Knocking it on the head in 2013!

Cloudy456

Last night went to plan, and I just spent the £7.50 I had budgeted for dinner. This morning I had to buy something in the chemist for £2.50 on my way into work so I've paid the rest of today's spending budget to the CC as I don't plan to spend anything else - another £7.50 down! So now the balance stands at £4,840.13.

I had been hoping that with the big payment I make on payday (25th Jan) I would be able to go under the 4k mark but I realised yesterday that a couple of days unpaid leave I took didn't come off my December pay as I had thought it would, so I think it will be deducted from this next payday. Which is annoying, normally I would have realised but because of the bonus I got I didn't notice my salary being the same amount as usual. So anyway it means I thought I would be able to pay off £780 this payday (which would leave me enough for £10 spending per day for the Jan-Feb month), but it's likely to be more like £600. So I'll have to make it my target next month to get under the 4k mark through all the extra little payments. Oh well, I'll worry about that when payday comes and I know how much I receive.

Cloudy456

Just made another CC payment as I got £10 from topcashback from referring a friend ages ago - hope that means she has now made some money out of it too! So balance is now £4,830.13.

ButterflyBee

Hello Cloudy,

I need to look for meal deals as well, that will be something for my daughters and I to look forward to at the end of the month. (Perfect incentive) all budgeted for off course.

Keep updating, I look forward to reading your story of success.:T

Cloudy456

Not much to report but I'm trying to keep updating here to keep me motivated! I had a fairly expensive weekend, as I spent £50 on petrol but that was planned and I didn't spend anything else. But then yesterday I paid my Mum £15 I owed her plus £32 I owed my friend so now I have a grand total of £33 to last me for the nine remaining days of the month - eeek! So for now I have abandoned doing the payments each day to my CC - it worked really well for the last few weeks and resulted in me paying off about £200 more from the CC than I would have otherwise this month, but now I will quit while I'm ahead as if I keep making payments I will run out of spending budget and have to use the CC and that defeats the point! It's a bit annoying to see the CC balance unchanged as I loved seeing it drop a bit each day, but its only just over a week until I can make another big payment from my salary. For now I need to concentrate on making the £33 stretch as far as possible!

Oh and my Onepoll account is up to £22.95 and I've claimed a £10 voucher from Valued Opinions. Also referred a friend to Topcashback which should generate me another £10 referral fee once she has got going with it. So just ticking along really!

Cloudy456

Phew - payday tomorrow! I've finalised the figures in my spreadsheet and am pleased to say that I made my spending budget last, with £9.53 left over! So I paid that to the CC and the final balance for the month is £4,822.70. I also have my emergency £500 in savings, so actually my total debt is £4,322.70 but I'm trying not to count that and just look at clearing the card balance while still having savings!

I have paid off a total of £1,526.47 this month, mainly because of the bonus I got but about £950 of that was from my normal salary of about £1580 so I am really pleased with myself and what I've achieved this month! I'm forever making spending budgets and failing to stick to them so it's a great feeling to have managed it for once!

I will be paid a bit less than usual tomorrow due to some unpaid leave I had, so when I know what my salary payment is I will be back to set out my budget for the month.

I really feel like I'm starting to get somewhere! And a lot of that is down to this site, so thank you to everyone whose motivational diaries I am reading!

ButterflyBee

:T:T

You should be bursting with pride Cloudy! this is very good for your first month back on your debt free journey and can only get better.

No doubt you will have a slip up from time to time but we are only human and mistakes are all part of the course. Getting back up and moving on is always the best solution.

Well done once again!

Cloudy456

Thanks!

So I got paid this morning and the reduction in my salary wasn't as much as I had thought it might be, so I worked out how much I need to keep back for direct debits (rent etc.) and worked out that there are 31 days until next payday so I need £310 for my £10 per day spending budget...which left me with £670.36 to pay to the CC! So I have done that and the balance is now £4,152.34!

My target for this month is to manage enough additional payments that I get the balance under 4k...that will be tough as I have quite a lot on this month but I would absolutely love to see a 3 on the front of the CC balance so I am really motivated to try and make it happen...watch this space!

This weekend I have £30 from my spending budget (counting today, Sat and Sun). I have a drinks party at a friend's tonight so I will spend about £5 on drinks to take, then another party tomorrow which I have a bottle of wine to take to but unfortunately it's on the other side of town so the taxi will be about £15. I'm sharing with a friend though so only have to pay that one way! So I am hopeful of being able to make a payment of about £10 to the CC on Sunday night from the weekend's budget.

Another month...here we go again!