£37k to £0 in a (determined to make them wonderful) few years!

Ladybird.

New Year New Leaf!

Paid for some more work today so over £1k made this month and I think we are well under the £28k mark again now, need to sit down next week and check all the balances though to be sure of the total figure!! :j

Feeling a little bit back on track

[Deleted User]

Hi Ladybird, hope you had a lovely Christmas with your family. Just catching hip on the diaries - think we are all looking forward to a new year and a new start!

Hope 2013 brings much health, wealth and happiness!
GLx

Ladybird.

New Years Eve! Sat with a glass of (amazing!) Lidl champagne updating my spreadsheet! Meh, early night for us, the children will be up early!

End of 2012 total debt is £27,589, thought it would be more after a BAD month! Might even be a bit better, our main current account is looking very healthy but we still have January bills to come out (which have changed a lot so not sure what is what!).

Onwards and upwards....

Feeling excited about 2013; this year has been seriously tough for lots of reasons but we have broken the back of our debt I think and things are going to get better and better.

Here's to a wonderful and frugal 2013 for us all :beer: Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ladybird.

What a beautiful sunny crisp day, perfect start to a fresh new year!

Today the tree has come down, all the decorations put away, all the children's toys sorted through (two bin liners full ready for the tip), everything organised and cleaned and vacuumed! Phew!

Managed a little walk out with the dogs, a nice day!

Did a big Lidl food shop yesterday, spent about £70 and now have completely full cupboards/fridge/freezer- aiming not to spend another penny until the weekend at least. Both OH and I are dieting so as well as planning frugal meals they are going to need to be healthy and low calorie too! I get on well with low-carb diets but it seems tricky to do on a budget- lots of tinned fish, eggs, and reduced meat (now in freezer) to at least try. Seems carbs are the cheapest foods out there!

Need to start thinking about how I am going to hit my overpayment target this month as I haven't any irons already in the fire this month! Hopefully rustle up some stuff to eBay perhaps, and try to get some freelance work done too.

Hope everyone had a great NYE! :beer:

[Deleted User]

Happy new year ladybird- your diary sounds very positive for 2013. You did so well in 2012.

I have felt a little out of control with money over past few weeks, although on the plus side, I haven't used credit cards to pay for Christmas, that's a first for me.

So, onwards and upwards fresh start for us debt-busters. Let's hope we can inspire each other to make great progress.

Off to finally update my diary.

GL x

Ladybird.

Morning GL! Happy New Year!

I know just what you mean about feeling out of control, after 8-9 months of trying to keep so carefully abreast of everything I found it quite stressful losing my grasp of it all.

It's so nice to get back to being focused isn't it- I just know 2013 will be a great year! You did brilliantly to keep away from the CCs GL, we did put presents on one of our CCs but at the same time all my overpayments went on our very expensive % CC so overall we weren't in more debt which is a positive.

I am tempted to set up a savings account for next Christmas, £30pm would give us £360 which would be plenty for us... but instead of having it in savings we would save a LOT more in interest by paying it off our pricey card (£360 overpaid on it today would save us a scary £126ish in interest charges by Christmas) so I guess we will just do the same as last year.

Speaking of our most expensive card, my main aim in 2013 as far as my own overpayments go is to get it paid off! It is 35%, with a balance remaining of £6,237 (down from £9,806 at our LBM).

Looking forward to sharing our journeys in 2013 :T

[Deleted User]

Sounds like a good plan- I think I need to start a Christmas savings plan on 15th (payday), was thinking of £30 a month too. Your idea of paying off most expensive CC with that and then putting christmas purchases on a cheaper cc sounds most sensible but I have cut up all my cards in case of a weak moment... (they are getting less I'm pleased to report!).

I feel really optimistic about 2013 too Ladybird, just fine-tuning my budget plan before I post in my diary.

GL x

[Deleted User]

Hi Ladybird, my budget now in place to pay off a cc this year, many thanks for the motivation.

Just noticed you have paid almost £10k off since April- well done you!

Have a lovely Sunday.

GLx

Ladybird.

Thanks GL! It is amazing how fast the months fly and the debt drops really isn't it? Hoping to get to £25k by March/April time, will need to pull my finger out a bit first though!

Ended up spending more money than planned yesterday. Did a top-up supermarket shop at Asda in which a few things slipped into the basket that shouldn't have... then bought the children a pair of cords each in the M&S sale while shopping for school uniform trousers.

Tea was very MSE though with some bargain reduced curry ready meals we picked up last week reduced to 45p each. Our freezer is full of reduced meat and things at the moment which is good. Took some sausages and chicken thighs out to defrost last night (both reduced!) so sausage buns for brunch and then kind of a scaled down roast this afternoon with the chicken. For the first time in ages I have meal planned for the next week, so hopefully we will avoid too many more ad-hoc supermarket purchases!

Have found a nice park a short drive away which is proving to be a great free trip out with the kids- lots of nice walking paths, various playgrounds and ducks to feed. We have been a few times in the last week when the weather has allowed it. Lots of cheap biscuit and cake making, painting, and other things like that have done a good job of keeping my two out of mischief in the holidays! Schools go back next week here, looking forward to a break I must admit!!:D

Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone!

Fae

Hi LB,

The park sounds like a great find,

It's amazing how meal planning can really help with debt busting, the times I have ended up shopping at the last minute grabbing ready meals etc for tea, soon adds up.

Fae