Tintingirl's "become debt free" adventure!

Giraffeseeker

jackieb wrote: »

We got our loft insulated a couple of months ago for free. It's made a huge difference. We only had about 2-3 inches of insulation, but they added another 12'' on top. My husband won't have cavity wall insulation though as he says there are too many stories of it causing damp.

Oh, and hopefully you've given your BF something to think about. None of us like to think we're being pushed into anything, so in a little while he might come to you, wanting to get on track too, but let him think it was his idea all along. He might just need a little time to get used to the idea.

Yes, I hoping the insulation will keep us warm and cut the bills too! I know men are a bit stubborn, but really he is ridiculous. He lost his car keys last night - they'll be somewhere in my house I am sure - instead of looking for them he just got a cab home cos he was annoyed I wasn't helping look for them enough (which I would have done, it just wasn't urgent at that very moment and I was sorting breakfast). So he's now in a strop and says he'll just leave the car on my street and hire one. What a waste of money! Which he doesn't have either. Still haven't looked for his keys - have no intention of doing so either when he's being so stupid :mad:

Giraffeseeker

I've spent my evening putting CD's and DVD's on music magpie and made £30 ish. Have another stack that I think will fetch more on eBay so gonna try that first, hold off on finalising the magpie deal for a few days, and if these others don't sell on eBay I'll pop them onto the magpie list. The money's going in my pot for next Christmas anyway so no rush on that one.

Having set up my BG electricity monitor I've been obsessed all day with seeing how much things cost, and therefore turning lights off etc all evening! Shocked at the cost of some things - I think this monitor is a good idea though in helping manage bills. :money:

Apart from that I resisted the lure of a take away or nipping to tescos for a ready meal, and ate from the cupboards instead. Did buy cigarettes, but I'm hoping I've only got a day or two left of doing that, I'm on day 5 of the champix, so on Monday I go onto the full strength ones and I think Tuesday will be my quit day, or possibly weds. I'm already feeling the effects of the tablets and not wanting/enjoying them so much. Also resisted buying a bottle of wine when I went out for cigarettes and have drunk a can of forgotten coke from the back of the fridge instead! I need to go and pot some pound coins I think for all those non-spends!

I have to say, the challenges on here are great.i resisted about 3 items in the Joe Brown sale catalogue the other day as I didn't want to have to declare a "spend" in the clothes challenge and break my £0 spends so far, and I resisted the wine so I could put some money in my sealed pot - such good motivation! :T

Giraffeseeker

Not much to report today. Shopped for the week and will meet food shopping target easily this month. Cooked muffins for lunch boxes and cooking dinner ATM, gammon and new potatoes for boys, a quorn thing and new potatoes for me, plus cooking extra potatoes so I can have a potato salad for lunch the next couple of days.

Stupid computer has a virus :mad: am hoping ICT dept will sort tomorrow for me, and the moment it won't boot up so am on son's netbook. Missing my spreadsheet and fearful for photos and music - work stuff backed up luckily.

DS2 found BF's keys down the side of the sofa, but he is being an idiot and won't let me pick him up to fetch them and his car. Not sure how he thinks he'll get to work tomorrow!

Giraffeseeker

Yay - got my computer back, virus free, along with all my files - yay :j I was convinced I had lost all my photos of the kids :eek:

AND they fixed my external hard drive so I can do back-ups from now on - brilliant!

Not a bad few days for me really. Am on the full strength Champix now and they have hit me bigtime - tiredness, sickness and headaches. Smoking is now making me ill and I have barely smoked today. Tomorrow is my quit day, for definate, so I have smoked my last cigarette.

Have realised why I have never really done packed lunch for work before - I don't really like sandwiches.... well, not every day. So I've been a bit more inventive with lunch this week, and tried to make it as part of dinner. Sunday night we had new potatoes so I made a potato salad, which I had on Monday, then again on Tuesday (with leftover cold pizza cooked for tea monday night). And then tonight we've had sausage, mash and veg, so I've made a potatoe and vegetable soup which will do for lunch the next few days. Then probably fish and chips in the canteen on Friday for being such a good girl! :T

Wanted to write a list of my goals for 2012 as I've got so much going around in my head at the moment. So here we are:
1) DO NOT get into any more debt (obviously!)
2) REDUCE debt by £6K
3) PAY for Christmas entirely from my sealed pot (including ebay sales)
4) PAY for a summer holiday for me and the kids from summer exam marking earnings
5) SAVE an amount each month for emergencies and large expenses
6) RECORD my expenses/budget all year
7) DO NOT spend more than £120 on clothes for myself all year
8) DO NOT smoke again after 17/1/12 (saving £2.5k)

So that's it. A bit late for new years resolutions but there we are. I wanted them down in black and white to motivate me to keep going, and so I can have the satisfaction of saying I have done it.

