Life is like a rainbow. You need both the sun and the rain to make its colours appear

rainbowneeks

I thought it was about time I started a dairy to keep me on the straight and narrow. I've been hanging around the forum boards for a while, and I must say, reading some of the stories on here are inspiring! This will be my first post on the boards though, and I hope it is the first of many, not just in my dairy, but I also want to get involved in other threads too.

A bit about me, I am 26 and a nurse, I own my own flat and my boyfriend lives with me. My main motivation for starting a dairy is to help me stay on the road to becoming debt free, but I'm also hoping that it will help me acheive some other goals I have for the next couple of years.

My current state of affairs with money is:

Income: Variable, not in f/t employment at the moment, I do agency work so can pretty much do as much as I want. Starting a new f/t job on 19th September (:j I went for the interview at begginning of June and it's taken this long to sort out!! will be glad to have a set amount coming in every month again!)
+ £65 from renting out my OH parking space at his flat (he has now moved in with me :j)
Outgoings:
Union membership – £16.24
Mobile – £20
Car Insurance - £50
Electric – £27
House Phone line rental – £6.79
Council Tax - £89
Mortgage - £396.11
Internet - £10
Parking - £95
Spending - £100
Food - £100
To savings for bills (gas, service charge, water) - £167

= £1077.14

Minimum payments to credit cards:

Barclaycard - £90
Halifax - £30

= £1197.14

Current debts:
Barclaycard credit card 0% = £5000
Halifax Credit Card (?%) = £3000
Overdraft = £1650

Basically racked up debts, firstly from buying lots of furniture when I purchased my flat in march 2010 and then I moved jobs in Aug 2010 and hated my new job. Hated it so much I was crying every day and having panic attacks, so ended up off sick. Stuck it out for 6 months but couldn't take anymore so handed in my notice in feb 2011 without a job to go to, so racked up more debts because I didn't have a job. Also went on lots of holidays after leaving that job to make myself feel better .

I'm trying to do enough shifts to clear my overdraft before I start my new job on 19th. Even though my OH lives with me, we're not splitting costs because he owns his own flat which is not rented out at the moment...hoping to get that rented out to get some extra money! My main motivation to clear my debts is so that me and OH can save up for a house together. We can't sell our flats that we own at the moment (both in negative equity!) so we will need to save up for a deposit for a new property together and rent out the flats until house prices go up.

So that's it in a nutshell. Feel like I've had a terrible year so far, but determined to turn it around now. The sooner I clear my debts, the sooner I can start planning for the future

rainbowneeks

List of goals:

Financial Goals:

1. CLEAR DEBTS ASAP - debt free date to aim for: July 2013
2. Save up for christmas
3. Save up for OH 30th in Feb, want to surprise him with a trip to las vegas, because I know he would just absolutely love it more than anything!
4. Save up for a new car
5. Save up for a deposit for house

Non-Financial Goals:

1. Find some hobbies. Fed up with wasting my days off watching rubbish daytime tv. My new job will be 9-5 instead of shifts which I have been doing (mainly nights and weekends). So can join (and commit to) a weekly class at last
2. Lose weight - I was doing really well and lost 9lbs, but have lost motivation in recent weeks. Been to a lot of weddings and other social events and not been sticking to it at all...time to get back on track.
3. Work on my relationship with my sister - our relationship has never been what you would call close, but as I'm getting older, I'm realising more and more how important family is, so need to start being more proactive in keeping in touch and being more supportive to her.
4. Try to persuade OH's family that I am a nice person/not a gold digger/not a psycho. Me and my OH have been together for 16 months, his family took an instant dislike to me and have never really changed their opinion. As far as I am aware there is no particular reason why they don't like me, they just don't....not sure how to turn this around but would like to try for my OH's sake.
5. Phone my grandad more.
6. Make some more friends. Making friends has never come easily to me. I now (after many, many years) have an amazing group of close friends around me who are just wonderful and I am so grateful for, but we all lead busy lives (all nurses and working silly shifts as well!) and would like to have other friends that I can also spend time with. Might be able to kill 2 birds with one stone by joining a weekly class, I might make some new friends

rainbowneeks

01/09/11

Money spent - £6 (paid £5 back to OH for wine he brought me yesterday, and replaced the chocolate of his I ate)
Weight watchers points eaten - 32 (3 over my daily allowance)
Activity done - 20 minute skinny jeans workout - activity points earned - 1 :j

