StressedStephs Fight against debt..Again!

StressedSteph

Hi all,

Here I am AGAIN!!.

Tried and failed this year to stay on the debt-busting band waggon. Hit rock bottom this week (Funnily enough just before Christmas) realising that the debt is controlling my life and ruining it at the same time.

There's no more ignoring and thinking it will go away. I have wasted the whole of 2013 half heartedly trying to combat this debt and here I am at the end of it in an even worse situation.

To say that my opinion of myself is very low is an under-statement. I sometimes don't like who I am, with my inability to stick to ANYTHING, especially the debt busting.

So I will update in the next few posting, where I am with my plans and schemes and will also brave another SOA. I know there are things on here that I have avoided cancelling (Sky) in the past, but think maybe now might be the time to do a serious painful cut back just to make some headway.

Hope to catch up with all those that I used to chat to on here.

Speak soon

Steph

cynicalgit_2

Good Luck, you can do it, go girl!!

NinjaSavingKat

Whoop Whoop! Shiny new diary! Great to see it! You can do it Steph - theres a good few of us behind you now! x

maddiemay

Hi Steph
Good to see you back again, you will get there, baby step by baby step will be fine. Try not to let all this Christmas advertising get to you, they are paying a fortune to convince us we need all those things, but mostly we do not, and the kids will survive even if "all their friends" have the things that are going on the present lists, and life will not be worth living without:rotfl:

StressedSteph

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone.

I had a mini breakdown this morning, but seem to have managed to pull myself together and I now have to start being positive about getting this debt busted!.

I have a few little enterprises going on that I am hoping are going to fund a meagre Christmas for the children. Thankfully we long ago stopped buying presents for friends and other family so only have my two little cherubs to worry about. (Dh & I haven't bought each other presents for years either).

I have a little Craft business that I currently only advertise on F#cebk and T#itter. This seems to be bringing a steady stream of orders in.

I also make Christmas wreaths which have quite a large profit margin and currently have 11 orders for those.

We are rearing 10 turkeys this year as well so will be selling about 5 of those.

Fingers crossed, if I can hide the money from these away I should be able to get the childrens presents without impacting the bank account.

If I can just get past Christmas then the major pressure will be off.

It will be our first family Christmas on our own EVER, so will still work really hard to make sure its a magical Christmas even though we are broke. xx

Will check in soon with SOA xx

alwaysworried_2

C'mon now Steph, you can do this, don't be hard on yourself.
remember the words you gave me last year? Well I'm sending them back to you.

YOU CAN DO THIS.

Xx

StressedSteph

Hi AW,

Thank you . xxxx

Katzen

How old are your kids Steph? Little ones need less than we think I reckon and big ones should be old enough to understand that Christmas is not about spending heaps of cash on unecessary tat, in my opinion! Don't get in a stress about it, sounds like your plans will have food on the table and a couple of well earned gifts under the tree. Its quality family time that really counts and that comes for free!

Kellylouise88

Hi!

I've finally sorting my debt out, I've been hiding away from it and still spending on the credit card!!AHHHH!!

I just want to say good luck ,

Don't stress too much about xmas, it's so commercial now, I am making my DD a few presents, as well as bought. Her birthday isn't even a month after xmas (19th Jan) so that's going to be fun!!

StressedSteph

Katzen wrote: »

How old are your kids Steph? Little ones need less than we think I reckon and big ones should be old enough to understand that Christmas is not about spending heaps of cash on unecessary tat, in my opinion! Don't get in a stress about it, sounds like your plans will have food on the table and a couple of well earned gifts under the tree. Its quality family time that really counts and that comes for free!

Morning Katzen

My little ones will be 9 and 7 at Christmas. Its a funny age really because I feel they are too old to not care about how much they get, but a little young to understand about money not being on trees!.

We have planning permission to build an extension on our home (heaven knows when that will ever happen), but I have started to say to the children that we don't have a lot of spare money because we are saving up to build the extension. A brilliant previous poster said it was good to say "Saving" otherwise little mouths might go telling the whole school "Mummy says we are broke" haha.

A Friend has offered us to buy his old Xbox for £50. It has some games with it too, so will hopefully buy that for my sons Christmas. He will be overjoyed and we won't have spent much.

Just got my daughters birthday in mid December and her Christmas presents to sort.

I do love the rituals of Christmas, and we have lots of free things that we do.

Two things I will be changing this year are:-

Just buying the chocolate Advent calendar for £1 each = I usually buy those super expensive Lego ones that are £25 each :eek:. Not doing that again. also mine almost said they would prefer a chocolate in the morning than a plastic toy. haha

Big expensive trip to see Santa = I usually get sucked into going to a proper event or theme park to see Father Christmas which costs a lot of money. Not this year, they usually get a visit from him at school so will leave it at that.

Will keep thinking of other budgeting ideas xxx

StressedSteph

Kellylouise88 wrote: »

Hi!

I've finally sorting my debt out, I've been hiding away from it and still spending on the credit card!!AHHHH!!

I just want to say good luck ,

Don't stress too much about xmas, it's so commercial now, I am making my DD a few presents, as well as bought. Her birthday isn't even a month after xmas (19th Jan) so that's going to be fun!!

Hi KellyLouise,

Sounds like we are in a similar situation. Have you started a Debt Diary? If you have let me know which one it is and I will subscribe.

It was bad timing of us to have childrens birthday so close to Christmas. Will have to be a word of wisdom I pass onto my daughter. Time your pregnancies!! hehe