Wake up call time

Broke_Kitty

Just did the snowball calculator. I am SO excited, on my current budget it says I can be debt free in 23 months and pay £591 in interest. That's amazing. I'm so glad I managed to snag these 0% balance transfer deals.

If I can manage to make a bit of extra money here and there to throw at my loan I can be debt free even quicker! I am assuming here that my loan doesn't penalise me for making lots of overpayments for the next few years... I'm pretty sure that I made sure that wasn't the case when I took it out, though.

Broke_Kitty

Another thing I'm thinking of doing is piggybanking, and opening up a basic cash account so I can use that for all food, fuel, social spends, and only transfer my budget to that account each month (perhaps by standing order). Is it pretty easy to get a second account? If so I might pop into town tomorrow on my dinner and set one up, get the ball rolling with that.

MrsGSR

Hows it going Broke Kitty?

Broke_Kitty

It's going great! I haven't spent any money this week, apart from £5 on a cinema ticket. I've got my receipt from Specsavers to send off to Simply Health, and then I'm thinking about cancelling my policy. I have definitely claimed back more than I've spent, but would that money be better off going into a bank account instead?

I'm also thinking of prebuying some contact lenses from somewhere online to save a few quid a month. I wear torics because I have astigmatism, so they are a bit more expensive anyway, but might still save a bit of money!

MrsGSR

Broke_Kitty wrote: »

It's going great! I haven't spent any money this week, apart from £5 on a cinema ticket. I've got my receipt from Specsavers to send off to Simply Health, and then I'm thinking about cancelling my policy. I have definitely claimed back more than I've spent, but would that money be better off going into a bank account instead?

I'm also thinking of prebuying some contact lenses from somewhere online to save a few quid a month. I wear torics because I have astigmatism, so they are a bit more expensive anyway, but might still save a bit of money!

Good work! Depending on how much it is you could put it towards a debt?
Not sure on the contact lense front but my DH wears contacts and pays about £10 a month I think. I think there is an article on here about cheap contact lenses so worth a look.

What are your plans for the weekend spending wise? Are you going out with your mates/boyfriend? Have you a plan for this?

Broke_Kitty

I'll have a look for that article, thanks!

I have no plans so far for this weekend, we tend to organise things last minute, but if I do go out I have a £10 a night budget for this. It worked well last weekend!

consultant31

Broke_Kitty wrote: »

I do actually have a slow cooker which I bought last winter but didn't have much luck with... I somehow managed to make a pot of uncooked veg despite pre-heating it and leaving it for 8 hours on the hot setting. Baffled me.

Sorry if this has already been answered, but with a slow cooker your meat will cook beautifully in the allotted time but unless root veg are actually covered with the cooking liquid they will not cook, even if you leave them for 24 hours. It took me ages to find this out, now I always make sure I either cover them with liquid (you can pop the meat on top) or cook them separately.

Broke_Kitty

Ooh thanks for the tip. They were covered with liquid, so I'm still a bit mystified but I think maybe putting them at the bottom could be an idea.

I made a lovely beef stew in it last night which I've brought in to work for dinner. I just left out all root veg, just used peppers onions and tomatoes and it's yummy.

So that and bolognaise I seem to be able to make work!

Broke_Kitty

Had a bit of a bad day today for spending, I had a dentist appointment, then I did the majority my Christmas shopping, bought eyeliner cos I'd run out, and met my friend for tea because I hadn't eaten all day and also hadn't seen her in a while.

Relieved to have my Christmas shopping pretty much done though, and not too expensively. I have spent £50ish (in total, not each) on my mum, boyfriend, and boyfriend's mum, I get my dad the same thing every year (turkish delight) and I have a model of the Starship Enterprise I think I'll give him cos I don't really need it and he'd enjoy it more, so that will not cost me much. Then I thought I'd pick up a cheap but not tacky bottle of booze to take to my boyfriend's dad's as we're going there for Christmas day, I'll keep my eye open for deals for that one.

I've been doing pretty well really so far, my things budgetted for came to around £100 a week for everything including fuel, food, and socialising, and I've been managing to stick to this more or less (one week I was under, the next slightly over, so I'll give myself a break).

My hair has started to grow out, but actually my roots don't look bad, I think I'd be happy to just let it grow and not get it recoloured. I haven't had it cut or coloured since October, and I think I could go til Feb before I get a trim to deal with split ends, so that's pretty good for money saving. I used to get my hair cut and coloured every 8-10 weeks but I think I'm finally at a stage where my natural colour is grown out enough to not bother, yay!

I have £108 in my debt overpayments online account, which is exciting, I think on Friday I'll ring the bank and whack that towards my loan.

Brb, off to do some swagbucks surveys!

Zoology_Dragon

Well done!

Regarding hair colour, that's brilliant if you can just grow it out (I did and have no regrets!) but if you feel yourself starting to cave go for just parting/hairline highlights in a colour that's close to your natural colour. You'll probably find you can manage to grow out then without too much pain.