Tales from a country cottage

Igamogam

Match betting that just sounds too scary for me - think I will stick with my surveys and Eb*y:rotfl::rotfl:

ani*fan

It's honestly not as hard as people on here make it sound. I'd love to write a beginners tutorial on it, cos really, there is a decent amount of cash to be made just sat at your pc. If I tried posting a step-by-step guide, in short, easy to follow installments, would you guys be interested? I like demystifying things...esp. given this a a male dominated subject on here.

I'm off out with a group from work today. I hate working saturdays, but because it's children I just can't help myself. I know we'll all have a fantastic time, which is why I volunteered, but now the day is here I just want to snuggle up in bed and nap the morning away. Oh dear. Must get it together.

Me and OH had a row last night. I was so excited about the chance of us spending lots of time together during my AL, and OH has been arranging to do things with other people and told me about it last night. I got really upset and am probably being unreasonable but still. I don't think being considered is too much to ask in a marriage. Must try and make amends when I get home today.

Have a wonderful debt-busting day everyone.

p.s. Is it this weekend the clocks go forward?! Wow! Daylight!

Igamogam

Yes clocks forward tonight - takes me weeks for my body clock to adjust Not quite so bad in the autumn though! Hope you and OH make it up - I can understand how you feel. Mine hasnt taken any AL over Easter so I know that on the days he is off if the weather is good he will be flying Still DD2 and me can have sometime together - she will be post exam by then so more human :rotfl:

lucielle

matched betting for the completely bewildered and out their depth sounds good to me.
L

ani*fan

Well, it's quite a big day for me.

I've paid off the overdraft! :T:T:T:T:T
Finally, the amount in the account and the amount available are one and the same! Which makes it easier to do my sums. So it was only £300, but as we all know, if it's £300 you don't have then it may as well be £3k. I'm a little bit pleased with myself. The bank tried to persuade me to keep it, telling me I wouldn't get charged as long as I didn't use it. But the temptation is always there so I stuck to my guns and said thanks very much, but I don't want it. And that was that. I wanted to lecture them on how irresponsible they were being but my mood was too cheery so I left it. Plus they're a nice bunch in my bank and I didn't want to annoy them.

So my debt has tidily reduced from 8 different debts of varying interest rates including 2 at 30% :eek: to 4. They are:

Abbey CC 2882.69 17%
Virgin CC 3506.95 17%
M & S CC 3747.70 0%
MiL 2475 0 0%

Making the grand total

£12,612.34

That's £1,617.14 paid off in 7 months. Not bad progress, for me. Not so many months ago we weren't even solvent and now everything is paid on time, including the debts, and we are consistantly overpaying too. :T

I'm delighted!!! (And trying hard not too think of everything else I could have done with that cash.)

ani*fan

I was thinking today about further ways of saving money. Here's my thoughts.

• Buying oil for the heating. I would love to be able to pay outright for each tank of oil and shop around for the cheapest. My account with my current provider is nearly paid up to date. Usually they would continue taking money to prepay next winter's oil. I've decided i want to save the money myself. So, I'm going to cancel my account, open another bank account and DD to it every month. I've worked out how much 2.5 tanks per year would cost and it's much less than I'm currently paying every month, £115 instead of £178.
• My car insurance is due in the middle of April. I've done all the comparisons and everything else recommended on here, and I'm buying it outright instead of paying DD every month . It's just a case of phoning up and buying it. I'm so nervous! It's bizarre! And I will be £25 per month better off without the direct debit.
• OH and I are having a wee hotel break to celebrate my birthday in a couple of weeks. I shopped around for hours and got us a family room for 2 nights, total £60. (It ws cheaper than a double anywhere else!) Meals will come out of the food budget, petrol out of the petrol budget and MiL is very generously giving us some spends. :heart2: I'm very excited about this. Somehow it's worth more after all the struggling with cash we do constantly.
• Matched betting. I haven't got back into this yet but it's on my list for next week when I'm off.

I'm also aware that I've never felt this confident about managing money before. I can cancel the oil account knowing for sure that I have the discipline to put away an amount every month to buy oil. Wow. Did we not used to learn these skills as young adults previously? Did all that learning just disappear with credit card culture? My goodness. For the first time in years I feel as though we have 'enough'. The peace of mind is absolutely priceless. I can't imagine how it will then feel to be debt free. Bring it on!

