Batten down the hatches.....

if_at_first...

Mmmmm a facial - colour me jealous!

Not a bad plan though - I might do a DIY facial over the weekend and smear an avocado all over my face

Good luck with paying everything off adn well done on your LBM :T

Orange_Ena

Thanks if at first...

I might try a homemade facial now you've reminded me. Although maybe not an avocado - they're a bit pricey :rotfl:

Good luck with your money saving / over paying.

Orange_Ena

I've been on the snowball calculator today.

All being well, my overdraft will be gone by the end of April. Then I'll start the snowballing with £380 minimum per month. I may be able to do more but I'm a bit cautious by nature. If all goes to plan, it will be 12 months until I'm debt free...............apart from the mortgage.

It feels so good to finally deal with my debts that I've had since I was a student. While I'll probably always have work (NHS), its more than likely that we'll be downgraded and I could lose 7 or 8 grand a year. If that happened now, I would be in trouble and adding to my debt to live. I'm sure my pay will be protected for a year at the very least so I'm pleased to see my debt is likely to be cleared in 12 months.

If I am downgraded, then I'll certainly be in a better position going forward and all my money saving ways and bill chopping will set me up for that. I may even get some proper savings together before my pay drops.

I could kick myself for not having my LBM sooner, but better late than never eh. At least I've discovered MSE - I'm up on a lot of people.

Orange_Ena

I've been busy sorting my house out, making nice things to sell, working and counting up my loose change, that's where it went!

My money saving / making efforts this week:

• Transferred £30.96 from TCB to ISA
• Valued Opinions surveys - up to £14.20 so will claim at £20
• Found £5 in my craft bag, a friend owed me and I didn't put it in my purse at the time. I love finding money like that!
• Another friend gave me £20 for doing a little job for her
• My loose change came to £43.35
• Checked the cheapest but nearest place for petrol and filled up
• Made a leek risotto today so will feed me for the next 2 nights, as well as a good portion for my dinner tonight
• Paid the last bit off a store card a while ago and phoned this week to close the account

I've decided that ebay is just too much hassle now. I don't have gadgets or expensive things to sell and postage is just ridiculous. My folks are doing a car boot soon so I might sneak a few boxes in their car :rotfl: I might also check out gumtree and see if I can just list a box of random stuff for other people to sell at a car boot or whatever.

I'm off Wednesday so will be doing more tidying and sorting. I am yet to tackle my cupboard in the bedroom. Its full of boxes of sentimental stuff (I am a hoarder if you haven't gathered already) but it needs to go. I might leave that till last. If I can free up some more room somewhere else then I will just "redistribute" the boxes

Orange_Ena

Went shopping to Aldi tonight but didn't have a pound for the trolley so I had to just grab a few bits that I wanted / needed. I try to limit myself to 4 items when I don't have a trolley as the assistants don't seem to like anyone faffing about trying to pack as they go :rotfl: £12.34 spent on gammon joint (will last a few days), spuds, bacon and drinks.

6 little framed pictures also made tonight. All the components were ready so it was really just assembly. Easy peasy for a Monday night.

Got 2 meetings / groups to attend tomorrow so no day job to do and then off Wednesday. :D

Still no refund on payment being taken twice and the customer service at Viners seems to be non-existant. When you ring, it says to email and that they'll get back to you within 48 hours and you won't be forgotten! 2 more emails sent and I'm beginning to think I've been forgotten :mad: I've contacted my credit card to request a refund as I'm getting anywhere!

I used to work in customer services so maybe I've got high standards, but some companies amaze me at how bad they are. I've rang two tradesmen recently for a job I need doing. I've left 2 messages for one but he's not bothered to ring me and the other one was meant to come round but failed to show and didn't even bother to let me know. Do people not want the work anymore? Why not even let me know?! Grrr.

