~*~ The finishing straight for OrangeFairy :-) ~*~

OrangeFairy

Happy New Diary day to me

I think I need to swear that this will be my last dfw diary!

Right I am OrangeFairy.....I live in Devon with my awesome hubby and my two daughters who are 10 and nearly 8.

In summary I got with hubby very young and he had a lot of debt...this with CSA payments and living slightly beyond our earnings resulted in never quite getting on top of our finances. A couple of years ago we really started trying to pay some off. Then last year I went from part time to full time work making a huge increase in our income. This has help me to overpay on my loan to get it down a bit. This is our big monthly payment at £215 a month so needs to go :cool:

Our hopeful debt free planned deadline is march next year so I hope I keep this diary until then. It will be used to record achievements and problems we need to overcome on the way.

Well this year so far hasn't been as productive as I had hoped due to taking the kids to Spain a couple of weeks ago. This means we have an amount of about £1300 to pay off from that inc spending money. It was a great holiday but we need to buckle down now!

I will find out our total balances on cards over the next week. I was chuffed that this month my loan payment took the balance down to under £1k. The loans stands at £977.

I now have to decide if we concentrate on the loan for the next month or so or do the interest charging cards first from the holiday. I think the cards have more interest but the loan is a psychological goal I want to complete and it also saves us £215 a month to throw at the cards.

My BIG news (to me) is that hubby bought me a tortoise for my birthday he is so cool and I absolutely adore him!!! We have named him Sherman and he is 9 months old. He is only 3.5cm long and lives in a tortoise table in our lounge that hubby made himself. Had to buy him a particular bulb this week which put me back £45 but its not like he really costs a lot to keep other than that!

I have no idea where I am moneywise at the mo as we were in Spain until the 11th on June and only just feel I have caught up!

Will try and have a frugal rest of the month and then record my spends in July.

Other things to post about - my 101 things to do in 1001 days list and my decluttering but that can all wait for another day.

It's gone midnight and I promised myself an early night- ooopppps

OF and Sherman

banwa

Good luck Orange Fairy

*subscribes*

bella2121

Welcome back orange fairy, glad you enjoyed your holiday you have made amazing progress with the debts since I first followed your diary, keep up the good work xx

wannabee_in_credit

Hi
I've subscribed too.

brizzledfw

I have just subscribed..had wondered where you'd been as your old diary was quiet.. hadn't guessed Spain:T

Nice to read a shiny new diary!:T

OrangeFairy

Hi everyone thanks for popping in!!!

Today has been a day at home and food shopping which I really needed to be honest. Cleaned and tidied downstairs inc steam mopping the kitchen and bathroom floors.

Hubby fixed Shermans new heat bulb to his house so he is happily relaxing in the heat this afternoon

Then hubby forgot his wallet so I spent money on food shopping which is actually in his budget which has ruined my money a little! Spent £50 in Mr T on bit and bobs, £11 in the local sandwich shop that sells packed devon meat (4 big chicken breasts, 3 stuffed pork belly, 12 pork and leek sausages and 6 eggs) and then we went to spend £8.50 at our local farmers who has a little shop he is so cheap.

Fajitas for tea as we had all the ingredients needed. Sat down and done the kids homework with them which I am pleased about as I am finding it hard to fit in with working full time now.

Right of for cuddles with hubby and some time watching my tortoise

OF x

OrangeFairy

Morning all

I hope everyone had a lovely Sunday. We travelled an hour to see hubby's Nanny which was lovely as we haven't seen her for a while. Bought her a cake and some flowers as we were away over her birthday. I really wish she would move up near us so we could all look after her properly.

Then round to MILs for dinner which was MSE and after that we went home and my younger brother came round for the evening.

One dfw thing we have done that I keep forgetting to mention is we decided not to go to Florida next year. MIL has a time share which means we just need the flight money and not accommodation. For the last 18 months we have been planning to go in 2014. But we just aren't quite ready money-wise and we would have to put the flights on a cc this month. I was happy to do so as the kids are a perfect age and I want them to have good experiences. However on the day we were discussing prices with MIL my hubby perked up and said he didn't want to go as he wanted to pay things off instead. I feel a little upset as he hadn't mentioned this before and I have been really looking forward to it. However I did feel a little bit of a relief knowing I don't need to now get £2.5k extra debt. It is the sensible thing to do really.

To combat this disappointment and I have decided I need shot of this loan fast. We are on a shared ownership list and the monthly loan payment goes against us more than the card payments.

My goal is to have it gone with my end of July paycheck. I should be able to make an overpayment straight away and then my normal loan payment that will come out on the 4th August will finish it off. I will go out for a meal to celebrate!!!! Need to check this is okay with hubby.