The next challenge is getting together the cash to buy a year's road tax in June instead of 6 months like I usually do. I really hope I can pull this off.

After that, I guess the next challenges will be to save for the car's MOT and...*christmas*. These are all the big outlays that used to send me into a panic but not anymore. I'm in charge, and I'm organised, and that makes everything so much better.

I've just spent a lovely day in our garden with OH. Beautiful sunshine, 22 degrees, lounging around with cool drinks, pottering about planting flowers from our mature plants that have had babies. We have made up and are back on track. Heaven is made of days like this.

Happy debtbusting Tuesday everyone.

Igamogam

Oooooooh Ani - well done you sound so rightly pleased with yourself and I am glad you and OH are back on track - would be a miserable weekend away otherwise:rotfl: Lots of great ideas to get that debt down. I am just waiting for the 2 weeks off and will engage the brain a bit more whilst I dont have to think about other frogs for a while;)

ani*fan

Do you think we are true MSE addicts when we can't wait for our holidays so there's more time to figure out ways of getting the debt down? :rotfl:
Me too, Igamogam.

Igamogam

ani*fan wrote: »

Do you think we are true MSE addicts when we can't wait for our holidays so there's more time to figure out ways of getting the debt down? :rotfl:
Me too, Igamogam.

Oh yes indeedy. I find the last couple of weeks leading to a holiday very demanding as the frogs are winding themselves up for the period of uncertainty ahead and this time of year we start to lose some of our frogs, returning back to their original ponds with new confidence and improved social skills and of course they need to sever the ties and do this by being particularly mad making sure we will be glad to see the back of them......which of course we arent and deep down they know it;) But boy is it draining so yes the holidays are great for head space that is all mine:rotfl:

lucielle

ani*fan wrote: »

I was thinking today about further ways of saving money. Here's my thoughts.

• Buying oil for the heating. I would love to be able to pay outright for each tank of oil and shop around for the cheapest. My account with my current provider is nearly paid up to date. Usually they would continue taking money to prepay next winter's oil. I've decided i want to save the money myself. So, I'm going to cancel my account, open another bank account and DD to it every month. I've worked out how much 2.5 tanks per year would cost and it's much less than I'm currently paying every month, £115 instead of £178.
• My car insurance is due in the middle of April. I've done all the comparisons and everything else recommended on here, and I'm buying it outright instead of paying DD every month . It's just a case of phoning up and buying it. I'm so nervous! It's bizarre! And I will be £25 per month better off without the direct debit.
• OH and I are having a wee hotel break to celebrate my birthday in a couple of weeks. I shopped around for hours and got us a family room for 2 nights, total £60. (It ws cheaper than a double anywhere else!) Meals will come out of the food budget, petrol out of the petrol budget and MiL is very generously giving us some spends. :heart2: I'm very excited about this. Somehow it's worth more after all the struggling with cash we do constantly.
• Matched betting. I haven't got back into this yet but it's on my list for next week when I'm off.

I'm also aware that I've never felt this confident about managing money before. I can cancel the oil account knowing for sure that I have the discipline to put away an amount every month to buy oil. Wow. Did we not used to learn these skills as young adults previously? Did all that learning just disappear with credit card culture? My goodness. For the first time in years I feel as though we have 'enough'. The peace of mind is absolutely priceless. I can't imagine how it will then feel to be debt free. Bring it on!

The next challenge is getting together the cash to buy a year's road tax in June instead of 6 months like I usually do. I really hope I can pull this off.

After that, I guess the next challenges will be to save for the car's MOT and...*christmas*. These are all the big outlays that used to send me into a panic but not anymore. I'm in charge, and I'm organised, and that makes everything so much better.

I've just spent a lovely day in our garden with OH. Beautiful sunshine, 22 degrees, lounging around with cool drinks, pottering about planting flowers from our mature plants that have had babies. We have made up and are back on track. Heaven is made of days like this.

Happy debtbusting Tuesday everyone.

I can so relate to this post. I was in debt for ages with our oil company and now have an account that I pay into for the oil. The great thing is I can play all the companies off against one another to get a better quote. In fact I've got loads of different accounts with Lloyds and its great because you can name all the accounts.

Enjoy your break.
L