Time to 'grow up' - the slippery slope to 30.

Sparkle80

Hi there!

Just stumbled across this thread, I read your previous diaries so it's good to see you back.

Fantastic that you have the holiday paid for now, it won't be long in coming round, I love Majorca, such a nice place.

immoral_angeluk

Feeling so frustrated at the moment. I really want to get on with paying off the credit card but I've got to wait until Thursday! What's that all about? :rotfl:
Is it normal to be itching to pay off debt? Even with christmas coming up? Surely there's something wrong somewhere. Isn't this this time of year of excess and 'sod the credit card bill' and 'let's buy the biggest turkey ever even if it won't fit in our oven and we'll have to cook it over 48 hours taking turns in shifts'.
Theoretically of course, I could just max the CC's and then just spend my spare money. But over the past years I just CAN'T. It's a weird feeling. I never feel like I HAVE spare money as it's always allocated to something. I'd love sometimes to just have fully disposable income. IE money that I could just spend on crap without thinking about it. As much as I have official disposable income, it's always paying off debt, or saving for something, I always have a plan for it and it's never free money so to speak!
Does anyone know what I mean or am I just rambling? :rotfl:

It's a weird feeling actually. Ever since facing up to the debt me and my ex husband had so many moons ago and dealing with it, my whole attitude towards money has changed. I can never take it for granted now and even though I'm doing well for myself I'm just waiting for the next thing to come and trip me up or go wrong. God I'm such a pessimist! Maybe that's why I can't just spend my money willy nilly, because if I do, I'll get used to it and then if it all goes horribly wrong I'll be in trouble!

Where do you find the happy medium though between being careless and being OCD??

I swear I'm borderline OCD you know. Considering I'm often counting down the days/hours/nanoseconds until my next money is in so I can save it/pay off the cards etc.

Maybe I should see a shrink. lol!

ZTD

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Feeling so frustrated at the moment. I really want to get on with paying off the credit card but I've got to wait until Thursday! What's that all about? :rotfl:
Is it normal to be itching to pay off debt? Even with christmas coming up? Surely there's something wrong somewhere. Isn't this this time of year of excess and 'sod the credit card bill' and 'let's buy the biggest turkey ever even if it won't fit in our oven and we'll have to cook it over 48 hours taking turns in shifts'.

That's the propaganda, but a bit like people becoming wise to the January sales and the shops having to cope with that, people are also becoming wise to the "you can't enjoy Christmas unless you spend the rest of the year paying for it".

It's not true, never has been, but it has been profitable for people to push that message.

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Theoretically of course, I could just max the CC's and then just spend my spare money. But over the past years I just CAN'T. It's a weird feeling. I never feel like I HAVE spare money as it's always allocated to something. I'd love sometimes to just have fully disposable income. IE money that I could just spend on crap without thinking about it. As much as I have official disposable income, it's always paying off debt, or saving for something, I always have a plan for it and it's never free money so to speak!
Does anyone know what I mean or am I just rambling? :rotfl:

It's called "being organised".

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

It's a weird feeling actually. Ever since facing up to the debt me and my ex husband had so many moons ago and dealing with it, my whole attitude towards money has changed. I can never take it for granted now and even though I'm doing well for myself I'm just waiting for the next thing to come and trip me up or go wrong. God I'm such a pessimist! Maybe that's why I can't just spend my money willy nilly, because if I do, I'll get used to it and then if it all goes horribly wrong I'll be in trouble!

Where do you find the happy medium though between being careless and being OCD??

It's found through what are referred to as "savings". My parents have never been rich, and my mother has always watched the pennies. Once my Dad got a good job, and they got a bit behind them, the stress levels just fell away. They're still careful, but they had a car accident recently, and my Mother's attitude was "We're fine - it's only money."

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

I swear I'm borderline OCD you know. Considering I'm often counting down the days/hours/nanoseconds until my next money is in so I can save it/pay off the cards etc.

Maybe I should see a shrink. lol!

Why? Perfectly normal. When your debt is all gone, and you have a floating "slush fund", then you'll stop thinking (so much) about it. Because if things do go wrong, you know you can just pay out and fill it back up later.

immoral_angeluk

ZTD wrote: »

That's the propaganda, but a bit like people becoming wise to the January sales and the shops having to cope with that, people are also becoming wise to the "you can't enjoy Christmas unless you spend the rest of the year paying for it".

It's not true, never has been, but it has been profitable for people to push that message.



It's called "being organised".



It's found through what are referred to as "savings". My parents have never been rich, and my mother has always watched the pennies. Once my Dad got a good job, and they got a bit behind them, the stress levels just fell away. They're still careful, but they had a car accident recently, and my Mother's attitude was "We're fine - it's only money."



Why? Perfectly normal. When your debt is all gone, and you have a floating "slush fund", then you'll stop thinking (so much) about it. Because if things do go wrong, you know you can just pay out and fill it back up later.

So true, I think part of the pressure is having those liabilities to repay and having no 'emergencies fund'. Not that I'm expecting anything, but the habit has always been to put stuff on the car and pay it off (admittely quickly) later, which is all fair and good, but I think a change of attitude is needed!

