Broke Kitty's Debt Diary

Broke_Kitty

Three no spend days in a row, and found 1p on the floor which I wouldn't normally pick up, but I thought I would start putting them in my piggy bank.

Does anyone know what the deal is with checking in with the Quidco app? I downloaded it but can't work out how to check in places.

Broke_Kitty

Cancelled my old M&S credit card (I say old, I transferred the balance off at the end of last month) and I had £30 credit on it which is going back in my bank account! Happy days!

I find enjoying shredding my credit cards FAR too enjoyable.

Spent a fair bit of time on Swagbucks last night, racked up a few hundred points and got my bonus!

queenidiot

Hi Broke Kitty!

Good luck with the debt-busting - all sounding good so far! I'm looking forward to hearing how you get on (especially with the £10 per night out - that's very impressive! :A)

What's the 1% challenge by the way?

Broke_Kitty

queenidiot wrote: »

Hi Broke Kitty!

Good luck with the debt-busting - all sounding good so far! I'm looking forward to hearing how you get on (especially with the £10 per night out - that's very impressive! :A)

What's the 1% challenge by the way?

The £10 a night challenge is only really possible in my local (well it's half an hour away but you know what I mean) pub where £10 gets you 6 vodka lime and sodas, if we go anywhere else I'm grumpy and sober, but the good news is we spend 90% of our nights out there so it works well for me.

The 1% challenge is where you take your debt you want to pay off, divide it by 100 and work towards saving 1%s (can come from anywhere) to pay towards said debt. There is a thread on it in the main Debt Free Wannabe section and it sounds right up my street. I was thinking of doing it with my loan, as that's the only thing I'm paying interest on. Then after that doing it with my CCs.

Today I am excited because I checked the Field Agent app and there's a £5 mystery shop in Tesco not too far from me, and I need a bottle of wine for tonight (and I have £7 left over from my food budget - yay!) so I hope it's still there after work so I can nip down and do that without looking too sus. It'll be my first one!

Broke_Kitty

Amazed by the Field Agent App, making a fiver just like that was incredible! I sadly missed three other mystery shops in the area, because I wouldn't have got to them in time, but that shows that they pop up where I live!

Things like that will really help me with my 'building up little extra bits to throw at the debt'.

I think at the moment my main struggle is finding a balance between 'extra money to put towards things like car maintainance and running out of shampoo' and 'extra money to throw at the debt to pay it off quicker'.

I'm at a point now where I just want it gone NOW, I feel like I may have overdone it a little bit with how much I've commited to cutting back per month (in not budgetting for the above things when really I should be).

But hey, it's all a learning experience, and reading other people's stories is teaching me so much!

I've also realised that almost all of my spending can be attributed to 'spending to make me happy'. Things like buying dinner for work makes me happy because I get something really yummy to help me through the day, but also I'm ashamed to look back and realise that in march of this year I was really depressed and got in my car and just drove to the Trafford Centre and blew nearly £200. It made me feel better, definitely, but even at the time I knew it was adding to my problem.

In a way it was a good thing though, because it made me scared of spending money on clothes etc, and I haven't really done that since. I've been ignoring the fact that I don't actually have many clothes that fit me at the moment. I've lost a lot of weight (yay) and basically everything hangs off me but I'm too scared to go shopping and get things which actually fit me because it's spending money. Having nothing that fits or suits me is causing me to have quite low self esteem though. I know I need to eBay the things that don't fit, and maybe I'll feel better about it then. I meant to do that last week but literally haven't had a minute to myself.

Lots to think about today, eh.

Calling14

I know how you feel would love to have a clothing spending spree but know I would be overcome guilt after. Feel tad fed up no new clothes towards xmas, but sure I have a dress never worn in my wardrobe, plain black could be jewelled up a bit if I can fit into it lol.
Keep up the scrimping sure we will be so much happier in the end. ;-)

Broke_Kitty

Calling14 wrote: »

I know how you feel would love to have a clothing spending spree but know I would be overcome guilt after. Feel tad fed up no new clothes towards xmas, but sure I have a dress never worn in my wardrobe, plain black could be jewelled up a bit if I can fit into it lol.
Keep up the scrimping sure we will be so much happier in the end. ;-)

Ooh yes we sure will be! I just keep thinking about how once this is paid off I can actually start saving up money for my future! It will be so amazing when half my wage isn't immediately eaten up by debt payments.

I think maybe what I need to do is think what are the most important items to replace right now, and then just get those. Then I can eBay things to pay myself back for that.

Calling14

Good luck, will pop on here and see how you have got on. Just feel my debt free day is yrs off, need to up my game next year. Think I have ebayed everything I can. Held onto my sewing machine, never used in the last 4 yrs who knows could get creative with odd ribbon lol x

Broke_Kitty

Calling14 wrote: »

Good luck, will pop on here and see how you have got on. Just feel my debt free day is yrs off, need to up my game next year. Think I have ebayed everything I can. Held onto my sewing machine, never used in the last 4 yrs who knows could get creative with odd ribbon lol x

It's hard isn't it, I just want my DRD to be NOW. Although when I think about how it's 2014 in a month and a bit, it doesn't seem as bad.

Sewing machine is a good idea! I'd have a bash with mine but I am so cack handed I know I'd waste money on material I'd ruin, might as well just go to Primarni haha.

Broke_Kitty

Fell off the wagon a bit last weekend, went ice skating for a friend's birthday and a few little things that just added up. Going to try to remain under budget this week to make up for it.

I have been doing well with taking my dinners to work though, and I spent below my food budget for last week.

Also last night me and my boyfriend still went for our meal, but then went back home to watch a film to save money.

Tonight I filled in lots of surveys on swagbucks, and actually got around to blogging again which is nice because I haven't done in a few weeks and was feeling really anxious about it.

Also I got a PPI refund of £50 which is better than nothing and I'm glad I made the claim! I'm weighing up between putting it in my 1% fund, or towards Christmas gifts. I've already done most of my Christmas shopping and managed to stay around the £20 per person margin or below, which I'm really happy about.

Oh and I put in a fuel claim form at work. I think each time I get the money back, I'm going to fill up that much. I'd be interested to see whether I can go without paying for fuel myself at all.