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

Ladybird.

Boots returned today and bargain (much nicer too) £49 ones purchased instead. My freezing cold feet are pleased, it really isn't sandal weather!

Not doing so well on the alcohol free October but can always start afresh after the weekend!

maggiesmummy

Hiya
Well done on your money saving so far - it's hard going sometimes but you are doing a great job. Just a quick tip on the kindle - there are loads of people selling ebooks on eBay in mobi format - so you can put them straight on your kindle. I got 10000 books for £4 - even though some of them are rubbish it's still a bargain!
MM

Ladybird.

That is a brilliant tip Maggiesmummy, thank you! Still a bit of a kindle newbie, didn't even know you could buy kindle books outside of Amazon! Keep reading that certain books you can borrow from kindle using friends, not figured out how to do it yet though, or maybe just not found a book that is shareable?

Just sat meal planning ready for the weekly Lidl/Tesco mission. Reckon I can get everything we need for about £70 max. Eldest finally starts school so I am planning a bit of a lunchbox baking-fest today: big batches of homemade sausage rolls, flapjacks, and roasted chickpeas. I figure I can freeze lots of the sausage roll type things and just get one out each day. The kids should enjoy helping me bake too

Hmmm now do I brave the shopping trip in my new boots and risk crippling myself or get cold feet in my sandals? Decisions, decisions... :rotfl:

Ladybird.

I have decided I like Mondays, they always feel like a nice fresh start to the week.

Managed to get the weekly shop yesterday for £68, happy with that I think, especially as we should be able to make it go a bit further than one week too. New boots wearing in nicely

Didn't get round to doing my packed lunch baking yesterday so about to get stuck into that after I have finished my cup of tea.

Tasty leftover chicken curry tonight padded out with plenty of onion and chickpeas, yum!

Couldn't sleep last night for worrying about money and the impact not renting out our old house quickly will have on us. Luckily I have quite a bit of my self employed work coming in so at least that should hopefully tide us over a bit longer while we pay our mortgage and rent on the new house. Need to be really productive in the evenings over the next couple of months! My husband is much better at looking at the long term than me and is thankfully good at calming me down and pointing out that things WILL be fine... in a few short years this will all be behind us and we'll be chucking our money at our mortgage and not horrible expensive debt!

Have a great week all :beer:

ETS- completely forgot to mention that I did my first Field Agent job yesterday! It was photographing a branded display in a shop and answering a few questions via the Field Agent app on my phone. Felt a bit silly doing it but a VERY easy £4.50! Will definitely be keeping an eye out for more.

Ladybird.

Feeling triumphant after listing a couple of eBay items at last. All bagged up ready to be sealed, addressed, and posted once they sell too. About time I got some bits on there! I think little and often is the way forward for me and eBay, I am still slightly scarred from the stress of having about 30 items to package and post after a mass listing session!

My homemade packed lunch sausage rolls were quite tasty, now a week's supply in the freezer. Flapjack baking today...

Ladybird.

I have decided I need a bit more focus, especially in the lead up to Christmas. Soooo... I am going to target myself with making a £400 credit card overpayment every month.

Sounds a lot but I think it IS achievable if I pull my finger out and plough on with my self-employed work, eBay, Gumtree and so on.

Getting into new routines now that my eldest has started school, I even have a couple of child-free hours a week when my youngest goes to a local playgroup so time to get some of that early LBM determination back and crack on.

Off to add my monthly target to my signature, that should help spur me on! :j:j:j

NewLeaf_2

LadyBird you are making amazing progress! well done

MrsPee

Have subscribed to your diary Ladybird, you are in a similar(ish) situation to us, although we have a smaller amount of debt. Keep going, you are doing fabulously x

Fae

Hello Ladybird,

Followed you over from my diary, it sounds like you are doing so well, great idea to have a monthly target, it can really help you to focus, will be subscribing

Fae

Ladybird.

Thank you NewLeaf, MrsPee, and Fae! I really appreciate the encouragement!

ETS: Off the starting blocks for my October target, £21 from the change jar banked at last. Just did a snowball for the first time in ages, have shaved two months off it since I last did one in June, it says our debt free date paying off £1100 would be June 2015. With the monthly amount upped to £1500 it would be August 2014... massive difference and all the more motivation to pull the stops out to hit my new target!