Getting professional help to beat debt. Diary

Getmeoutofdebt

Well I haven't done much this week regarding my debt, just been concentrating on my online surveys. Had a little review to see how I am doing and so far this year I have earned £55 from my survey points! I can't figure out if that is a lot or not! laugh! It's £55 of free money I suppose but when I think about how many hours I have spent doing surveys...... well....... Probably best not thinking of that! ha ha! I am also up to £57 on my Nectar points so over £100 made in total.:T I think I am going to have to change my target. £100 in a year doesn't seem much now when I have done £57 in 3 months! I think I will double it and see how I go.

Other things going on.... I went out for lunch yesterday with my friends whose birthday it was on the same day as mine. Spent £20 but paid for it out of my birthday money so that was good!

At home we are lambing so I'm busy bottle feeding orphans etc..... It's like that Tv programme Lambing Live at the moment! Plenty to be getting on with and it's all good fun.... the only downside is I stink! Sheep are such smelly creatures! Blurrgh!

Hope you are all having a great weekend! We've got Mum & dad coming for dinner with it being mothers day. I'm making a Jamie Oliver recipe, Steak, Guinness & cheese pie with puff pastry lid & mustard mash! mmmmmm. Better go make it in fact...... it takes about 3 hours! Enjoy the rest of the weekend! :rotfl:

Getmeoutofdebt

Well I have been away from home on a training course this week and usually they motivate me and make me feel a bit better about work, but I am on such a downer with work lately that all it has done is made me want to leave! The hours are too long and they are planning on increasing them to the point that eventually we will be open 24 hours a day 7 days a week!! I want out of the rat race. I can't be bothered with the stress any more and the lack of time at home. I don't mind the job itself but the managers live to work and expect their staff to do the same! They think work should come 1st and family and home life 2nd and they give you a hard time if you think otherwise!
My friend has just given up and started a small business and got a part time job on the side to cover the bills. She is loving the freedom and the variety and the fact that she is working for herself! I have decided that I would like to do that but I need my current wage to get out of debt first!! So I'm planning ahead and working out what I can do in a years time to start a business and where I could possibly work part time. I could hardly sleep last night through stressing about work and alternately having brainwaves about small businesses! I'm thinking along the lines of Art/ crafty things as I enjoy doing it and I'm thinking I could start to make things/ do paintings now and store them away so that in a years time I have plenty of stock to sell. I'm just fretting about the money though, I will probably never manage to make the kind of money I'm on now, but I don't want to stay suffering to earn the money I'm on now..... It is so frustrating! :mad:

On the debt front I still haven't done much this week but that has been due to me being away and not being able to do my surveys etc. On the plus side I have managed not to spend anything so at least I'm not going backwards!

Hope everyone is doing well with their debt busting and feeling a bit more positive this week than I am! :T

Getmeoutofdebt

Well I have had such a busy week, audits at work, in-laws & their kids from 450 miles away turning up for an unannounced visit when I was in the shower after a particularly draining day at work (yeah thanks for that! House was a tip, I was half asleep, had no milk in to make them a cuppa etc etc ) everyone under the sun wanting to come and bring their kids to see our lambs (do people not realise we are up for work at 5.30 am and don't really appreciate an influx of visitors after a 10 hour shift?) :mad: But....... all this distraction has had a positive effect and I have just realised that I have not even thought about my debt in over a week. It's a miracle!! I am normally obsessing about it 24/7! I've also not had chance to go shopping and have been using up what is in the freezer plus father-in-law bought us fish and chip supper one evening so I've hardly spent anything either! A couple of surveys in my spare moments have notched my Nectar points up to £62! It has been a pretty good money saving week! Well... it was until I undid all my progress today and got my hair done! £55!!! eek!!! It was a mess though and needed doing. Going off on a tangent........ has anyone noticed how flipping expensive Oxfam is? I dropped some stuff in when I went to the hairdressers as there is one close by, and I had a look to see if I could find a bargain....... Vest tops which were fit for the bin on sale at £4.99!!! You could buy a new one for that! And a satin vest with frills round the neck £24.99!!!! Owch!!! Who are they trying to kid? Who is going to pay those prices for second hand clothes?
So rant over.... for now.... ha ha.... Hope you all are having a fab weekend!! :j

