Debt free by 40 -- 19 Months and counting

StressedSteph

Wow thank you everyone. I really must get out of the mindset that I am being silly or sad doing these money saving things.
Like you said MaddieMay, I guess it is quite old style to Make Do and Mend.

I must check out the old Style moneysaving side of the forums, I always stick here in the DFW area because I know I am safe with you lovely guys :beer:.

I already do alot of Money saving things without thinking now. I use an egg cup to measure out my washing detergent. I always keep a spare fabric conditioner bottle and when I buy a new bottle, I dilute it 50/50 so that it lasts long.
I make my own bread for sandwiches every day, works out a 34p a loaf, but it is also a petrol saver as I never run out of bread making it myself, so no rush to drive to shops to stock up.

Will start diluting other things like conditioner and shampoo etc, never thought to spread my diluting to other areas .

I have an issue that is going to rear its ugly head during February at some point. We only have two bars left on our heating oil level :eek:.
The plan was to put £100 away each month to cover heating oil, but because of my crummy budgeting late last year and also us playing catch up with bounced direct Debits in January, we have NO heating oil budget.
500 litres is about £330 :eek:. We have started using up the free wood we have in the shed to light the fire every night to take the pressure off the heating oil, but its not going to last us all the way to spring.

I am going to have to have a look around the house to see if there is somethings I can start selling, otherwise we are going to be very cold come the end of February.

Always something isn't there.

maddiemay

The heating oil situation is a bit of a downer, I hope that you find a way round it somehow.

Do you use handwash or soap in your bathrooms? a lot of the old stylers buy the very cheapest bottles of shower gel from the big SMs and decant it into the dispensers, if you use bar soap try and buy it in advance and chuck it into the airing cupboard or somewhere else warm for a few weeks, it hardens and lasts ages longer when in use.
Any meals using mince, like Chilli or Spag Bol, shove a couple of handfuls of porridge oats in before you add any stock or sauce and mix up well, when cooked it bulks up the meal, you cannot tell it is there and it also adds a healthy slow release carb element to the meal. A tin of baked beans added to a beef casserole make it a "cowboy" casserole and again makes the meat go further. I am sure that you know these, but it might help someone else who reads.:D

StressedSteph

Hi Maddiemay,

Oooh yes I forgot, I do decant cheap bath foam into the dispensers already, but love the idea of adding some porridge oats into mince dishes. I will defintely try that next time. Might help it spread to two meals as well, if it bulks it up.

Fab thank you hun xx

mizmir

Some great money saving tips - thanks here too! Bad news about the oil. If you have a wood burning fire can you get more wood from somewhere cheaper? We're currently burning old fence wood and pallets - these were our own but it is the sort of thing you might find on Freecycle/Freegle. Plus I collect logs from the woods when out with the dogs - if you have a public forest near you, a trip up to pick up some fallen logs and branches can give you several days firewood. Not a solution but might delay the need for oil a bit longer.

GreenNinja

StressedSteph wrote: »

Hi all,


Well Ds came home from school happy, claiming lots of his friends loved his shoes and wanted some themselves. Phew....dodged that bullet. Was nice to get a "Mummy told you so" quote in haha.

Postman has just been and I am very annoyed. I got a reminder last year to pay November & Decembers Council tax, which I paid and was told I just had Januarys to finish off the year.
I know Council Tax is supposed to be paid on the 1st of every month, but I had scheduled it to be paid WITHIN January and thought this would be ok.
well in the post today is a bloomin Summons for non-payment of Council Tax :mad:.
It can be paid straight away without it going to court but now got £48 added onto it for Summons costs.
Aaaaargggghhhhhhh Why are companies so inflexible.

I will get it paid, but so annoyed with them and myself for now having an extra £48 to pay. Teaches me I suppose.
I always read how inflexible Council tax was but didn't think it was this ridiculously mean.

Signing off to cool down for a while. xxxx

In my experience the best thing to do with the council tax is call them in advance explain you can't pay on the date, arrange to pay on the day can you pay and they will adjust their system and send out a new bill. I have just done this as had to spend £400 unexpectedly on my boiler last November so instead of my last 2 council tax payments being Dec and Jan they are now Jan and Feb. This will then mean you are not paying extra costs x

StressedSteph

Thanks Mizmir, Think we might have enough wood fingers crossed. During the storms we had a few weeks back, a really tall Damson tree fell down. Hubby has yet to chainsaw it up and get it in the shed, but think that's a priority now. I know its green wood, but beggars can't be choosers .


Thanks for looking in GreenNinja. I was really angry with the council tax because it was only Januarys final payment I was outstanding and it was the first week in January!!. Very tough I feel, but then I HAD been slow to pay earlier in the year and I think it was two strikes and you're out kind of deal.

