Chapter 1 (Vanquishing Very) - Here's to 2013 and one debt at a time.

welshdreamer71

Wow you have done amazing so close to christmas too, u could have been so tempted to squander odd pound here and there but nope straight off very ! Iv joined the PAD on here and do the same every spare pound off my barclaycard and am determined to make final payment Xmas morning to clear it, have a fab day x x

Housework*Fairy

Money in purse £1.45
Money in change box £10.80 (HOW?)
Money in bank: £142.20
Grand total: £154.45
Days left til payday: 9

So where did the money go?...Change box is up a quid. Not sure where that's come from...DH had a tenner out of the bank this morning..and I made a payment to Very (more on that below)

Did my grocery shopping today but I wont take it off my balance until it actually leaves the bank. I decided to split it into two lots rather than do a big shop to last me 9 days. I had lots of stuff in the freezer so did a meal plan and just got what I needed with only a few things not on the list, but it still came in at around £31+ JEEZ who can afford to eat these days?

DH got paid yesterday, quite early, so I have moved that to one side not to touch until 31st December, although I have taken out £70 to pay for his car battery but that'll come out of my next month budget.

I got paid yesterday too, £73.74 more than I got in my old job (but some of that is my Christmas bonus). I should pay this off Very BUT I'm conscious that the chap is coming to (hopefully) fix the fire next week so I'm going to keep it to one side until I know how much the repair will be. I did give myself until the end of January to pay Very off anyway, so even without this extra money, I'm on target to do that

I made a payment of £27 today to Very, which is my usual weekly payment of £20 plus the £3 that I didn't have to pay for DS1 to play football (cancelled) and also the Saturday athletics session was also called off, and that is £2 each, so the balance is now under £100 (hooray)

Also, I'm thinking my footy team may get through to the final of a major cup so if they do I'm off to Wembley even if it has to go on a credit card...

Housework*Fairy

Money in purse £8.45
Money in change box £10.80
Money in bank: £135.20
Grand total: £154.45
Days left til payday: 8

Money's stayed the same despite me having made a £4 payment to Very this morning. I asked DS1 last night whether he wanted to have a lie-in or do his paper-round, and he said he'd rather have a lie in. It's £4 earnt for delivering 14 papers and only takes 20 minutes so I do it if he doesn't want to, so I have done that this morning.

Purse is £7 up because of it, and also changed some money from DS1's wallet to get some change to pay mechanic neighbour for the battery (£67) so the £3 change is now in my purse.

Doctor lady who I used to work for at my old job, and whom I did some work over the phone for in November, sent me an e-mail last night with her home address for me to send the November invoice to, which is £50. She's normally really prompt at paying too, so that'll be a nice amount for me to look forward to in the New Year.

I saw an item on the news last night about the new regulations which mean that women can no longer have cheaper car insurance premiums, and it suggested that young women would be hit hardest. I'm a 37 year old woman with 11 years NCD and this year (September) I paid around £375 for my insurance (I live in uninsured driver capital of the UK). Out of interest I went onto Go Compare to see what difference the new rulings would make, and the cheapest quote (which is actually with my current insurer) was just a shade under £500. I then went onto do a new quote for DH, and his hasn't shifted at all, I know it's only a tenner a month difference for me, but it's making me see that running two cars really is untenable. My plans were just to keep my car (which is only worth around £400) until it died but I think if it is still living come 27th September 2013, I'm afraid it'll be getting sold on. We love having two cars but we don't need them any more.

Housework*Fairy

Well, I had been feeling superiorily smug yesterday when I got my grocery shopping done which meant I didn't have to see the inside of another supermarket this side of Christmas however it backfired on me. DH was cleaning the microwave this morning (jeez, it must be Christmas) and when it was finished he went to heat something up only for it to start sparking and making alarming electrical noises. It appears that whilst enthusiastically scrubbing the inside of the door, he inadvertently has damaged the plastic casing leaving some metal exposed. So this necessitated an impromptu microwave shopping trip. As I had some Tesco vouchers, I decided to put them to use and use them to bring the cost of an appliance down. They had a super cheap £36 model so I smugly presented my £21 of vouchers only for £13 of them to be rejected as already redeemed – GRRRR. However that's £8 that I saved (which has promptly been deducted from my Very balance) and to be honest, would I have got a microwave for much cheaper than £36?

