The "Pay ALL your debt off by Xmas 2012" challenge - PART 2!!!

jakes-mum

Spoke to my mother about the weekend away (the voice of reason in my life) and she agrees with all of you, the kids are only young once, DH is working stupid hours and shes also pointed out that the depression seems to be rearing its head as well. She said £250 and an extra month/2 months of debt is a small price to pay for a small break as a family. She also said to do it for end april as she felt that if I booked it for sept/oct time 1) the weather would be changing for the worse and 2) it was so far away it might actually make DH life harder as it would feel like it was never going to come.

Also its DH's birthday mid april and mine is mid may so we could do it as a bit of a joint birthday present to each other and then just get something small to open on the day.

I think im just about there with talking myself into it, I just hope that when I discuss it with DH he doesnt then start the 'but for £500 - £600 we could go abroad . . . ' which he has done everytime before :rotfl: unfortunately it never does cost that . . . its more like £1000 :eek:

vw_campervan_mum

There are quite a few topics on here at the moment which like mine earlier in the week all really come down to trying to find a sustainable balance between our attempts to become debt free and to have a life worth living.
For me there are lots of parallels between food and money diets. Our long term aims are to not just get debt free but stay that way. Just like getting to and staying at our weight goals this means not just a short term restricted diet but finding completely new and life long habits that we can realistically stick to.
Family events and holidays are both the glue of our relationships and the spice of our lives by which I mean these are the things that are our most important positive memories.
Our new MSE ways do not mean we can never go out, have holidays or celebrate life events. BUT we do need to do these in an MSE way. So research a cheap holiday, use vouchers for meals, remember cheap outings can be just as much fun as expensive ones (without that horrible downer afterwards of "I've spent too much :eek:). We all need to savour life, every day, because our lives are NOW, not when we become debt free.
It may be painful along the way as we re-educate our selves to search for the cheapest/best options, and as we have to find ways to communicate these choices to the people who matter to us, but we all know it will be worth it when we are not just debt free but able to live happily and safely within our means.
Good luck today to us all as we tackle our choices :wave:

rdchick

Yep with VW here

my motto comes out once again.

LIFE IS TOO SHORT NOT TO LOVE WHAT YOU DO.

I think if you have kids it's important to not to have too many regrets like my family, my mum and dad feel bad because my older brother is a. my dad's step child (my mum was married before) b. had to go through the horrible divorce when he was only 3/4 but old enough to know what was happening c. my mum and dad met when my dad was unemployed and my mum and brother lived with my nan and grandad so they were skint. d. my big bro often had to go without because they couldn't afford to do stuff... Then me and my baby bro were born and we were basically spoilt because money situations had changed, mum and dad both worked, they had their own house etc etc but still weren't rolling in it but we got to do stuff that we wanted to do etc so mum and dad both feel really guilty about the times when they couldn't afford to do stuff when my big bro was little...

hope that makes sense... basically if you can do it if you do it the MSE way then go for it - life is too short! xxx

rdchick

Also in other news... Quidco paid into my account today xxx

vw_campervan_mum

Thanks rdchick - I have been struck by your signature before.
It strikes a chord because i do not love my job at the moment because it has become a very stressful place to work. Concentrating too much on my strict budget is making home uncomfortable too. I have to get a better balance so that I don't regret these years of struggle as ones where me and my children weren't as happy as we could be.

twoboysmamma79

#170. £3400 paid today thanks to cash windfall from relative. Very very very much appreciated :money:
i can now start to chip away at my overdraft too !!!:D

jakes-mum

woohooo! another £5 amaz0n voucher from my fav site swag b*cks and because I feel so positive today ive decided to declare another £100 off DH's overdraft which brings it down to £500

so new total

#16 £2635.81 / £8806.89 29.93% :T:T:T

couldnt get closer to 30% if I tried could I :rotfl::rotfl:

psychopathbabble

jakes-mum wrote: »

woohooo! another £5 amaz0n voucher from my fav site swag b*cks and because I feel so positive today ive decided to declare another £100 off DH's overdraft which brings it down to £500


couldnt get closer to 30% if I tried could I :rotfl::rotfl:

If you do book H0seasons, do it through quidco as you get cashback x

rdchick

vw_campervan_mum wrote: »

Thanks rdchick - I have been struck by your signature before.
It strikes a chord because i do not love my job at the moment because it has become a very stressful place to work. Concentrating too much on my strict budget is making home uncomfortable too. I have to get a better balance so that I don't regret these years of struggle as ones where me and my children weren't as happy as we could be.

I have it on the back of my phone case... because it's true... I hate my job too... I have to work 2 jobs because I can't get one that pays enough for debt busting... I have 3 stone to lose and a maths GCSE to get but once all that is done life will be pretty good (and if I get into the RAF it will be perfect!) So that's why it's my motto! xxx

rictus123

Should be making a 2000+ payment tomorrow. Started off with debts at 13,500 but with interest it will end up having cost me a lot more than that. I am not going to say how much I have left to pay/paid so far as there is some posters who track all my post history and go on and on about it so I will just plod on paying off as much as I can and let you guys know when I am finally debt free. Right now at current rate it will be end of august....I'm more hoping for July at the latest. Just need to find that little bit more work to make all the difference.