How Are You Doing It?

brizzledfw

Nicely put jojo as a summary.....and thanks! You're very welcome :-)

Brizzle

tealady

Hi Jojo. As you can see the DFW bunch are very friendly. The main thing is to make sure you are not paying more than you need to.
For instance I had to book a train journey recently and by checking a few websites I managed to get a ticket for half the price of the original quote. 10 mins shopping around saved a few quid.
Also when selling your unwanted stuff try to get the best price posible. If you look on Fleabay it is amazing what people buy.
I would suggest you write down every bill and ask yourself "Can I get this cheaper?" For things such as utilities and insurance you could also look at cashback deals.
It takes time to get the debts down I know but as others have said often its just baby steps. Set youself a few challenges (eg by the end of the week you must have gone through your food cupboards to do a store cupboard challenge. Or have a target of selling at least 1 unwanted item by the end of the month.
Oh and finally stick with this site, there are some amazing ideas on here for frugal living.
Good luck

Learning2Budget

Hello, can i add my tip which is keep a spending diary. We used to spend a fortune but were never sure what on. Since i started my diary we have been able to up our repayments and should be free sooner. Good luck.x

Karb

One tip I got when I joined here has always stayed with me. It was to visualise the credit card company as the playground bully, and the interest they charge as your dinner money.

Now wouldn't you like to do everything you can to keep that dinner money for yourself?

Jojo1410

tealady, I'm going to get to grips with the store cupboard challenge this weekend. Hopefully I can become a more inventive cook tho, because my kids are sick of pasta, lol!
Learning2budget, I plan on doing a spending diary. What is the best way to do it? I thought of a notebook and totting up at the end of each day, but I'm already dreading it as I'm sure I'll forget and it will end up sitting in a dusty corner. Any tips?
Karb, the interest and charges added a lot to my debts but luckily they've been stopped now. They built up about £2000 in charges which I have to pay on top of the debt but luckily it's stopped now.
Just made an arrangement with a DCS for £20 a month for 6 months so it buys me some time. And also set up a standing order to pay it, thanks to good advice here.lt

Jojo1410

Good grief, take my advise and don't type loads if you're on a mobile phone. My grammar is rubbish! And it should be DCA, darn autocorrect!

Jojo1410

Advice....

snailmail

Hi Jojo and welcome!

I think one of the things that has helped me the most is taking lunch to work--it's scary how much that used to add up. Now I can go for days without spending a thing! and if I do break into a note I put the change in my 'shrapnell' jar.

I am also doing the rounding down on my bank account, though I tend to do it sporadically until after my last DD has gone. Ebay has also helped, even if it's only £1, that's still £1 more than I had before! I am also an obsessive compulsive book hoarder and managed to offload lots of books to Zapper, which is similar to musicmagpie.

I tried to do the surveys but found they took a lot of time and i got disqualified for most, so the only one i do is swagbucks, and i also do music reviews for slicethepie, the money adds up very quickly on there!

This is definitely the place to be for motivation; it's helped me so much. The thrill I used to get spending I now get when I save and pay off more on the CCs and what's even better is I don't get that awful guilt feeling afterwards anymore!

i don't have as much debt as some people but after a scary christmas I realised if I didn't do something soon then I'd be deeper and deeper in debt--even after I finished paying off the pro-study loan with HSBC!

YORKSHIRELASS

I keep a spreadsheet which I update every day from my online banking which analyses all my spending into columns. I do have a column for small cash expenses as you cant analyse every single pound spent but I try to keep this as low as possible.

Last Friday I drew out £30 in cash so straight away I put on the spreadsheet that £10 was for my nieces birthday, £10 was for school dinner money, £5 went on food and the other £5 went into cash expenses.

This spreadsheet is a lifesaver for me, tracking my spending like this really makes me think.

I had to buy a carpet for my sons bedroom yesterday, the old carpet is really awful and I have been wanting to get rid of it since we moved in 10 years ago! I still feel a bit guilty though, even though with some clever shuffling I have found the money to pay for it without using credit. A few years ago I would have bought a carpet, stuck it on the card and not batted an eyelid so thats progress I suppose!

Cuncha

One of the biggest money and health wasters are cigarettes. Just say you only smoke 5 a day, thats almost 2 packs a week, which is about £15.

Thats £720 a year right there, and a set of healthier lungs.

Giving up is hard, but use the debt as an incentive to stop, if your quite blase about the health issues (as i was).