dfw the fly-lady way - 31 days

Tondella

Dear debt-free wannabe fly babies

Welcome to the long-promised DFW fly lady thread. What's this all about? Well many of us, and particularly me, have had a couple of light bulb moments in the past and are scratching our heads wondering where all our good intentions went to back when getting debt free was our number one priority. Time goes by and we slip into old habits, and suddenly it's the middle of the month and all our hard earned money has gone and we don't know where!

This thread is all about forming MSE habits that will last a lifetime. Maybe you are new to the site and are being blown away by all the useful advice that people are offering. "Where to start?!" or "I have to cancel Sky?!" you might ask. It's tempting to try and change everything at once, but the key to success is to make small gradual changes, little by little, so that before you know it you're on MSE auto-pilot.

I am going to post a little challenge each day for 31 days. These challenges are going to help you form the MSE habits of a lifetime. Once you are in the habit of being MSE in all ways you can start to turn your attention to bigger projects - like raising cash, or credit card shuffling, or overpaying your mortgage. But first thing's first.

Don't worry if you are coming to this thread and all the 31 days are there already. Number 1 rule: YOU ARE NOT BEHIND. You can start this plan whenever you want to. The important thing is that you take it one day at a time. REMEMBER we are tricking ourselves into forming these habits, if we try to do it all at once we'll be back to our old sorry ways in no time at all. Your debts have waited this long, what's 31 days more?

Question: what is fly lady? It's a system of organising your life and learning to come to terms with yourself that originated in america, google it, or head over to the Old style board, there'll be plenty there to discover if you want to. HOWEVER it isn't necessary to read anything to do this. Just log on every day and look forward to your next challenge

Request: Please could folk not post on this thread, as I'd like to keep the posts for the 31 days. A whole group of us DFW fly babies are supporting each other over on another thread, join in, we don't bite! You can chat away with us to your heart's content over there, let's just keep this thread clean Just click below!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=310151

Ok here goes!

Tondella

Day 1 – Write down what you spend today

That’s all you have to do. Every time you reach into your purse or wallet and pull out the switch card, credit card or some cash, jot down on the back of an envelope what you bought and how much you spent. Then keep that envelope somewhere safe for later. Well done, we're on our way:money:

Tondella

Day 2 – Confess!

Carry on writing down those little (and big) purchases that you make throughout the day. Put that scrap of paper somewhere handy so that every time you reach for some money you put your fingers on the piece of paper first.

Don’t be tempted to try and spend less than yesterday, all that will come in plenty of time. This isn’t some sort of competition with yourself, this is you becoming a habitual MSE-er. For the moment all we want is to find out where all our hard-earned cash is trickling away to.

Now find the “what have you spent today” thread and ‘fess up! Sneak a peak at what other people are spending their money on while you're over there – see we’re all at it!

Make sure I'm over there too, confessing what I have spent! Over one year here and I haven't managed to crack this little habit yet and, what do you know, here I am wondering where all the money has gone from my account! Internet fraud? No! petty spending!

Tondella

Day 3 – Dear diary!

So far we are:
Writing down what we spend
Fessing up to our fellow DFW-ers


Now's the time to find a spending diary. This is going to be a nice neat home for all those numbers that you have been writing on the back of envelopes and till receipts.

Find an old exercise book, a ring binder, a spiral notebook and write proudly on the front – "spending diary" - but that’s all, no getting ahead of ourselves. Now put it somewhere handy and safe. We'll come back to it when we're good and ready.

Tondella

Day 4 – Bad juju
So far we are:
Writing down what we spend
'Fessin' up on the daily spends thread
Keeping our spending diary safe and handy

Today I propose trying a thought exercise. Some might find it a little airy fairy, but it's only going to happen once, so let's just give it a try. We are going to take a long hard listen at all the voices in our head that tell us how badly we are doing. First write down what they say then for each negative thought write down something positive. Easy! And it's what some of the most effective people do as a matter of course - turning those negatives right around into positives.

These are our first steps towards becoming a MSE-er for life. Think of the near future when sticking to a budget and making our money go further will be second nature to us. See yourself helping out newbie DFW flybabies on their first steps.

Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, things have waited this long, they can wait a couple of weeks longer. We’re busy building habits that will last a lifetime
:T

Tondella

Day 5: Tune in, turn on and tune out
So far we are:
Writing down what we have spent
Confessing our spends on the daily thread
Keeping our spending diary safe and handy

Now then. We all need our mobile phones but bills can creep and creep up as those tricksy service providers get us to use calls outside our service plan. Remember 10 years ago when hardly anyone had a mobile, and people couldn't be got hold of 24:7? We coped didn't we?

Leave your phone at home, or turn it off and don’t spend on it today. Every time you need to use your phone, having to turn it on will give you a minute to think whether you really do need to make that call. If we can reduce our mobile minutes then we can reduce our tariff – but that’s all in the future. For now just try to go mobile free for a day! Or if you are using the mob for business, try sticking to your plan minutes - no unnecessary calls.

Tondella

Day 6: ciao cards!

So far we are:
Writing down what we spend
Fessing it up
Keeping our spending diary somewhere safe for when we’re ready for it
Going mobile free

Time for a big pat on the back, we are almost through your first week, already we are forming habits that will last a lifetime and keep us debt free.

Today, as an expression of how confident we are about taking control of our finances, we are going to take all the credit cards out of our wallets or purses and leave them at home. We won’t be spending on them anymore, or at least not until we have one that will work for US, rather than us working to pay for IT.