There is £977 to pay off. The two regular payments work out about 205 off the total amount each leaving £567 left to pay. I will do as much as I can with my June pay cheque and then arrange and overpayment needed with my July PC to come out just before the regular loan payment.

Money obstacles in my way-
1. Needing to pay for the girls ballet lessons that I haven't save for this time!
2. The car going in for MOT
3. Paying for various child care arrangements for the 7 week long summer holidays
4. Wanting to take the kids for days out at the weekends in the hols as I have no time in the week with them :-(


Feeling a little rejected as my little tortoise Sherman seems to have had his active time when we were out and has slept since we have been home

Oh and my brother's baby entered the world this morning A new nephew for me .....baby Oscar. Can't wait to meet him!

Looking forward to the start of a brand new week and payday next Monday!

Sorry for the mammoth post!

OF x

PloddingAlong:P

New subscriber to follow your journey

Temporary tough times on a debt free journey lead to much better times at the completion

bella2121

Congrats on the new nephew love the name!!!!

It is disappointing when you where looking forward to Florida, but if it makes you feel better i should be in Tenerife at the moment but had to cancel because of the baby, but I know I can go away another time, plus it's nice to see your OH is on board with you getting things paid off.

Feel really off today my back and hips are killing and think I'm coming down with something because my throats scratchy and sore anyway enough moaning take care And have a lovely day x

OrangeFairy

Morning MSE land

I am currently on the bus on my way to work. Bit nervous as we have been given guidelines on flexible working but we need to clarify things with our boss as done of the things were unclear. Though it should end up being a positive thing I don't like discussing things like this! Fingers crossed.

Hubby realised yesterday he is driving with no MOT!!! Ran out a week ago!! I am praying that isn't a huge bill!

Met my new nephew last night. He is gorgeous. Gave me that painful broody feeling again that I can't shake!

My focus at the moment is the school holidays. My girls are off for 7 full weeks and I only have weekends off with them. This is my first year of working full time over the summer hols and I feel like I am going to spend the duration feeling guilty :-( I need to arrange child care for the days I haven't got family to cover. Trying to make it as cheap as possible!

Main aims for today:

Talk to my boss
NSD
Sort out forms for girls to do tennis club in the hols.
Send payment for ballet lessons.
Look at my 101 things to do list

I hope you feel better today Bella x

OF x

OrangeFairy

Well it's been a crazy couple of days.

Good things to report though;

1- The chat with my boss was great. She has made our work a little more flexible as long as we work it out between ourselves in the office so there isn't an occasion when no one is in. She wants us to try and do more of our hours earlier in the week as she would like us all to finish at 1pm on a Friday. She thinks this will be good for team morale as Friday will be more of a fun day as we are only working 5 hours. Then once a month we can have a Friday off if we have built up 5 hours. All positive things! So I am very happy.

2- The car went in for MOT and all it needed was tyres. So a cost of £280 :eek: BUT we knew they were going to need to be done soon so I am happy with that.

3- I have arranged to make an overpayment on my loan of £300 on Tuesday after payday on Monday. This will take my loan to £677 and then the normal loan payment will bring it down to about £470!! It will be under £500 by the end of next week!! Then I will make an overpayment for the 2nd August for about 260 leaving about the right amount for the normal payment to clear! Then it will be gone!

4- I had just enough money left this month to pay my daughters' outstanding dance fees which cost me a whooping £250 a term! This is great news as it means I am up to date with them now and can save toward the next payment in sept. DD2 may be giving up her dancing however so it may drop to £160 a term which is a bit better.

July is going to be tight old month! I have about £500 'spare' money from my wages. £300 to loan, then £112 to tennis camp to cover 4 days childcare in the holiday. This doesn't leave me with much left and we need to book some more child care! I will probably have to call on hubby to book a couple of the weeks in our local leisure centre for the girls. This will be about £36 a day for the 2 of them and we might need about 4 days!!!

Thinking about it now I may be wise to change my overpayment to £200 and see how it goes! That gives me a £100 buffer.

I am hoping to start doing some bits from my 101 things to do list. One of the things I feel quite strongly about is trying to shop locally. So one of my things to do was to shop locally for a month and not use a supermarket at all. Now this is an experiment to see how much we spend. Our normal budget is £220-250 a month. I think anything up to about £300 a month shopping locally I will be happy with. The things that will be pricey is stuff like yogurts and the fact DD2 loves fruit flakes. I am quite excited to start. I have started making plans of where I will buy from in addition to who I use now

http://dayzeroproject.com/user/Orangefairy/list/61963

There's my list

Right off to bed I think. I am starting to think of things I can sell and if I don't go to sleep now ill start listing things!!!

OF x