One Day I Will .... get debts below £8500 (Debt Diary)

mattfiona

Wow, that sounds fabulous - wishing you both the very best of luck :beer: , it's great reading all about your plans! I'm fascinated with everything related to emigration and love reading other people's stories Looking forward to following all of your plans as they progress.

Sounds like you have a really lovely group of friends to welcome you too - that's great!

:rotfl: You made me laugh with your comment about my username :rotfl: I'm Fiona! - (DH is Matt) - I originally joined and just made one original post when my DH was out of work so looking for advice for both of us but then ended up staying because I like it here so much

So, France! I have had a lifelong love affair with France - I adore the place! I studied France at University and lived in Paris for a year and I always knew I wanted to move and live in France at some point in my life. I came home, got a job, got married and DH and I have had holidays in France regularly ever since then really. Well, in April this year, we went for a week in the South of France and, like you, when we got back, all we could talk about was staying in France and building our life there - DH always liked France but not as much as me, but since that holiday, he really got the France lifestyle bug and now it's all he talks about.

We want to move to South of France - the plan is to pay off all our unsecured debt in the next 4 years and pay off as much of our mortgage as possible to increase our equity then buy a property out there - hopefully will only have a small mortgage and no debts so it will be a good start

I have started a diary 'Debt Free and Emigrating' to track all of our plans in there as we go along

Best of luck to you and MrOneDay :cool:

tigzem

How exciting.... moving to France & Costa Rica. Sounds a good plan, hope your dreams come true soon x

hypno06

Hi oneday, have just read your diary from start to finish (how have I missed it so far!!) and just wanted to say that you have made fab progress. Make sure you look after yourself through all of this - the pressures of debt busting are tough at the best of times, so be aware of when things "personally" start to get out of hand.

Having read through, I know you are on top of this but just wanted to say your health and wellbeing is far more important that any cash figure, although I know from experience that the buzz of reducing the amount owing contributes to good feeling (if you see what I mean - sorry, rambling now, will shut up!).

onedayiwill

Hi Hypno,

You are right. In the grand scheme of things it is only money and my wellbeing is more important. I do try to remind myself of this regularly.

My birthday is this month and since I finished the typing assignment I was doing on Friday, I thought I would give myself a a holiday from working extra hours. Extra income this month is only going to come from selling stuff and that way I can have a little more "me" time to relax and take care of myself. Mr OneDay is also pleased because although he is really happy with my progress and extremely supportive, he'd like me to be a little more relaxed!

Maybe he'll not feel that way when the house has nothing in it at the end of the month! :rotfl:

Of course, come July, I'll be back working extra hours

For me, the debt is not the "cause" of my depression, though I do see that for others here and completely understand it, but it hasn't helped it. Paying it off is gives very positive feelings. But I know I mustn't overdo things because only takes "one little thing" - a minor thing going wrong, getting over tired, no looking after myself physically - to throw my mind off and send me back into that downward spiral.

I have a wonderful target to aim for which keeps me motivated. But if it should happen that we can't move to CR, at least I'll be debt free and able to afford more holidays there!

tigzem

Hey OneDay, just popping by to see how you are?

Hope you've got the good weather and out enjoying it x

onedayiwill

Hi Tigz,

Went to visit my mum for a few days
The weather has been good and I am good.
Just came home today and check my CC balance online - the last two payments I made have now cleared and the balance stands at about £1930. Which looks really good

Hope things are good with you.

tigzem

onedayiwill wrote: »

Hi Tigz,

Went to visit my mum for a few days
The weather has been good and I am good.
Just came home today and check my CC balance online - the last two payments I made have now cleared and the balance stands at about £1930. Which looks really good

Hope things are good with you.

All good with me ta.

Good news re the C/C, well done :beer:

onedayiwill

Ok, it's been a while since I updated, so thought I'd waffle on for a bit

Not yet time to work out my new debt balance for the month, but looking forward to next week to be able to do this once all statements etc are in.

This month I made £70 on eBay and £90 for typing for a student. So lower than my previous months "extra" income, but still meeting my £150 per month target.

In other news:

My ILA account has been set up so I now have my £200 available to "learn something new". If you've been reading this thread, you know I'm using it towards a TEFL course. I'm very excited.

If you are in Scotland and earning less than £18,000 a year, this is something you are entitled to - you can use the £200 towards all sorts of courses. If you earn over £18,000 you can get £100 towards the cost of learning something new, but the courses available are more limited. Either way - worth a look, right? www.ilascotland.org.uk

Finally managed to register for online banking with Nationwide. This was a long drawn out process because both my name and address for my Cashbuilder account needed to be updated before I could do this. I ended up queueing twice in the branch for over an hour each time! What a palava. Anyhoo. Online banking now registered, so I was ready to apply for my FlexAccount - which I intend to use when I am overseas because there are no transaction fees for making debit card transactions or using an ATM abroad. I have a trip to Canada in September, then returning to Costa Rica in December so this will be helpful.

Unfortunately, although Nationwide have my new details it appears that there is still a part of their system that has my old address so I cannot apply for the account until that is sorted! Ack.

And then there is my mobile phone. I use it mostly for calling an 07744 allowing me to use my inclusive minutes to speak with my "family" in Costa Rica. Unfortunately at the start of this month, T-mobile started charging to calls to this number. Which means, essentially, my £20 pm contract is useless to me at the moment. As I was not notified of the change by sms, email or written letter, I have written to them requesting cancellation of my contract due to their two breaches in contract - a) increasing charges to my material detriment and b) failing to notify me 30 days in advance of the change.

I wrote a great letter, quoting the appropriate parts of the terms and conditions and giving them 14 days to reply (very similar to my PPI letter earlier on the thread), Mr OneDay was suitably impressed Sent it by recorded delivery and have checked that it has been delivered. I may make a phone call to follow it up, but those calls still prove difficult for me.

I have the money for the phone in my budget so it is not a big deal if it can't be cancelled, but if it can, then great. I'll put £10 of the "saved" money towards my debt each month, and the other £10 can go towards a PAYG mobile for emergency use and texting and for topping up my Skype account for calling Costa Rica (probably do PAYG top up one month, Skype top up the next etc).

So, that is the DFW stuff I have been up to this month...

On the "bad DFWer need to be punished" front, today I made my first impulse purchase since I started this new way of life. I spent £1.28 on a clipboard in ASDA!!! Rather random, but I had been "needing" (OK, wanting ... but for a purpose) a clipboard for a while. I just never thought I'd bother spending money on one!

shamu95

Hi- great to hear you are doing so well. Keep up the good work and i think its also great you want to study something different.

onedayiwill

Thanks Shamu.

Was just reading the posts I have made on other threads this morning. Seems I am a little hyper today. Need to try and calm down and actually do some work before my boss notices my hyper and non-working mood.

What do folk here do when they need to calm down?

OneDay.