Spagbol: 2012 is the year to eat the debt!

SpagBol

We have well over £50k unsecured debt and a mortgage of £274k :eek:. We have been through a hellish two years of redundancies, paycuts, job losses and now we start the year with new jobs and new attitudes, the austerity years have hit chez spagbol!!

Just my Birthday to get over :beer::beer::beer: then we are going alcohol free for several months and lentils are the new minced beef :j:j:j

I thought I would start this diary now to make me do it, I need to make lunch and tidy up now but I hope by getting things down I can bust the debt quicker!!:D

greenval

Good Luck to you!
I' still can't fancy lentils though.

SpagBol

greenval wrote: »

Good Luck to you!
I' still can't fancy lentils though.

I actually love them, dhansak is my favourite curry, they vanish in other dishes with rice and veg and there is a lovely Nigella soup recipe with yellow lentils and frankfurters

kerri_dfw

I'm subscribing, I've been trying to think of ways to replace the meat I no longer wish to eat and cottage pie was one of my faves. I've googled how to make it with lentils and will give it a go tonight, Ta very much.

SpagBol

kerri_dfw wrote: »

I'm subscribing, I've been trying to think of ways to replace the meat I no longer wish to eat and cottage pie was one of my faves. I've googled how to make it with lentils and will give it a go tonight, Ta very much.

Glad to be of help Perhaps post your recipe as I love cottage pie too...I'll put up my lentil rice dish, chickpea curry and lentil soup when I have time!

Off to make a lemon drizzle cake now for my guests tonight, I have some fresh ginger in the fridge and am wondering whether it would work in there...

SpagBol

So this weekend we have just stayed in (2 x NSDs!!) except for a trip to the library :money: where I got out the book to go with the series "pay off your mortgage in 2 years" that we watched a few years ago and it was really interesting to see those stories again. I also picked up a book by a lady called Kath Kelly who set herself a challenge to live on £1 a day for a year (excluding rent) and her story was truly inspirational with lots of good tips.

Today we have cleared our loft and got £53 worth of stuff accepted on zapper.co.uk and sorted about 5 massive boxes of stuff to do a car boot sale next weekend. I still have loads to go on ebay but most of it is baby stuff and I still can't quite let go of those...just in case I should though and just think even if I do have another I will be debt-free :j:j:j and can buy another pram and more clothes second-hand.

Just had an amazingly yummy massive ham for dinner (was a whoopsie down to £5 and it was huuuuuuuuge), it did the four of us with cous cous and veg, tomorrow we will have cold ham and crudites for lunch to take to work and I made loads of (economy) pasta so there is ham, sweetcorn and brocolli pasta for tomorrow's dinner. Yum yum and :money: too!!:D:D:D

I start my new job(s) tomorrow so going to chill out tonight and decide what to wear!

Itsadogslife_2

Hi Spagbol (this is my most favouritest dinner, if I had to choose just one thing to live off forever it would be this ).

Good luck for tomorrow :A

kerri_dfw

Hope the new job goes well tomorrow and that the chilli was yummy

SpagBol

Hi Itsadogslife, looking at your sig it looks like I should be a longhaul supporter- where is that thread please?

Thanks to you and kerri- I love a new job, makes me feel like "back to school" which I always loved. I can't wait to find out when payday will be lol

SpagBol

I need to do an update!!

We are really getting into the non-spending thing, I do wonder if DH would be on board if he still had full control of his finances but he has surrendered his cards and online banking log-in so he's 100% committed. His strength lies in upping our income so he has been really working hard and doing some freelance bits and bobs on top.

I have been selling some more ebay and gumtree stuff, things were going really well but of course the car had trouble this morning, looks like it could be about £70 to fix :mad::mad: Why does nothing ever stay in our bank account?!?

Grocery wise we have REALLY had our eyes opened by how much we spend, I didn't realise how much extra stuff I buy and the stuff we throw away We are really getting very MSE though towards the tail end of the month, I made salmon fishcakes from a tin of salmon I've had for ages last night and 4 aged potatoes, tonight is omelettes and baked beans, I did the kids sausages rice and peas tonight and made extra rice, mixed it with a tin of mixed beans in a spicy sauce and OMG delish!! That's lunch for both DH and I to take to work tomorrow Spag bol from the freezer batches for the kids tomorrow and whoopsie freezer dinner for DH and I, probably cornish pasties!! Yummy!

I should get paid for my new job next week so really looking forward to that.

Happy moneysaving! :j:j:money:

SpagBol

So I've been paid today from job 1, only 3/4 of my usual income but then I only started mid Jan!! I have paid off £145 on my credit cards today and feeling good. I've even put £30 into my savings account (I will put 50 in every month for our camping holiday and kids birthdays) which is unheard of!! I know it's not a good idea to have savings but this is a sort of planned expense and contingency fund so I'm going to do it :j:j

Later I have lots of stuff to go on ebay and gumtree and lots of soaked black-eyed peas which I will boil and make into a curry so must surf the web now for a recipe! If it is nice I will post it on here

I get paid for job 2 on Friday (hopefully, this is my old place of work and the payroll department is shocking so they will probably fail to pay me correctly in the first few days!!) which will only be about £50 but it all helps. I need to phone the tax office and arrange a tax rebate too because I haven't been working for 3 months!

DH works near a famous meat market and he came home with some prices yesterday, £3.50 for a kilo of lean mince sounds good, I'm going to do a vast moussaka this weekend and freeze portions so I'm really pleased with that. The chickens and beef shin etc are v cheap too so that is a real find!