Its all paid now. I sucked up the cost and paid the extra £48 court summons paperwork fee, so its all done.

Now I am with the S#ntander 123 account where you get cashback from your council tax and other bills, I am going to have to have a Direct debit set up for it. as only bills paid via DD will count in the cashback set up. In the long run this will be better, so I won't be tempted to pay a different bill rather than the Council Tax from now on. They are not nice customers to mess about with.


Thanks loads for your help. xxx

mfmaybe

Very impressed with your lateral thinking on the face cloths. It all counts!

I feel your pain on the heating oil. We are on LPG which is even worse as we can't switch suppliers very easily. Last time I asked for a half fill and they did a full tank :eek:. Luckily they agreed to defer half the payment as it was about £1k in total. Sadly it's nearly empty so it will be time to order again. We too try to use the fire. Once we are out of winter we are going to invest in a woodburner so that we can heat a bit more space than the living room alone. But that's more about comfort and how we use our home, it won't really be a financially profitable move I don't think.

StressedSteph

mfmaybe wrote: »

Very impressed with your lateral thinking on the face cloths. It all counts!

I feel your pain on the heating oil. We are on LPG which is even worse as we can't switch suppliers very easily. Last time I asked for a half fill and they did a full tank :eek:. Luckily they agreed to defer half the payment as it was about £1k in total. Sadly it's nearly empty so it will be time to order again. We too try to use the fire. Once we are out of winter we are going to invest in a woodburner so that we can heat a bit more space than the living room alone. But that's more about comfort and how we use our home, it won't really be a financially profitable move I don't think.

Hi mfmaybe,

Its such a struggle at the moment. I definately feel like I am making some headway with bills that I have stacked up and tried to ignore, but there is always something I have forgotten. And the oil is quite a biggie.

As long as I can keep to my budget for about three months, without any disasters then we should be on top of all the bills and be able to start putting small amounts away to our savings pots.

Just got to hope that sods law does'nt lend a hand to ruin my plans like it has done in the past.

Good luck with your LPg, nice to know we arn't the only ones trying to limp through to the Spring with some firewood etc;)

debtfreewannabe321

Love all the Money saving ideas on here :T I also cut ends off creams/toothpastes etc or use water to dilute. My mum & nan have always done it so I think it's something i've always seen but probably not put into practice until I found my way here !

Great idea with the face cloths! I needed new tea towels and cut up an old bath towel (that i'd accidentally spilt bleach all over and had a great big gaping hole in the middle :rotfl:) and I now use those as my tea towels :T they are much thicker than usual ones too so even better .

Not good news about DH's lost money, I hope it doesn't affect your budget and he can make it up elsewhere.

P.s I'm using the YNAB thing still but not put anything into it yet as I was getting all confused so decided to start afresh for Feb and deleted all January's stuff that i'd put in. Is it me or is it tricky to get the hang of.. I know i'm a bit of a ditz but honestly it had me totally stumped :rotfl:

StressedSteph

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

Love all the Money saving ideas on here :T I also cut ends off creams/toothpastes etc or use water to dilute. My mum & nan have always done it so I think it's something i've always seen but probably not put into practice until I found my way here !

Great idea with the face cloths! I needed new tea towels and cut up an old bath towel (that i'd accidentally spilt bleach all over and had a great big gaping hole in the middle :rotfl:) and I now use those as my tea towels :T they are much thicker than usual ones too so even better .

Not good news about DH's lost money, I hope it doesn't affect your budget and he can make it up elsewhere.

P.s I'm using the YNAB thing still but not put anything into it yet as I was getting all confused so decided to start afresh for Feb and deleted all January's stuff that i'd put in. Is it me or is it tricky to get the hang of.. I know i'm a bit of a ditz but honestly it had me totally stumped :rotfl:

Hi DFW,

You are not on your own with the YNAB system. I had to watch all the video tutorials and read through some of the forum postings to get it straight in my head. I too am looking forward to February because I started YNAB half way through January and it has been tricky to keep up with what has been paid and what hasn't.

How are you paid? Weekly or Monthly?

We are paid weekly, so I set the budgt out with Week1 / Week2/ Week3 / Week3 master categories and then listed all my Direct Debits etc in sub-categories under each week.

The titles of each sub category I will type it like this
Electricity (15th-£100). This always reminds me what date the DD comes out and what the amount is. That helped me remember.

Then I set out Master categories for Food / Fuel and other flexible things, like FUN money etc. With weekly Sub-categories under each title.

I will stop now because I might not be making any sense.

Perservere with YNAB because it has clicked with me now and I wonder how i ever managed without it.

xxxx