Debt free by 40 -- 19 Months and counting

baglady1

Hi Steph, Your quote "Things are still tight but at least they are possible" sums up your year really. As someone upthread said this time last year you seemed so down it was worrying (even across the airwaves or whatever). You have done so well!! Your Xmas planning sounds good - DD will love the doll pushchair & car seat & yeas it does have the wonderful advantage of being large so looks large when wrapped up - always a bonus with littlies & not so littlies. Yea to cancelling the colour but a haircut will set you right up for all the Xmas festivities to come. Cheers bl1

joowoo

Hello Steph,
I have been a long-time lurker on here following your amazing journey - you have been an inspiration and I look forward to following your journey in 2015 - keep up the good work :T:T:T:T:T

eco_farmer

mostly importantly no usage of the dreaded littlewoods book and the debt will hopefully fall in December unlike previous years. your no longer taking baby steps now its full on massive ones in killing off the debt

StressedSteph

baglady1 wrote: »

Hi Steph, Your quote "Things are still tight but at least they are possible" sums up your year really. As someone upthread said this time last year you seemed so down it was worrying (even across the airwaves or whatever). You have done so well!! Your Xmas planning sounds good - DD will love the doll pushchair & car seat & yeas it does have the wonderful advantage of being large so looks large when wrapped up - always a bonus with littlies & not so littlies. Yea to cancelling the colour but a haircut will set you right up for all the Xmas festivities to come. Cheers bl1

Hi Baglady


I must have a look back at my first posts on here last December. I can still feel the awful panic about how I was going to do Christmas at all for the children and realising that adding to the Catalogue debt was the only way to get through it. Horrible.....
Things are not amazing yet and it will be a struggle during December to pay all the bills with hubby's Christmas break. Next year I plan to save up a buffer to cover his lost income over Christmas. It was impossible to afford to do that this year, but hopefully with minimal debt or it totally gone by next Autumn I should easily be able to get us even more prepared for Christmas.


Hope all is well in Oz Baglady. Is the urban myth true that you guys go to the beach for Christmas day?


Hope I haven't remembered wrong that you are in Australia Baglady. That would be embarrassing

joowoo wrote: »

Hello Steph,
I have been a long-time lurker on here following your amazing journey - you have been an inspiration and I look forward to following your journey in 2015 - keep up the good work :T:T:T:T:T

Hi Joowoo


Thanks so much for coming out of lurkdom to post such a lovely message. I'm just a regular girl ploughing through her past debt mistakes like thousands of others on here, glad to hear I have given you abit of inspiration though. Do you have a diary?

eco_farmer wrote: »

mostly importantly no usage of the dreaded littlewoods book and the debt will hopefully fall in December unlike previous years. your no longer taking baby steps now its full on massive ones in killing off the debt

Hi eco


Yes it will be bizarre to not be adding to the debt this Christmas. My frame of mind has changed so drastically this year that it isn't EVEN a temptation. I have no desire AT ALL to ever fall back onto credit. A Friend of mine has just bought a sofa on the "never never" and I had to literally bite my tongue to stop me going on a "Dave Ramsey Rant" about how bad that was :rotfl:.


Hopefully with Christmas not bumping up my debt, I should be off with a bang next year as I am usually spending 90% of the year paying for last years Christmas


Do you have a diary, I am intrigued by your user name. We have a smallholding and plan on get more orphan lambs this year. Are you actually a farmer??


xxx

StressedSteph

Morning


Ok I have been having a little think about changes I might like to make in January.


I am mulling over the idea of using the Envelope system. I have never tried it before, mostly because we get paid weekly, so there isn't a big lump to spread out over the 4-5 weeks of the month.


BUT......I am thinking that online shopping is my nemesis. Its so easy on my £60 per week Tesco online shop to say "aaah its come to £67.95 that's near enough" :mad:. whereas if I was in a shop with only £60 cash in my pocket, I would have to put something back.


The categories I am going to envelope in January are:-


Groceries £60 pw
Fuel £60 pw
Fun money £20 each pw


These are obvious easy ones which often go over budget and need close monitoring.


the other categories which are causing me problems are:


Household goods
Day/Nights out
School / Kids clubs


These three categories are the main issues that break the budget. They are BIG wide stretching categories which soak up my misc impulse spends.


I have looked back over YNAB and every month a quite decent amount of spends get put into these categories.
I have definitely been over spending but another problem is there has been no budget for these categories AT ALL which is a problem.


I definitely need to add a small amount of money to these categories every week, Maybe £10 in each to cover the more urgent of these misc spends.


Some are quite important like I had to replace our battered flat bed pillows last week. I bought 12 for £20 which was a good deal but there was no money in that category to cover that household spend.


