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

Ladybird.

Halloween definitely good for cheap and creative things to do!

My Quidco payment landed in my account today and was sent straight off to the CC so that's rounded my October overpayment up to £300, another £100 to go which I'm hoping will be covered by ebay auctions ending on Sunday and Monday, assuming people pay up

Still no sign of tenants, think we are going to drop the price before too long.

Going to have to start thinking of my November £400 overpayment strategy, scary to think it will be here in less than a week! :eek: 2012 really has zoomed...

Happy Friday all! :beer:

[Deleted User]

You are doing very well, I need to look into extra ways to earn since I have sold almost everything I can.

I work full-time and care for my parents so theres little time for a second job but might look into the surveys everyone here talks about.

Happy Friday Ladybird!

[Deleted User]

Hope you get tenants soon- that'd help with those overpayments.

GLx

Ladybird.

That is hard work GL, working and caring for your parents, not to mention your children too. I have it much easier.

At lot of my overpayment money will be raised through my freelance work, which isn't too tricky to fit in because I am home with young children who get easier to work around as they get older.

I keep thinking I have run out of stuff to sell but then stumbling across things I had not thought to get rid of before! Going to get my husband to sort through his clothes at the weekend as I know there are designer branded polo tops and things in the depths of his drawers that haven't seen the light of day for several years...

Hope your house situation is going ok, much interest?

[Deleted User]

No interest this week unfortunately, even though we reduced by 5K, but looking on rightmove, nothing is selling, think its just how things are at the moment.

Its amazing how many tips and ideas I've gotten over the past few weeks on everyones diaries- I used to spend a fortune on all those home magazines, that did nothing but leave you feeling inadequate- I have replaced them with the forums- more money saving and more enjoyable.

Hope you have a lovely weekend with your family.

GLx

Fae

Great news on the Quidco payment, and on the overpayment of £300 that's a great amount to overpay by.

Fingers crossed you get some interest on the house soon.

Fae

Determined_diva

Ladybird. wrote: »

We started our debt free journey last month, April 2012, so I have decided to start a diary just to help me look back and see our progress!

A bit of background...

My husband earns a good salary (now £60k+) while I am a full time mother to our two pre-school children. I used to earn a good salary too but once child No.1 arrived we decided we couldn't bear to have a baby in full time childcare and we lost my salary. Before the baby arrived we bought a bigger house, so we had more expenditure than we had previously too. Sold my horses (:() which lowered costs but, apart from that, kind of kept living as we were... which we couldn't afford.

So here we are, 2 children now, and £37k debt.

Our debt is a combination of credit cards and a loan. Some of the credit cards are pricey (up to 26.9%) so we are snowballing; by sticking to the £1100 we pay on our debts currently we should be debt free by June 2015, hoping to do much better than that though!

So far we have...

• Cancelled Sky (god I wish we had done that ages ago, don't miss it!)
• Claimed PPI- nice £1500 off the CCs this month!
• Actually BUDGETED! Wow, now there's an eye opener!
• Now living within our means, have about £500 after bills for food and extras
• Been clearing out loads- eBay and Gumtree, all profits off most expensive CC
• Started Swaggbucking- have nearly £20 worth of Amazon vouchers already for not that much effort- might pay for Christmas?
• General care with gas/elec
• Meal Planning and careful shopping
• Few other things I'm sure...

So, we have managed to get the debt down to around £34k already! Don't think we could achieve such a big overpayment every month BUT it does go to show what you can do when you put your mind to it!

As the diary title says, I am determined not to write these frugal few years off... we are 100% going to make the best of them and build wonderful memories our children will have forever- money doesn't buy happiness, we shall do just fine while we scrimp and pay, I am sure of it!

Ladybird u are just what I needed to read today! I just joined this site and have been in debt for 14 years since I was 18. It has gone up down up down, but peaked at £21k and now is at £10.5k.

This year I really decided to start paying my debt back rather than just managing it like I used to.

I have been paying back to try and clear bits and try and restore my bad credit rating but when I got a pay rise I started using that as my treat money to go on holiday/go out etc which isn't what I should of done!

I'm now planning my 2013 budget and am determined for it to be the last year I'm in debt so I can then start savings and saving for a mortgage one day!

Reading your story I feel if you can do it with a whole family and treble my debt - I have no excuse!!!! Here's to 2013 and a new me!

I am rooting for you to get sub £30k and believe you can do it by the way!

Thank you for giving me a kick up my backside

Determined_diva

Sorry also meant to mention goodlife10 as well - thanks

justajamjar

Great work ladybird, just read your entire diary and very impressed!

Ladybird.

How great to log on and see some lovely new faces :wave:

Thanks for the kind words Determined Diva (go for it, you can do it!) and Justajamjar (love the username!).

I am afraid to say we are not having a very MSE weekend so far :cool:. For a start, I am hungover, after enjoying one too many glasses of weekend wine and secondly we are planning a very rare indian takeaway tonight

On the plus side though we have a £350 gas and electric overpayment credit to come back to us... so I figure we'll just knock the vino and takeaway cost off that and consider it a £320 credit I suppose it is all well and good scrimping every penny but sometimes we all need a treat now and again to tide us over :beer:

Got a nice chunk of freelance work done this afternoon so not been entirely bad :A

Must must must do weekly Lidl shop tomorrow as our 'frugal' week of using up the dregs of our cupboards and freezer lasted all of about 3 days before the quick trips to the supermarket for little (expensive!) top ups kicked back in. Proper (tasty!) meal planning is definitely the way forward if we are to keep to a low grocery budget.

5pm... wonder if hair of the dog might help? Have a great weekend everyone!