Anyway, I shall stop ranting. To myself :rotfl::D

Orange_Ena

........I'm not very good with this diary malarkey! I was supposed to be getting the thoughts out of my head on to here but its not happened

Been meal planning a lot more and hunting out bargains. Got some half price pork chops and spuds from £1.50 down to 55p. I've par boiled them and put them in the freezer and will get them out when needed. I've never done this before cause I've always been a bit iffy about freezing things and knowing if they'll be ok or if I need to defrost it first. If I get food poisioning, I'll just have to have a day off work :rotfl:

I've now got a banking app on my phone. OMG, its brilliant. Every lunch time I log in and do a "Tilly tidy" to the nearest pound and if I've been a good girl and taken lunch, then I'll add the £3 that I would have spent plus the odd pennies and it all goes onto my CC1 which is with the same bank. Easy peasy Thanks Tilly!

In other money saving / making efforts:

• Cancelled my phone insurance saving £4.99 per month
• Did meter readings so gas and electric now £42 instead of £45 per month
• Meal planned for the week and bought accordingly
• Got my first commission for a craft item....its very early days!
• Looked for reduced items to stock the freezer up a bit
• Read lots of posts on here to keep me from spending

I'm super excited about plans for a new kitchen and bit of a renovation. My house desperately needs it and I can't live with it like this anymore. You probably all think I'm mad but I had to do something. I tried to move but had no takers so I need to improve. My mortgage payments have gone up by £40 per month and I've increased the term from 17 to 21 years. I would have liked to not change the term but I feel comfortable with the monthly repayment if anything should happen.

None of the remortgage money is going on debt, I've learnt my lesson from when I last remortgaged and consolidated £5000 of debt and then built it back up again! :eek: Once my debt is cleared, I want to overpay my mortgage, even if its just £50 a month it will make a big difference.

This time I will pay back every penny of my debt by making savings or generating income. I WILL learn my lesson. Thanks to MSE!

Orange_Ena

Erm, still not good at updating this!

Its been a while and not a lot has changed. Had my new kitchen and renovation work done and finding it very difficult to not buy loads of new things. Just settled for buying new crockery, cutlery, kitchen bin, measuring jug, kitchen roll holder, kettle, toaster, lamps, cushions :rotfl::D. I think I did rather well

Not much on the MS front. Did manage to get a new credit card 0% for 27 months so have shifted CC2. CC1 has 2 more payments then that will be gone!

Looking back over the last few months, I have done ok and am quite pleased with what I've achieved. I cleared a store card and paid off my overdraft that I'd had for years. I've opened up several saving / budgeting accounts and so far, its working! I go to my banking app daily to Tilly Tidy™ and to check I'm still in credit. Any signs of hitting that zero then I swiftly move money across from a "holding account". If I just leave it in my current account, it would be gone. If I don't need it, then its extra for debt repayment. :money: I probably could do better with regards to budgeting so that's the plan for the next few weeks.


I'm really getting into yellow sticker shopping. Last week there was some Finest Tesc0 bacon reduced from £3.15 to 35p! Quick look around then all 5 packs landed in my basket. Weekend bacon sarnies sorted for the next few weeks!

Took some copper pipes to a scrap metal dealer that were left when I had the new boiler and radiators fitted. Got £18.40 for my trouble so nice little overpayment. :T

Happy money saving folks

Orange_Ena

Really really bad and keeping up with this diary........its been nearly 2 years. :eek::rotfl:

Thought I'd revive it and look back over what I achieved last time. Sadly, I'm worse off now.

But, I learnt a lot last time so I just need to brush off that knowledge and get on with it. I have posted my SOA on the DFW thread but I'm not sure there's much saving to be had really.

I've been doing a bit of selling on ebay and after all the fees, I think I've made about £140 and cleared quite a bit of space. Still got a bit more to go. I've also got a few boxes of car boot stuff ready to go when the Sunday forecast is good. Hoping to make about £50 from it.

