Trying to escape the Rat Race

picasso2

I have been mooching around some time looking to reduce my debt to put me in a better financial position to consider early retirement which is currently ten years away.

Things have come to a head in the last few months where I have realised that not only am I extremely unhappy at work the stress is affecting my health. I have decided to try and downgrade to a job that will have different stresses and will be easier on my health.

I have already got my debt down from £21,712 :eek: in December 2011 to a currently still scary £18,489 . I have used successful PPI reclaims and overpayments and ebay sales to get there.

I don't want DD to feel the cuts too harshly as we have both been through so much in the past 3 years so looking to up my income as much as possible and get treats from other places. But I am also honouring commitments I have made already.

I am looking to post regularly a list off what I have done recently to achieve my goal of being debt free by July 2014 and will use this post to keep a running total of my debt. (I hate seeing it in my signature as its sooo depressing).

So far this week I have :

Entered 1000 + competitions ( I'm off work and it keeps me away from temptation)

Received a £10 MOC from P&G after complimenting a product and asking about design.

Made an extra payment to CC1 following ebay sales

Used tesco rewards and a £5 off £20 spend to get much needed curtains and curtain pole delivered for £3.52 cash .

Reused unposted SAE to send manager a letter.

Claimed a £10 voucher from a survey site.

Done as many surveys as I can tolerate.

Minimum top up shop - 2 bottles of wine but I am cutting down to 1 bottle a fortnight.

Scoured freebie threads for treats.

My debts today are :

Loan - £1469 - £113 monthly and 12 months to go
CC1 - 24.9% - £360
CC2 - 21% - £1349
CC3 - 16% - £12,835 :eek:
CC4 - 0% - £1366
CC5 - 0% - £1324

Phew thats a load off my chest !

hannahroberts1985

Hey :wave:

Just thought i'd pop and say good luck on your mission.

Have you heard of snowballing debt? Google snowball debt and fill out the form only takes 2 mins all you need is outstanding balances on CC's and interest rates. It created a spread sheet on which to pay first so you pay minimum interest. Also youll be able to work out your debt free date from it. :j

Hope this helps.

x

picasso2

Thank you Hannah I will do that now.

NewLeaf_2

welcome and good luck. I enter comps when I have time and have won some lovely things, not money but just some nice unexpected stuff.

picasso2

Thank You Newleaf.
The comps keep me away from spending on-line. I've done it for about a year on and off but not on a large scale like recently. Won some nice treats , best of which was tickets to see Sting in concert earlier this year with fantastic seats. Could never have justified spending what I suspect the seats would have cost!

never_too_old

Morning
I have subscribed to support you on your journey.I like the title of your diary.I would love to get off the hampster wheel,float below the radar.Im paying off debts and love entering competitions.stopped for a while but realised what i was missing and have just returned from 2 nights in Paris.I blog so if your interested im here

http://nevertooldtolearnfromyourmistakes.blogspot.co.uk/

NewLeaf_2

I would love to have won Sting tickets. well done!

picasso2

never_too_old wrote: »

Morning
I have subscribed to support you on your journey.I like the title of your diary.I would love to get off the hampster wheel,float below the radar.Im paying off debts and love entering competitions.stopped for a while but realised what i was missing and have just returned from 2 nights in Paris.I blog so if your interested im here

http://nevertooldtolearnfromyourmistakes.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank You. I'm going to take a look at your blog. I'm quite interested in starting a blog myself. For fun rather than MSE stuff - I have quite an active imagination that needs putting to good use :rotfl:

picasso2

Today started well and rapidly went down hill.

On the plus side :

Entered 100 comps
Ran the lawnmower over the garden - literally
Scrubbed the fridge
Made home made lentil and carrot soup for lunch
Kindly neighboured cleared out guttering
Have three items with bids on Ebay - only 99p but every penny etc

On the pants side :

Cleared guttering demonstrated more holes than a colander
DD came back from her fathers saying he is planning to stop paying his monthly pittance :mad:
Last needle for sewing machine broken so plans for a NSD evaporated - DD customises her own clothes.
DNQ for any surveys

I won't be posting tommorow as DD and I got cheap tickets for Olympic football at Old Trafford. Its not really our thing but we wanted to be a part of it and the train tickets were cheaper than London too. I really wanted to see the fencing, Its a sport I can see myself participating in although I'm not sure too many people would want to be my oppononent.:whistle:

picasso2

NewLeaf wrote: »

I would love to have won Sting tickets. well done!

It was even better than I could have imagined. I will put up a couple of pics when i get into my Photobucket account

Desert Rose - even more phenomenal live, an experience I will never forget.

picasso2

Our little trip to Manchester was not terribly MSE. Freinds looked after the animals and the budget hotel was not too bad . I booked through quidco and claimed nectar points too. But it was stressful and our journey on the train was held up by a fatality on the line and it brought the mood down. As a result we ended up in clothes shops and spent £160 :eek:
The pieces I got from Monsoon were at least in the sale , are classic pieces that will get a lot of wear and I did get points on my reward card. We had a splurge at Primani too and my daughter got quite a few bits there. They too get well used as when she has had enough or when they develop holes then she customises them or uses the fabric for other things. So I don't really feel too bad about it as in terms of spend per wear they will end up to be good value.


I did save the coke zone points from drinks on my phone memory and now having hit the magic 200 points have ordered a pair of headphones that will be part of DDs Xmas present.

I also came home to a £1 MOC for Copella from a competition so that has been put with other MOCs - I'm planning to hit the supermarket in a week or so to see how much I can buy and how little actual cash I can spend.

With all the sun and rain the plants in the garden are coming on a treat. We eat a lot of salad and I planted some lettuce seeds a short while back and these have really come on ( The seeds were free so looking forward to free lettuce !) Also I took some cuttings from my one poor raspberry cane and they seem to be doing well too. I'm hoping next year to have some lovely fruits. Its only been this year I've started to try to grow my own with varying levels of success , however I think this sort of thing takes a bit of time and patience and as most of my fruit and veg plants have either been free or very low cost I'm happy to be able to experiment.

Well I'm just going to wait for Tesco to drop of my fortnights food shop , get it scanned in this end and then its an early night for me !