Getmeoutofdebt

Well it's Sunday which normally means a bit of a lie in but I was wide awake at 6am so I decided to get up and get organised. Been sat here doing surveys for an hour while having breakfast! I'm going to walk the dogs next and then hopefully..... providing we have no visitors to distract me..... I'm going to crack on and make some craft items to sell later in the year when I go with my sister to a craft fair. I have lots of ideas so far but can't decide where to start! I think I may paint the picture frames I picked up at the car boot sale last week and get them looking all pretty and new.
I still haven't been thinking too much about debt this week due to us being so busy at work due to 2 staff being off (theres only 4 of us normally so it's been hard work) and I have been coming home late each day and feeling exhausted. I have managed to get my Nectar points up to £64 but I haven't really managed to save any money other than that. It's a relief not to be thinking about debt so much but the downside is that by not focussing on it I'm not really pushing myself as hard as I could be. It is pay day next week though so at least thats another chunk paid off!
Happy Easter weekend everyone!! Hope you have a good one! :T

Getmeoutofdebt

Well I have been having a nightmare trying to sort out my debt spreadsheet as it became apparent that something wasn't adding up!!!
I have each month and all the payments and interest etc flowing down the page with some formulas working out total paid and the % etc...... Yesterday I scrolled down to the bottom to take a sneak peek at my debt free date (Now 25th Feb 2015) and it was showing that at this point I will have paid 108% off! So I thought errmm shouldn't that be 100%? Then I noticed at the point of becoming debt free I will have paid off £1900 less than it takes for me to be out of debt! I was wondering how I could pay so much less and be at 108%!!
It took me about 2 hours of messing about to get it right. For some reason when I had totalled up some columns it was giving me a different amount to what I would get on a calculator. I had to totally re do the sheet and then when it was finally all working out It turned out I was in more debt than I thought and the £600 I paid off yesterday hadn't really made a difference to my total because the previous amount was adrift by almost the same amount!!
I'm so frustrated!! :mad:
I just feel like these last couple of months I have been at a standstill!!
I also had some of my wage deducted for being ill in March so I came out with less than usual! Groan!

I have spent the morning so far trying to gain some survey points as a way of trying to make things right again but its so pointless! pardon the pun!! I have been 20 points short of making a withdrawal on one site for about 6 weeks now and every survey I do boots me out before I can get any more points! I'm 200 points short of a £5 withdrawal on swagbucks and that too is proving impossible!! I need to find a better way of making some extra cash!! I'm still doing well on my Nectar points though, I'm at £65.50 now. I love their survey site as they are all quite short surveys and the points go on your card overnight. You don't have to save them up for months to withdraw. And their adpoints site is good too. I quite like watching the ads too!

Hubby is away today and tonight so I'm going to crack on and make some craft items while I have some peace..... I'm also making wild mushroom risotto tonight as he hates mushrooms so I never get chance to make it!! I think I may make a carrot cake too if I have the time! Oh and I'm also going to attempt a home hair dye! Yikes!! I know I only had it done at the salon the other week but it has kind of faded from a red to a bright yellowy/carrotty colour and its awful! I can't afford to go back and have it re-done so I've bought a chocolate brown to try and cover it up and make it look more natural and less illuminous! Please wish me luck! I'm dreading it going wrong! ha ha!
:rotfl:
Hope you all have a happy & money saving weekend!! xx

Getmeoutofdebt

Well it is 5 days since payday and I'm skint! 25 days till the next payday! Groan! And a visit from long lost relatives this month which could get expensive!!
I spent £150 on pay day alone!! That was a HUGE £80 weekly shop due to the fact that I had run out of a lot of staple foods and condiments etc so had to re stock on those as well as buying the food for the week, toiletries, shampoo etc... Then I fuelled the car up as it was running on fumes for £60 and dog food for £10.
I allow myself £100 per week for food / toiletries etc and £100 a month for fuel but I usually spend less on food and use what I've saved to top up the fuel money as it usually costs me more than £100 to get to work and back all month.
I usually have a few £ still left over from the food money to pay towards my debt or save for things like gifts, hair cuts, etc.
This week I've ended up going over my budget and have already spent £20 of next weeks money on things I forgot to buy on my first shopping trip!
I am in a panic now about how I am going to get through the rest of the month! And annoyed that I won't have any extra to pay off my debt! I am busily trying to work out if I can make extra meals from the food I have bought so I can put off going food shopping for a few more days and save some of next weeks money to make up for it!
I can't wait until this time next year when the debt is gone, there is money in the bank and panicking over grocery money will not be an issue!! The problems that debt causes! :mad:

