The road to freedom

lizbristol

It's that time of the month again (no, not THAT time of the month...) - it's payday! While a small part of me is mourning the demise of the Let's-go-and-blow-it-all-and-get-!!!!!!-Liz, another part of me is sitting back looking smugger than Gary Barlow about the new and improved I'm-going-to-be-sensible-and-resist-the-urge-to-go-above-budget-Liz. Or rather, the This-time-next-year-I'll-have-savings-yes-SAVINGS-Liz.

Despite looking forward to being able to pay off another whacking great big chunk of overdraft this month, it has become apparent that I'm not going to be able to, due to a couple of annoyingly large unexpected costs this month. Namely, a council tax bill (which I really should have budgeted for) and also a training course that I committed to months ago in my days of monetary hedonism (see, what a floozy I was with my cash, blowing it all on furthering my professional skillbase) and that I now can't get out of for various reasons I won't bore you with here.

Still, I have managed to pay off my pesky credit card today - hurrah! I'm going to freeze it (literally, stick it in a plastic box full of water and FREEZE the bast*rd) so that I won't use it day-to-day but will still have it in case of dire emergencies like Not Having A Job.

I also took Lemontree's advice (thank you Lemontree!) and moved my standing orders so they come out of my account just before the next payday, leaving my account as full as possible for as long as possible. Hopefully this will go some way to reducing the hideous £30 per month bank charges I'm currently running up (that's at least 4 bottles of wine's worth, right there. Shocker. I've found it's much easier to think of savings in terms of how much cab sav it'll get me :rotfl:)

So all positive news there, but I'm afraid I do have a bit of a shameful confession to make. Back at the end of September, in a fit of moneysaving enthusiasm, I decided to tackle my credit record by signing up to the relevant free trials from the credit agencies. After spending a soul-destroying afternoon farting around in these sites trying to make head or tail of them, I decided I'd come back to them in a few days and work out the necessary changes I needed to contact them about etc. Well anyway a few days turned into a couple of weeks and then before I knew it... the end of 30 day trial had passed and I still hadn't done anything about it, and my card was walloped with a nice big fee from both credit agencies. I'm so cross with myself about this. As every MSE knows, the golden rule of these free trials is that YOU NEED TO CANCEL THE TRIAL BEFORE THE END OF THE 30 DAYS! I'm still furious with myself that this money-saving plan ended up costing me the equivalent of half my weekly spending budget. :mad:

Well there you go, I feel better for getting that off my chest. Has anyone else made a similar schoolboy error whilst on their debt-free journey? Come on, help me feel better by sharing. I'll even make us all some Alcoholics-Anonymous-style name badges and we can all have a good cry together.

lizbristol

Wow, five months flies by when you're not looking, doesn't it?

I decided to come back to MSE today as I finally realised I need another good kick up the bum, as my debt-clearing has somewhat stagnated since Christmas (who am I kidding? It's not just stagnated, it's dried up completely and done a runner)

After my initial success back in Sept/Oct, when I managed to clear a whopping chunk of my OD, I had several months where big one-off payments (and of course Christmas) thwarted any attempts to reduce it further. While I've been convincing myself that I'm doing ok because I'm not actually going OVER my OD limit (that's quite an achievement considering I used to do it every month) I have to now finally admit that I've just got a bit slack and have started to slip back into old spending habits, and my OD is sitting there smugly, still at the same limit it was back at the end of the year.

So what's given me this sudden motivation to get back on the wagon? As any previous readers of this sadly neglected diary may remember, my job was on the line back in December, but luckily my contract was renewed. Despite only being a 3-month contract, I breezily said back then that March was a far better time to look for work so I would cross that bridge when I came to it. Well here we are in April, I managed to eke out another 3 weeks of work when my contract finished but last week it came to it's proper, final end. So for the whole week I've been at home, pimping myself out to all my old contacts and trying to convince them that I'm super brilliant and if they don't hire me RIGHT THIS MINUTE then I will of course be snapped up by one of their competitors and then won't they be sorry? As yet it's, er, not working.

At the moment I'm fairly confident that I will get work, it might just take longer than I'd hoped, so yesterday I took the first step towards applying for Job Seekers allowance to help me cover my bills for a couple of weeks. A good plan, you might think - that's certainly what I thought - until I discovered that signing on is approximately as easy as farting yourself to the moon.

Despite an hour of pure, unadulterated frustration on the phone with an unintelligible Glaswegian who sounded bored to the point of suicide, we battled through the baffling eligibility questionnaire together and I now have an interview at the Job Centre on Monday.

So that's where I'm at now - in the Debt Doldrums and pretty much rock bottom with work. But onwards and upwards! I'm determined to get back on track with clearing that pesky OD, and - judging by the mind-numbing pointlessness of my adventures on the phone yesterday with the JSA people - Monday will, if nothing else, be entertaining. Sigh.