Mum gave me some money in an envelope for Christmas which I am going to put away for my impending fire repair (if it can be repaired). I will invoice lady doctor for £50 which she'll send me a cheque for sometime in January so I'll use my overdraft to cover that, so I've got probably £144 towards fire repairs – hell, surely it wont cost that much to fix. I'd rather sit swaddled up in duvets til summer rather than pay that.

I've also come up with a cunning plan. Rather than having my grocery and petrol money sitting in my current account, at the start of the month I am going to transfer my budget onto my Tesco credit card. My grocery budget is £300 a month, and my petrol budget is £200. Hopefully I wont spend £500 a month on food or petrol so the Tesco balance will be reducing on a monthly basis whilst I start battling down my next credit card which will be the Post Office (outstanding balance £1287). My thinking is that at least the money in the current account will just be for spends and I don't have to worry about 'breaking' a weekly budget if there's some special offers on. I'll trial it for a couple of months and see how I go. I'm hoping to try and get back into weekly Tesco deliveries after Xmas. I've gone and transferred £500 from DH's wage today before any of you lot can talk me out of it.

So out of DH's wage of £1288 per month I will be deducting
£13.00 monthly Very payment (snowball once this is paid off)
£32.00 monthly Post office Card payment
£55.00 monthly Natwest Card payment
£15.00 monthly HSBC interest (woohoo, just looked and it's only £11 this month)
£500.00 to Tesco to cover Petrol & Shopping
£80.00 monthly PAD
£43.00 to cover shortfall to bills account

Leaves us with £550 to last the month which will just be kids activities (£124 – eeek) of which this will be PADDED if they don't go for any reason. This will realistically leave £426 a month to cover DH's cigarettes, and anything else that comes up. Surely even we can manage to live off this??

Also going to attempt to lose weight – a lot of weight – four stones to be precise. But as with the money I am going to break it down into small chunk, so just going to manage half a stone at a time. Also going to aim – as the song says – to walk 500 miles in a year which is just short of ten miles a week (walk to work is 0.9 miles there, and the same back so should give me the impetus to drive to work or else I'll have to do a stretch on the treadmill - yawn) – bear in mind, this is a woman whose kids think she is half-mum-half-renault

I'll give it a spin and let you know how it goes.

Housework*Fairy

Happy Xmas Eve Internets x

I notice the debt diaries have gone a bit quiet (apart from the regulars), I guess there will be an influx after Christmas.

Money in purse £1.45
Money in change box £13.80
Money in bank: £110.20
Grand total: £125.45
Days left til payday: 7

Where's the money gone? Another £10 cash withdrawal by DH, £4.00 on a packet of cigarettes (himself), and £15 to Very

DH is insisting on buying me a Christmas present despite my protestations that I'd rather get cracking on the credit cards, but hey ho, it wont be more than £20 however he is also insisting on us going out for a few drinks late afternoon / early evening too. I can't complain though as he didn't make any cash withdrawals this weekend.

So, as it's officially the school holidays I can start PADDING stuff that I would normally be paying out for. Today I don't have to pay for DS2's school dinners (£7.50) or his after-school football (£2.50). I also don't have to pay any bus fare for DS1 from school (£5.00 for the week) therefore Very balance now sitting at £60.50.

Still to debit from current account; £31 grocery shopping, £26 Microwave and another 4 days worth of grocery shopping when I go on Thursday. Anyway as you can see I'll probably be a bit overdrawn this month but hey it is December, and I did have an emergency microwave to buy, and I have paid nearly all of my catalogue bill off, so I'll deduct that from next month's available money.

I'm really looking forward to starting to tackle my Credit Cards of January - there are 8 of the burgers and I dread to think how much they total. I wish I hadn't been so stupid, and my New Year's Wish is that I stay motivated

Housework*Fairy

Well debt-busting doesn't stop for Christmas.

As I'm now out of contract for my mobile phone, I rang 3 and they have offered me a better contract (with more internet) for £16.10 less per month on a monthly contract. It could have been £20 less per month had I signed up to a 12 month contract but my iphone is now 2 years old, and I didn't want to run the risk of it breaking or getting lost so decided just to sign up for a month at a time.