Getmeoutofdebt

My "Ups" this week are that I have finally managed to earn the extra 20 survey points I needed this week in order to withdraw £2.50!!! Yippeeee!!!! (what is my life coming to that makes this seem like such a major achievement! ha ha!) I have also withdrawn £10 from swagbucks and am only 100 or so points off another fiver! Yay!!!! Doing well on that at the moment. Had some good surveys on it! Got my Nectar points up to £71 too!!

My "down" is that I seem to be getting nowhere with my overdraft! After the car broke down and I had to buy a ton of parts etc, it went up quite a bit and I haven't managed to pay much off because when I do, something else crops up and I seem to spend it again!! Naughty I know!! I should be now paying a big chunk off one of my Barclaycards each month not still stuck on the overdraft. That should be long gone!!
I have decided to ring the bank later and lower it so that I can't re-spend on it after I make a payment. I'm also going to have a hunt around the house for some stuff to e-bay and hope that will clear a bit more off it.
I need to crack on with my Barclaycards as I'm getting behind in my debt plan!!

Have a good weekend!!
GMOOD xx

LAM2011

Hellooo - not been around for a while and gosh so much catching up to do.

Lucky you being able to play with the lambs! When we had a smallholding I wanted sheep but OH kept saying the babies would have to go 'on holiday' (and never come back ) so I decided to just stick to the horses.

Have you done anything on the crafts side yet - sold anything?

SO frustrating when unexpected expense pops up isn't it! I am also hoping to ebay this weekend to cover some expense I have had to put on my credit card.

Hope you have a nice weekend x

Getmeoutofdebt

Hi LAM!!

Welcome back!! Nice of you to pop in.
Yes the lambs are ace but I try not to think too much about them "going away" ha ha. Luckily there are so many it is hard to get attached to them and they go to auction when I'm at work so I'm blissfully unaware! :rotfl:

Haven't dome much craft stuff yet. I started on some last weekend but realised I had forgotten to buy a few things I needed to complete them. Going to have a go at some other things today hopefully. I may as well use my extra day off work wisely! I did however manage a crafty trick to get some business cards though for when I do my stalls! I went on swagbucks and signed up to a link to join vistaprint for a pack of 250 free cards! So not only did I get the business cards for nothing but I got swag points for doing it! Result! :T

Good luck with your ebaying!! Hope you make some good money!!

GMOOD xx

Getmeoutofdebt

Well another pay day has come and gone and another chunk has been paid off my debt. I haven't paid off as much as I wanted to as I got a low wage this month due to us being very quiet at work. My wage is performance related so if we are not busy I get less

I have also had relatives visiting from abroad this past week which lead to a lot of eating out, something my budget couldn't cope with so that has also set me back a bit.

In June I have 2 family birthdays and my MOT is due but I'm hoping that with it being due so near to June's pay day I may wait until the very day it is due and pay by cheque and hopefully my next wage will have gone in before the cheque clears. So then from this months wage I only have the birthdays to worry about.

Managed to get to £79 on my Nectar points! Yay!!!!! And withdrew another fiver on swagbucks.

I have set up a payment transfer from my spending money account for one of my Barclaycards (the lowest one) and have decided that any weekly cash that I don't spend plus any money from surveys that I earn, I will transfer it straight off that card. Yesterday I paid £400 off it from my wage and another £13 from surveys & spare money in the account that I couldn't withdraw from the cashpoint. So basically I keep the account rounded down to the next tenner and the odd bits of money I can't withdraw get paid off. I need something to focus on and keep me going in between pay days. I find that the hardest part at the moment. The nearer I get to getting out of debt the more relaxed about it I become and I don't try so hard. That makes me take my eye off the ball and I end up paying less off which then makes my debt free date move further away!

Off to work now to earn some more money.........

Have a great Bank Holiday Weekend!!!:T