The "Pay ALL your debt off by Xmas 2012" challenge - PART 3!!!

choclover

I'll definitely be here next year and the year after and the year after and maybe even the year after that! Really need to be debt free sometime in 2014 so we can get a decent mortgage!

Goal is to get to 35% by xmas although hubby gets his January pay early in december before xmas so may even get higher than this - although I suppose technically it's cheating but I don't care, lol!

One more statement to come in and then I can give a final update for november - currently sitting at £30 more debt than octobers figure

mf0u1098

HelenPie wrote: »

Okay everyone, seems that a little momentum is being lost here and we're so close to Christmas that it would be a shame for things to fall away!

I thought maybe we could each share some ideas of what we could do until the end of this month to help reach our goals.


I'm going to try to:

1. Get back to taking my lunches to work, rather than buying them and put the difference in cost towards the CC at the end of the month
2. Give up my morning takeaway coffee

OH and I also arranged with his family a take on Secret Santa to save money on Christmas. There are six of us (me and OH, his parents, his sister and her fianc!). We put everyone's names into two "hats" and everyone drew a name from each hat. For the first person we have set a budget of £35 and the second person a £5 gift challenge. That means that for the entire family, we are only spending £40 each and everyone gets two gifts. It was fun picking (having to re-pick because people kept pulling out their own names!) and is a real challenge, too :cool: I'm going to ask my family if they want to join in next year to extend the savings further.

I got the idea from my old osteopath. They used to have budgets of £70/£20 for gifts but as we're all trying to save we've cut it back.

Anyone else got any ideas for saving money this month or for Christmas?

Anyone who's not on track to be DFBX got a milestone they want to reach by then instead? I want to get to 50% paid by Christmas eve

Fantastic idea! :T:T:T I've been busy beavering away at moneysaving big time this week! I've started a diary on here to keep myself on track I felt I just kept waffling on here about myself...:o) This week I've ordered discounted vouchers for all my family for Xmas, I've cashed in my Tesco clubcard vouchers for jessops vouchers for my sister and her fiance so it's cost me nothing for £50! :j I've been taking in lunches to work, my youngest sister is ebaying loads of my stuff, I'm about to start comping and looking for coupons!

I've been looking into pensions and 95% mortgages... I am trying now to save up £10k in 6 months which is an insane amount as this doesn't include the £260/month I will still have to pay out for my loan...

xxx

choclover

Finally have completed my PPI claim for Egg and will be posting it tomorrow. Hopefully should start ebaying some more stuff too as otherwise I won't be able to move for baby clothes!!!!!!!!!

minicooper272

I've hardly been online all week so haven't been watching my bank balance much- I've been sitting thinking I've spent more than I should have for this time of month (also because I reduced my overdraft another £200 :T), but just logged in to find I have a lot more than I thought I had. Need to get a couple of things done on the car but happy to report the latest figures:

#338 1956/3486 = 56.11%

I hope at the very least I can pay off another £44 - it would be so satisfying to pay off £2000 before December.

I've been making a start on buying Christmas presents too, but I'm thinking of making some of them this year as well. My sister has been home-making toiletries, and I have been eying up doing the same. I don't want to copy though, so I'm going to do home made flavoured alcohols - limoncello/Irish cream/edible flowered gin. Have any of you ever tried to do this? I'd really love some tips! (And I'll share how it went, if I remember!!!)

choclover

Final statement in for this month:

#304 £1,398.67/£5,210.12 (26.85%)

Sooo I've gone slightly backwards again this month by £33.69 but it could have been a lot worse. I'm adjusting our budgets for the next couple of months this morning, now I know when hubby will get paid in December and have had to take a few overpayments out. I'm still looking like I'm going to get over 35% but only just and only if we don't spend anything else on credit. It's going to be tough but it will be worth it! At least this year I'm not doing xmas - it's Mum's turn so December should be nice and cheap for food!

On the subject of food I've been really good lately sticking to my £50 a week budget. I've been trying out some new recipes on Mr S Live well for less website and I must say I'm quite impressed although the meals do use a lot of carbs (rice and potatoes mostly) but they've all been quite tasty! This week I've got pretty much everything I need for £40 inc delivery AND a trifle and chocolate fudge cake . I've even got some shortbread mix to try out as the other week hubby's stash got accidentally eaten by me and I'm going to try my hand at making my own pizza from scratch.

Right then - I do need to get on and get those baby clothes on ebay - if only I could find a memory card for the camera!

jakes-mum

Just been to C0-op as its 15% off day and got 56 toilet rolls Mr C had very kindly reduced cushele down to £3 for 9 rolls and N0uvelle down to £1.20 for 4 rolls, this site gave me 50p off cushele and £1 off n0uvelle so my £30 shop ended up costing me £16.97 love you mse :kisses3:

choclover

jakes-mum wrote: »

Just been to C0-op as its 15% off day and got 56 toilet rolls Mr C had very kindly reduced cushele down to £3 for 9 rolls and N0uvelle down to £1.20 for 4 rolls, this site gave me 50p off cushele and £1 off n0uvelle so my £30 shop ended up costing me £16.97 love you mse :kisses3:

Wow! I thought 9 rolls of andrex for £3 was good - well done!

vw_campervan_mum

Great idea to get some enthusiasm going with new saving ideas - it's such a long hard slog this debt free business!

I am going to re-focus on menu planning & food budgeting. Also me and my friends have decided on a making Xmas presents for each other challenge. For the past few years we have agreed on buying from a charity shop with a money limit of a small amount eg £2.50. This means getting creative - all gifts so far have been great! Last year I gave pretty antiques cups & saucers with tea-lights in.

Good luck every one X

mumsiemum

I'm not going to be able to pay all mine off by Christmas either BUT my goal for Christmas day is to wake up owing less than £1000. My scheduled payments/planned extra payments should bring me down to £1063 so I need to 'aquire' an extra £64 before Christmas to achieve my goal.

Sometimes it does feel like a drag but I keep reminding myself how far I have come this year and also that we are financing Christmas (and in fact life in general!) without using CC so that is one hell of a positive lifestyle change :j:j
I think everyone is doing brilliantly and I love catching up with everyones journey either on here or via diaries.

So I'll be around for 2013 too!!

mf0u1098

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Happy 1 year anniversary of the challenge!!!!



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