At least if I know a little bit of budget is being added to the pot each week, I can maybe stall our wants/needs until enough money has accrued, instead of thinking, I may as well get it now as there is never any money in that budget pot anyway.


Hope my rambling makes sense. The Envelope system is one of the last things I haven't yet tried so I think as YNAB is highlighting my areas of weakness, maybe it is time to give it a try.


Not much else to report today, bank balance is scarily low, but hubby should be paid today or tomorrow hopefully and then we start December.


I have the house to clean and a dinner part to prepare so may not be on again today. I may have a look at Amazon as Ds wants some XBOX games for Christmas and I am wondering if they may be included in this Black Friday thing.


ITS FRIDAY yay!!!!

eco_farmer

yeap I am dairy farmer with 280 cows (when tb allows) we are coming up to annual "holiday" where the cows have 12 weeks off milking and we get a 12 weeks of milking ! I think from reading some of your posts we are not too far from you we are on the som/dor border. The reason for calling myself eco is due to us have both solar and wind systems on the farm and we try to make and use as much compost as possible instead of artificial fert. you mentioned budgeting for everything we do that for the farm business and find it a very good way of stopping the "nice not necessary " spending.


eco

Moneywhizz

I have been reading your diary all year too. You are doing so well with your debt busting plans. Just felt that I should pop in to say that I have been debt free for lots of years now and still use the envelope system for things that I pay cash for, like food, petrol and fun money. When the envelope is empty I don't spend, very simple, yet effective.
Budgeting only works well, however, when you have accounted for all your spends. You need to make sure you have envelopes for all your categories, and I have one for miscellaneous just in case there are any small things that crop up. Give it a try. I'm sure it will help you.

baglady1

Hi Steph, no I think most people have their Xmas dinner at home, but Boxing Day is when lots have BBQs. The weather contrary to popular opinion isn't always beach weather so it's easier to do it all at home. What is nice however is after Xmas dinner all the kids come out to play with their new bikes on the street (small suburban streets) & the street or backyard cricket gets going. Boxing Day is usually veg out time, leftovers, BBQs & watching the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race on tv (I'm in Hobart, capital city of Tasmania) With the long summer evenings plus daylight saving time it's a lovely time of year.

Verbatim

How did the Mexican dinner party go?

StressedSteph

eco_farmer wrote: »

yeap I am dairy farmer with 280 cows (when tb allows) we are coming up to annual "holiday" where the cows have 12 weeks off milking and we get a 12 weeks of milking ! I think from reading some of your posts we are not too far from you we are on the som/dor border. The reason for calling myself eco is due to us have both solar and wind systems on the farm and we try to make and use as much compost as possible instead of artificial fert. you mentioned budgeting for everything we do that for the farm business and find it a very good way of stopping the "nice not necessary " spending.

eco

Hi Eco

Ooooh you are close to me as I am North Dorset, Between Sherborne & Sturminster Newton.
Nice that you have a break as its a very tough business to be in , we are close friends with a diary farmer of a similar size and i don't think they have a break. Endless.....

x

Moneywhizz wrote: »

I have been reading your diary all year too. You are doing so well with your debt busting plans. Just felt that I should pop in to say that I have been debt free for lots of years now and still use the envelope system for things that I pay cash for, like food, petrol and fun money. When the envelope is empty I don't spend, very simple, yet effective.
Budgeting only works well, however, when you have accounted for all your spends. You need to make sure you have envelopes for all your categories, and I have one for miscellaneous just in case there are any small things that crop up. Give it a try. I'm sure it will help you.

Hi Moneywhizz

Thanks for coming out of lurkdom
You are right about accounting for all the spends in the budget. I do think that I often fool myself into thinking that there doesn't need to be anything in the household category, but in reality we can't go for two years without having to buy the odd thing which falls under that category.
I definitely can't afford to put much in that pot but it does need something x

baglady1 wrote: »

Hi Steph, no I think most people have their Xmas dinner at home, but Boxing Day is when lots have BBQs. The weather contrary to popular opinion isn't always beach weather so it's easier to do it all at home. What is nice however is after Xmas dinner all the kids come out to play with their new bikes on the street (small suburban streets) & the street or backyard cricket gets going. Boxing Day is usually veg out time, leftovers, BBQs & watching the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race on tv (I'm in Hobart, capital city of Tasmania) With the long summer evenings plus daylight saving time it's a lovely time of year.

Aaah I see, nice that you have such long days of sunshine. (very jealous ). I hate the cold so much I do feel like I should have been born in a milder climate. i expect everyone feels that way.

Can't imagine having a BBQ on boxing day . Very cool x