I bought a food processor last week pretty much cause it was half price. Loves a bargain. I'm on a major health kick to lose weight and eat healthy nutritious meals, inspired by the Deliciously Ella cookbook I bought. She uses her processer a lot so I wanted to get one however, I just can't afford to keep it this month so I took it back for a refund. I'm looking on ebay and Gumtree for a 2nd hand bargain instead. At least then if I never use it, I haven't wasted too much! I have ordered a vegetable spiralizer instead, to make courgette noodles! Paid for it with my eBay sales.

Jobs for the weekend
* start a spending diary
* meal plan for the week (my freezer is full so I only anticipate buying milk and maybe some cheese)
* list more on ebay
* get back into doing surveys
* check my accounts daily and do tidy ups of the pennies

Money saved today:
* £50 for returning food processor :A
* ordered 4 bags of cat food from zooplus to qualify for free delivery at £8.69 a bag, instead of £12.69 a bag at pets at home. Saved equivalent of £16, paid for out of eBay sales and the food will last at least 6 months. :T

My debts as of today stand at £6333.30

Next target:
* to get some money to decorate the spare room and get a new carpet and radiator and then rent it out which will hopefully help clear the debt in the long term.

Feeling very motivated tonight........hope it lasts..............:)

Orange_Ena

2 diary entries in 2 days.......is that classed as a roll?

Moving on.......

I've had a rather productive day working on reducing my smallest, but most expensive debt. I checked my TCB account and found £6.66 (:eek: the devil) so I've withdrawn and will transfer into jdwilliams ASAP. I also checked a halif*x account that I pay into monthly and sometimes have to dip into when desperate and found £100 so that's waiting to be paid into my account, along with £20 my friend gave me for something. I also transferred £130 from payp*l into jdWilliams so once this has all settled, my outstanding amount is £263.81. Nearly halved it in a day! Hopefully it will be right down, if not gone by next payday.

I woke up this morning to a blocked toilet :eek: I tried plunging but no luck. I really haven't got money to spend on a plumber and when I googled rough estimates for unblocking a toilet, it said between £60-90 But, a yout*be video also came up which showed how to unblock a toilet. Thanks to a £1.50 mop from Wilk*s, 2 plastic bags and a few plunges, my loo is now working properly. What a bargain compared to what it could have been.......and I'm so proud of myself for at least having a go.

Checked my valued opinions account for the first time in 2 years and discovered an unclaimed £21.45 I'm going to keep it in there for now and maybe put it towards grocery shopping or for clothes as im rapidly losing weight.

I've reduced my direct debit to my nationw*de credit card for a bit so I'll pay just over the minimum and then I can put the other £50 towards jdwilliams to get that paid off. Once that's done, I need to apply for a new credit card as my 0% deal runs out soon and hopefully I can shift both cards to the new one and carry on paying the £275 I've been paying out anyway, plus any extra. Having just one debt will be a huge boost and will focus me more. Fingers crossed!

I transferred 32p from my current account to my credit card to tidy it up. Every little helps.

Got to keep this going now

Orange_Ena

Evening!

Sunday
* NSD
* 4 items listed on eb*y. If they all sell for their listing price, it should net me about £25 (less fees)
* Found 4 more items to list when I get round to it
* Some books added to my car boot pile

Monday
* Took breakfast and lunch to work
* £2.50 spent on car park
* 50p transferred to nationwide credit card as a tidy up
* Found £2 in the bottom of my bag.....straight in the tin

Tomorrow
* I'll pay in £120 (from forgotten spare account and money from friend) to my account to be transferred straight away to jdWilliams. Can't wait until that one is paid off.
* Will take lunch to work
* Need to buy flowers and cake to cheer my friend up who has managed to break her arm and knee! :eek: Budget is £15
* Account tidy of surplus pennies
* List 4 items if I get the chance.

I've got quite a few little savings accounts, some are for monthly budgets that will get spent such as diesel and some are for longer term things like Christmas and house insurance. I've got £100 in my house insurance account which should be enough to cover me for the year. It's not actually due until September so I'm debating on transferring it to jdWilliams and then putting £50 aside for July and August therefore replenishing the account. I shall ponder!