Housework*Fairy

Money in purse £1.45
Money in change box £13.80
Money in bank: £8.31
Grand total: £23.56
Days left til payday: 6

Oooft yesterday was spendy! (OUCH) don't know whether to move the goalposts and have my 'payday' as Saturday, and make January the month with 5 weekends rather than December...

The £26 for the microwave was debited, so was the grocery shop at £31.89, we withdrew £40 yesterday (pub and cigarettes, all of which was spent which was maddening) and as today is Christmas Day, obviously the kids didn't go to athletics, so paid the 4 off Very.

I hope anyone reading this has had a really nice day. I had some nice presents, including some cash totalling £70 :-D (this will get kept until the man who comes to repair the fire lets me know what the verdict is). So that is almost £200 I've got now. Boiler has behaved itself for last 48 hours and has not blown out once.

Went to MIL's for a buffet lunch today, and we're going to my parents tomorrow for a Christmas lunch, as my dad caved in after all and bought a turkey which was too big for the two of them, so we're off for a turkey dinner tomorrow, and then off to the footy.

Housework*Fairy

Money in purse £1.45
Money in change box £13.80
Money in bank: £3.31
Grand total: £18.56
Days left til payday: 4

Still in the black in the bank but that'll all change later as the debit card payments made on Xmas Eve and yesterday haven't been deducted yet. I didn't go to the sales but did have to nip to Boots for hair dye and cotton wool pads. Heating engineer will hopefully turn up today and then I'll know whether my fire is fix-able. Central heating has started to behave itself and boiler didn't go off at all yesterday so house is nice and toasty at the moment.

As today is a Thursday during the school holidays I didn't have to pay out for football (DS2) or Athletics (DS1) so paid £5 off Very.-

UPDATE: Boiler man has been and yes, we need a new fire. Story of my life isn't it? Get a bit of money and some one is waiting to take it off me the minute I get it. May have to momentarily divert PADS for the cost of a new fire.

Oh, and I've got a flat tyre too. Completely flat. Neighbour mechanic has said he will put my spare on for me tomorrow, but obviously I'm then going to need a replacement. It never rains but it pours.

pennywisepoundstupid

Sorry to hear that your fire is unfixable, hopefully you will be able to get a new one at a reasonable price.

Really annoying about the tyre, I hate cars they just seem to be endless money pits, but something we can't do without.

Well done on all the overpayments to very, won't be long until you have got rid of it.

Housework*Fairy

Money in purse £8.80
Christmas money: £60.00
Money owed to me: £60.00
Money set aside for fire repair: £73.74
Money in change box £13.00
Money in bank: £-183.51
Grand total: £32.03
Days left til payday: 3 (well, just the weekend really as I wont be spending anything else today)

YIKES - all my spending has caught up with me but just in the black overall.

Where has the money gone...
£107.00 - football tickets to the big game (although I do have £60 from three of DS1's mates who are coming with us)
£3.00 - Very
£1.49 - Kindle book (damn you 12 days of Kindle!)
£6.69 - Boots (hair dye, cotton balls)
£2.81 - Home Bargains (drinks & snacks to take to footy)
£15.30 - prescriptions (need to look into a direct debit)
£10.00 - cash DH (yesterday)
£10.04 - petrol DH (from Xmas eve)
£30.49 - my christmas present GRRR

But there are no debit card payments waiting to go out.

As DS1 doesn't have football practice this week, his £3 went to Very so balance now under £50 - wahoo, the end is nigh.

Really pleased that I'm still relatively in credit - I'm going to go grocery shopping tomorrow and it will come out of the January budget. I've got the £500 on my Tesco card and will use that.

DH and DS1 are both of the consensus that I shouldn't get a new gas fire. They both say they feel warm when the heating is on and that I should just wear more layers so I'll give that a try. Hope I'm not regretting it by Febrrrrrrrrrrrruary.

The £70+ from my wage which I had set aside for the fire will be paid towards debts but I'll wait until my official pay day of 31st to do that.

I would have had £70 Xmas money to pay into the bank but I had an upset tummy today so had to break into a tenner to buy some pepto-bismol which - being a miracle cure - meant I did want some lunch after all, so spent £2.30 on a shop bought sandwich - but it is my first shop bought meal in my new job and I've been there for 6 weeks.

Enjoy the weekend