Based on my DMP payment at the moment, (2) will rely on creditors stopping interest in the next month or two, so I'll have to see how realistic that ends up being. If only this time last year I had just said I was going to do number (1) I would be at least £8K less in debt right now :mad:

I am enjoying number 3, putting money in my sealed pot, and I have a huge list of stuff I'm going to put on ebay throughout the year. Number 4 will be interesting, I always SAY I'm going to use the money for a holiday, then I book something on a credit card and the marking money gets frittered away. This year I should wait until the money hits the account in July before I book, no matter how good a "deal" I think I see beforehand.

And for my challenge at number (7) I have currently spent £0! :T

Better go and help DS2 with his homework now, he is throwing his pencil across the room....

Giraffeseeker

My goodness, I can't believe I haven't posted in my diary for so long!

Has been a very busy time at work, parents evenings and open evenings and meetings galore!

I've also been eBaying obsessively, I took advantage of the free listings weekend and put a whole bunch of stuff on there, some which I never thought would sell (but it has!) and some which I thought would sell, but currently has no watchers/bids. Oh well, the auctions don't finish until Sunday so plenty of time to go.

I've already made quite a bit on eBay though, so I withdrew £50 and put it in my sealed pot for Christmas, and then bought a 2nd hand 4th generation iPod touch for DS2 for his birthday in March using the remaining money in the Paypal account. It's arrived, boxed and in great condition, so I'm well happy and he will be too :T

As far as the DMP goes, First Direct have rolled my 3 debts with them into one, accepted my repayments and put my interest rate to 6.5% - not sure if that's good or not but the payments offered to them were only just short of what I was paying anyway, so they've no real incentive to stop interest altogether. One debt was on 8.9% previously, and one on 14% so it is lower. They're putting my loan in with my overdraft so they loan account shows on my credit file as closed and they won't be filing a default and they say I'll pay them off in 30 months.

MBNA have accepted for my Virgin Money card and lowered the rate to 3.9%. This month's statement only had £25 interest on it, instead of the usual £170ish! Problem is they want a payment on 6th Jan and one on 6th Feb, and my first DMP payment will get to them on 25th Feb - idiots! They've also charged me 2x£12 default sums which I would like returning, so I'll ring them about that. In fact, I tried to call them today - their letter said "8am - 9pm" and I called at 5.30pmish. And got this message "Thank you for calling our debt management team. Please call again during our opening hours of 8am and 4pm". Like I said - Idiots!

And so far I have had NOTHING from Santander, HSPF or Barclaycard. In fact, it's all been rather quiet....

banwa

Hello tintingirl, just letting you know I am subscribing. Well done on tackling the debts:T; you just need to get the boyf on board now.

I'll keep dropping by.

Banwa:)

sashybo

Hi TTG, well done on the ebaying and using the money towards Christmas & DS2's iPod touch. :T

Good news on First Direct and hope you get Virgin Money sorted out - they were actually one of our more reasonable creditors. Try not to worry about the other creditors, am sure you'll hear from them soon enough.

EmmatheOstrich

Thanks for the inspiration tintingirl. My LBM has occurred today, I have set up a diary and now need to start the hard work of paying off the debt!

Ho do you become an exam marker? Hubbie is a PS teacher and Sats marking could provide us with some needed money!

Pink_Fairy_2

Hi Tintingirl

Hope you don't mind if I come along for the ride. I first contacted CCCS back in August last year as I had been made redundant for the 4th time in 6 years (risky job ) They gave me lots of helpful advice which I acted upon, but HSBC was singularly unhelpful, carried on paying out DDs from account thus increasing our overdraft, Coop took ages to set up Cashminder account as they lost our paperwork (hand delivered in branch) but finally it should have started to settle down, than hubby had an aciident at work 17/11 and is still off work now, possibly for several more months. He's on a flat rate of pay which meant we couldn't over pay on anything to reduce debts, we'd also accrued 2 months mortgage arrears (HSBC again) and I finally had my true light bulb moment 27th January 2012. We had a phone call from CCCS last Wednesday and have another set up for this Wednesday when I shall hopefully have all my figures together for them. They also advised me to contact the Financial Ombudsman as HSBC had not responded to any of my letters but we were having as many as 6 phone calls per week - the last one I hung up on after he asked me if I was going to make a substantial payment. I said no, I had written to them offering a payment plan, they hadn't bothered to reply although I had been making payments, and I would be taking my complaint further.

I have no posted the information to the Financial Ombudsman, have most of the information ready for CCCS and realised that things really can only get better, even if there are some rocky moments as many people seem to have. We're all on an incredible journey. We may have come by various routes, but we will all arrive at the right destination!:D

Thank you for your inspiration. :T

Kepp

Hi Tintingirl, love your diary and have subscribed