ZTD

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

So true, I think part of the pressure is having those liabilities to repay and having no 'emergencies fund'. Not that I'm expecting anything,

Emergencies, by their nature, are never expected. It's the old thing of "prepare for the worst, hope for the best".

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

but the habit has always been to put stuff on the car and pay it off (admittely quickly) later, which is all fair and good, but I think a change of attitude is needed!

If that's all you can do, then that's all you can do. Once the card is clear and you have free and clear savings (i.e. not earmarked for anything other than "emergencies") - then you can relax.

immoral_angeluk

MY god what a busy couple of days. I am on here whilst multitasking and making dinner. Dear god! *needs a lie down*

Today was payday, hurrah!! So I've paid my childcare fees, paid off the holiday, as well as paying £60ish off the credit card. Will do proper budgets later once I've had chance to think for 2 seconds, but other than that today was a NSD. Can't say the same about yesterday sadly which ended up with £4 for parking (will get expenses back) and £6 on lunch with colleagues in costa coffee as it wasn't provided at a meeting we went to as we were originally told. £6!! Daylight robbery!

Off to do my ASDA shop tonight so will update on the budgets after that. Have had to put in extra petrol this week over my normal £25 due to extra meetings and stuff. Also forgot I have a work course to go on on Tuesday which involves an £8 train fare (again, I'll get it back but not straight away..) so will have to work that into my budgets.

Bum. I hate money sometimes! Well.. having to spend it on stuff I have no control over.. :P

immoral_angeluk

Happy new DFW siggy :j I am officially back on the DFW wagon. :rotfl:

Back from shopping, and I spent less than my budget so I've been able to pay an extra £10.55 off the CC. Hurrah!

Here's how my newly updated budgets pan out.

Food £70.00 Spent, came in £10.55 under budget.
Petrol £35.00 Spent, but transaction pending so not registered yet.
Social £20.00 Higher than normal as have a girlie night in tomorrow plus a wedding to go to on Sunday!
School dinners £21.00
Holiday £0.00 Paid off in full lunchtime.. :j
Dance £10.00
Bills £921.34

totals out
£1,007.34
total
£1,017.89 surplus which I paid off the CC £10.55


I'm actually excited now, it feels really good to be paying off the card again now the holiday fund is paid off. I forgot how addictive I find it!

Still haven't got my musicmagpie money, and also have a fair amount of work expenses to come back to me after the end of the month, so both of those can go straight off the card.

I'm going to have a look at cutting down on the remainder of my xmas spending, as now the bulk of the girls'/DP presents are bought I should be able to keep it to a minimum, which will mean I can pay more off the card. Yes it'll make me a scrooge but xmas is for the kids after all!

Need to start compiling a 'non kids' xmas present list....

immoral_angeluk

I was just about to put evening all when I realised the time so I suppose morning all would be more appropriate!

Just wanted to do a quick update really. Have spent all of my £20 social budget today as we had a girlie night at mine for a friend's birthday so bought cake, snacks and rented bridesmaids (which I really enjoyed ). I also had chippy chips for lunch at 90p earlier. So much for my healthy eating plan...

Tomorrow is dance for the girls so will be spending £7.50 on that plus probably another £2 on the vending machines thanks to my beloved daughters and their like of treats for doing a good job in class. I should really look at taking snacks with me but they enjoy being able to put the money in the machine and pick their own snack so it's a novelty for them.

Pesky kids.. :rotfl:

I'd be rich if it weren't for them :rotfl:

immoral_angeluk

Happy Saturday!
Have to have a bit of a vent and I'm reaally annoyed at the school. Not only have they lost the change I was due I mentioned earlier in this thread, now they're saying I'm a week in arrears for my youngest despite me paying every week!! It's a good job it's the weekend or else they'd be getting a maaaassive rant from me. I'm certainly not paying it considering I've already paid it! Hopefully it's just an admin error but I'm not going to be impressed if they try and make me pay it..

You see! It's these pesky kids again!! :rotfl:

In other news today is a NSD other than the dance budget. I was tempted into buying the Now 80 CD for the girls but decided not to as I've spent all of my budget this week and still have a wedding to go to!

See, I am being good really

immoral_angeluk

Howdy all!
Had a VERY busy weekend but ended up not spending anything extra which is good. Went to the wedding yesterday and had a lovely time, plus had a nice weekend with the girls and DP. I love the weekends but hate the fact they go so quickly!

So, today is monday. Had a NSD today, but tomorrow I'm on a course in Birmingham so will have to pay £7.50 or whatever it is for the train. I'll get it back in expenses but still! *tut*. Will be nice to be let out on day release though :rotfl: Will be putting my expenses in in the next few days as well so should get my money back to pay off the card within the next couple of weeks or so Not sure how much yet, maybe £30? It all helps anyway!

Had confirmation that my musicmagpie lot has FINALLY been processed and the cheque is on it's way. Bout time. Think it's been about 3-4 weeks now? Ah well, not complaining as it's free money isn't it

Going to do my weekly budgets in a bit, as haven't even looked at my internet banking this weekend at all :eek: So not like me, I'm having withdrawal symptoms!!

Will update again later once I've done them