gingernutbizkit's dfb blog

gingernutbizkit

thanks Jo.

I'm getting there but still not totally on top of my SOA.

It's 5.45pm now and Lloyds have until midnight to file a defence..... so far so good!

I think it's going to be a late night.....

gingernutbizkit

they didn't defend it!!!!!

I have now submitted a request for judgement by default.... gone midnight now and i am very tired.

Off to bedfordshire for me!

blackangeluk

Hi there, just reading your thread at this unearthly hour and it has given me a lot of inspiration. I have also lodged a claim re bank charges at Court on Monday so I will have to hang fire on that one, that could knock £1400 off my debts and as you described before, I could inexplicably get excited about having debt under £20k?!?!

Good luck and I will re-read your thread for tips!

gingernutbizkit

thanks blackangelUk.

Well, my bank charges are currently being examined and hopefully i will know soon whether or not i have been awarded them.

If i do then i will be able to pay £1000 off my cahoot loan :j

I've also done a bit of overtime this month which will help too.

might even treat my OH to a celebratory lager shandy! :beer:

gingernutbizkit

well, my finances are certainly starting to look better now. I know i have a long way to go but i don't think it hurts to try and stay positive.

Moving to a cheaper house will obviously help but i know for sure that it will need work doing to it and unless we learn to budget properly and stick to it then we will simply end up in the same mess again. Moving house will only be worthwhile if that doesn't happen.

Having read some more stuff on the forums i have realised that one of our biggest areas of expenditure is on food and drink so i thought i would outline the problem areas and start to formulate a plan..... here goes.

1. We don't face reality.
We budget every month for £175 for food, cleaning products, drink etc but i reckon that if we kept all our receipts we would realise that we spend close to double that. :eek: This is particularly shocking because although we have a very greedy dog there is only the OH and I really!

Plan: to start to reduce this a little bit at a time each month until are actual spending is closer to £150.

2. Eating Out
every weekend we go out for lunch on a saturday and often stop off for coffee/cake too. I would estimate that this costs us £20 a week. A couple of times a month we also have take aways (approx £18 each time) and whereever we go i'll buy a drink (i get really thirsty!). In total over a month it probably adds up to £80 - thank goodness we're not big drinkers is all i can say!

Plan: to batch cook meals so that we always have something in the freezer and to arrange to have a nice meal at home on a saturday. I'm also going to buy a drinks bottle and then fill it up with cheap drink and leave it in my car.

3. Wasting stuff.
We have a habit of 'forgetting' what's in our fridge/freezer and only discovering it when it's past the point of being called 'food'!

Plan: this week i'm going to make a list of everything that's in my freezer and start to try and use it up. At a later point i'll begin to do this with my cupboards too, but one thing at a time!

4. Buying what we don't need.
Does this need any explanation?!?!?!

Plan: Stop doing it!

I think that's all to keep us going now.

gingernutbizkit

i'm also going to try to become more resourceful.

We had a chicken for roast on sunday. We took some of it for sandwiches on monday. Usually that would be as far as it would go before us fogeting about it until we had to throw it out on friday..... not this week. :A

We're having chicken, sweetcorn and mayo on a jacket potato and i am currently boiling the carcass for a soup for tomorrow. I'm ashamned to say this but i actually didn't know that this was how you made chicken soup (i always thought it came in a can marked 'Heinz'). I only discovered this from reading through the forum.

Can i excuse this fact as me being young and naive?!?!

gingernutbizkit

my house is now full of the aroma of chicken and mushrooms soup.... but not as full as my belly! Yum Yum

gingernutbizkit

the default judgement has now been accepted by the courts. :j :T :j

wonder how long it'll take them to cough up?

Maybe i should start harassing them like they did me! :rotfl:

gingernutbizkit

our house goes on the market tomorrow..... wonder what value we'll get???

We had it valued 2 months ago for £225,000. We've spent £1000 doing some much needed work so we're hoping it'll go for more. I must say it does look really good now.... almost wish we weren't going!

We've got 2 estate agents coming around. it's likely that we'll go with Burchell and Edwards as they sell so much in this area but we fully intend to haggle over their costs!

I'll keep you posted.

gingernutbizkit

I've just put the money that we have earnt from ebay, avon and the last of the slimming world stock towards our debts

it's nice to see the cahoot loan under £2000. As soon as I get the £1130 from Lloyds i'll be putting another £1000 towards that too. My current aim is to have only the northern rock and kitchen loans for when we move.

Considering our lightbulb moment was only 11 weeks ago i'm really proud that we have managed to reduce our debt by over £4000 already.

have had to sell most of our possessions though!