, which doesn't give a very good impression....

It doesn't give a very good impression of him. How often does he have to turn up at 9:15 to be told you're not in before the penny drops?

Cat2011 wrote: »

I've been procrastinating about eBay for months, but haven't actually done anything about it! I do also have a set of windsurfing kit which I could get rid of. I've been hanging onto it as I wanted to try and get out and do some more windsurfing, but I didn't get out once last year, and right now my priority is my debt. I can always save up and buy another set for next summer..... will have a think about selling it. Should raise at least £250.

Sit down and calculate how much interest you'd save on £250 over the course of a year compared to the buying your kit again, minus the £250.

Of course if you are *never* going windsurfing again - then get rid.

Cat2011

July Tally of Savings

I need to save £1366 to be debt free this month!
I can save £792 from my salary (if I don't spend a penny!), so need to earn £574 extra to be debt free.

Saved £569.48 / £574 (£4.52 to go!) + £350 overspend. oops.

£89.35 Mystery shops
£4.72 Interest
£16.32 Found some cash
£100.00 Bank account bonus
£5.10 Quidco cashback
£10.00 Mystery shop
£177.34 eBay
£6.91 eBay
£7.75 Interest
£32.99 Mystery shopping
£56.00 Mystery shopping
£63.00 eBay