File them away somewhere, or if you are really likely to get tempted then freeze them into a bag of water. That way there’ll be no impulse spending. Take a big sigh, it'll be ok, you have online friends to help you through now, not plastic ones. :j

Tondella

Day 7: the mystery revealed!

for seven days we have been:
writing down our spends
fessing it up
keeping our spending diary safe and ready
minimising mobiles


Debt free flybabies we are one week old, think back to this time last week, money was trickling away unnoticed, we were yacking away on our mobile phones with no thought to the bill at the end of the month and no plan.

Today we are going to fish out our spending diary and transfer all the information from our scraps of paper safely into its pages. Use some headings: food, smokes, socialising, take-aways, travel/petrol, magazines, pot noodles, fishnets … I could go on but you get the picture. Whatever you seem to be spending your money on. And remember to keep a note of the day you are spending it on. Friday is my worst day, as I never seem to have enough food in to last me the week. Knowledge is power!

Tot it up and say to yourself "so that's where it is all going!" Don't panic, it'll never look that bad again because you are taking the first baby steps towards being an MSE lifer.

Now put your feet up - it's been a big week and there's plenty more to come

Tondella

Day 8 braving the bills
Today we are:
Writing down what we spend
Fessing up
Keeping our spending diary safe and handy
Banishing expensive and non-essential mobile chat

Today we are going to open all unopened bills and mail. If you feel unable to peek at the amounts that’s fine, just open them, recycle all the adverts and non-essential fillers, smooth out the important pieces of paper and make a nice neat pile to be put away and looked at later.

It’s never pleasant to receive a bill, but we are putting into place money saving habits that will last us a lifetime and soon when we open a bill we will be either
a) not shocked at all because we know exactly how much we pay for things like council tax
b) pleasantly surprised at how much bills like our utilities are, once we have found the best tariff and taken cost-cutting measures
c) ecstatic to see how much our credit card bills and loans have decreased by

So let’s start to look at these plain white or brown envelopes as bringers of good news, and start opening them!

Tondella

Day 9 – shop but don’t drop
Today we are
Writing down what we spend
‘fessing up
Keeping our spending diary safe
Minimising mobiles
Opening bills

Today we are starting a shopping list. Start off by writing down things you know you have run out of this week (for me it’s washing powder and fairy liquid), then add in your staples (milk, bread, eggs, cheese, box of wine!). Finally, have a think about the week ahead – what meals do you have to cook, what’s in the fridge/freezer/pantry waiting to go off. You don’t have to do a complete menu plan for the week (that’s for later!!), you just need a rough idea of the amount of food you need to get in so you don’t run short. If you are really struggling, see if you can find an old receipt from a previous shop for inspiration. If you’re not going shopping for a couple of days keep the list safe in the kitchen so that you can quickly add something to it as you remember or run out of it, otherwise pop it into your wallet or handbag, ready to go.

The joys of a shopping list are many! Firstly, you have banished the horrible dread of walking into the supermarket and having to trawl your memory to remember what you need to get. In our family we suffer dreadfully from this and you can guarantee that each week my mum will buy a new packet of butter, margarine, six tins of beans and a multipack of crisps as a matter of course, even when the cupboards back home are overflowing with butter, beans and crisps. She don’t need them, it’s just that she can’t remember what else to buy! Secondly, you won’t overshop and end up throwing out food (and money) at the end of the week. Thirdly, you won’t forget anything and be forced to make an emergency top-up shop mid-week, when a bar of chocolate, couple of ready meals and another bottle of wine accidentally make their way into your basket when you actually only popped out for potatoes.

Once you’re back from the shops find a piece of paper for next week’s list and start adding to it as soon as you run out of something.

Tondella

Day 10 - pause for thought
Today we are
Writing down our spends
Fessing up
Minimising mobiles
Braving our bills
Keeping a shopping list

Phew! The last couple of days have been intense – on top of keeping our spending diaries we’ve opened those dreaded bills and started shopping to a list. Time to kick back our heels and relax. Today is a bit of down time where we can start to explore other parts of the Money Saving Expert website. We have made the debt-free wannabe board our spiritual home and are online most days confessing our spends and offering support, but there is so much more out there to be enjoyed!

Why not check out some of the other boards? A good start is the old style board, where thrifty folk hang out and exchange tips on what to do with two tonnes of fruit picked from hedgerows, or a thousand and one uses for bicarbonate of soda. It may come over a little extreme to begin with, but go with it and you’ll soon see the method to their (apparent) madness. In fact these guys are our spiritual brethren, applying the fly lady way of a challenge a day to running their homes and lives.

If you have already flirted with ebay or amazon market place then there is a whole board dedicated to online auctioning, where you can get tips on how to make the best sales and avoid con tricks. Or else try your luck at an online competition, details of comps are posted throughout the day on the comps board. Or see what’s going down locally on your local moneysaving thread, or something for students, or silver savers, or check out the family and relationship MSE board where you can ask about childcare fees, or the cheapest baby clothes, or prescription charges. Or just make some friends in the Money Saving Arms. Alternatively, if you want to study from the master himself head on over to the main part of the site where Martin posts his articles about credit cards, debts, mortgages, utilities, online shopping etc etc. A world of MSE is literally at your fingertips.

Don’t feel that you have to join in posting on the boards, or start overhauling your utility providers, all that will come in time, cos at the moment you are busy with the most important aspect of money-saving – building good habits to last a lifetime. Just allow your curiosity to wander and open your mind to the wonderful world of money saving!