Small things I've done today on the quest to becoming debt free:

1) resisted the temptation to buy a skinny latte when walking past Starbucks
2) resisted buying a bottle of wine in tesco as a treat
3) re-listed sequin leggings on ebay
4) started my debt free diary
5) made a list of all the food in my cupboards and freezer to use for meal planning

*doodle*_2

Hello, you seem to really focused and determined I'm gonna subscribe if that's ok

Decluttering

Happy new diary *subscribes* You really seem determined and concious of how you can reach your goals - good luck

rainbowneeks

Thank you for the warm welcome doodle and decluttering!! :wave:I didn't know I came across as so determined....maybe this is the start of things to come!!

rainbowneeks

02/09/11

Money spent - £0 yay! a NSD!
Weight watchers points eaten - 32 (3 over my daily allowance, AGAIN!)
Activity done - 14 cardio workout (wanted to do 20 minutes but I felt like I was going to collapse!) - activity points earned - 1

Small things I've done today on the quest to becoming debt free:

1) signed up for the NSD challenge and had my first NSD of september
2) going to be doing a night shift tonight = more money in the bank :j

Slept in till 12pm today! :eek: Still, I am doing a night shift tonight, so don't feel so bad about it. Got in a workout this afternoon and did the housework Also been making a list all day of things I can do on my night shift a) to be productive with my time and b) to keep me awake! Think I'm going to take some sewing to do (OH trouser hem's need repairing), also going to start thinking about and making a list of money saving things to do this month, and finally going to start reading a book - this will accomplish one of my goals, to have more hobbies, still need to pick which book from the millions sitting on my shelves that I've not got round to reading yet. Also downloaded the free thursday orange film the other day, the film is che: part one, so could watch that too if I get bored, not heard of the film though so don't know if it'll be any good!

Proud to have had my first NSD of the month! :T

Hovel_lady

Well done on your NSD :T

BEAT_THE_DEBT

hi loving the diary. Can you just take 3 points you are over n dailies out of weeklies?x

rainbowneeks

Hovel_lady wrote: »

Well done on your NSD :T

Thank you! I really like this challenge!

BEAT_THE_DEBT wrote: »

hi loving the diary. Can you just take 3 points you are over n dailies out of weeklies?x

yeah, I can, but was naughty at the beginning of the week and didn't even track everything mon - weds so i'm sure i must have used all my weeklies then! haha oh well! will continue trying! weigh in day monday and hoping for another 1lb lost....think i might be being a bit too optimistic!

rainbowneeks

03/09/11

Money spent - £0 my second NSD in a row!
Weight watchers points eaten - 24 so far, but still have a whole night shift to get through!
Activity done - none - woke up legs (and bum!!) aching from last 2 days exercise, also my back playing up which has been dodgy since a car accident a few years ago, so decided to give the exercise a rest for today

Small things I've done today on the quest to becoming debt free:

1) had another NSD
2) another night shift tonight

Not feeling great today. Got home at 8.30am and went straight to bed, postman woke me up at 10am with a parcel, OH phoned at 11am and woke me up again, then phoned at 14pm and woke me up, couldn't get back to sleep after that, so not had a great deal of sleep. Also feel like I'm coming down with a cold. Been snotty all day, got a headache and feel like I've got a temperature (although my thermometer tells me my temperature is normal - must be broken or something! lol). Therefore not looking forward to a night shift.
Also been missing OH today. He left before I got in from work this morning, off to edinburgh on a stag do overnight. And when he phoned me he's not enjoying it either which makes me doublely sad
Still....must try and take the positives of the day...had another NSD which is something to be proud of!