Debt free by 40 -- 19 Months and counting

StressedSteph

Hi all


Sorry I have been abit AWOL.


Had a busy weekend, feeding lambs, hubby home under my feet all day Saturday, took children and friends to see Big Hero 6 on the cinema, Sowed a load of Chilli seeds and generally pottered around.


Sunday was spent mopping up sick (TMI sorry). Dd had a terrible tummy bug and felt really sorry for herself all day. Hubby was golfing all day (typical!) so didn't get much chance to sit and type.


Lambs are all doing well, seeds are sprouting and I have 24 fertile (hopefully) eggs in the incubator. Spring has sprung here in Dorset.


Dd is feeling much better today, I can tell because she is nagging me . she wants a friend round, but fails to understand that even though she feels well she could still pass the bug on and no parent is going to want to send their child to our house atm.


Bank is all balanced against YNAB, hubbies wages have now covered all direct debits for the month. Just need more money now to pay the mortgage and the debts. Abit nervous that I only have 1 weeks wages and tax credits to pay all of that. Going to be a big squeeze.


I have a treatment booked tonight and inlaws have agreed to have the children Wednesday morning so I can do my cleaning job. Its very rare for them to have the children and even more rare for me to ask, but they have been asking a lot of favours from me recently so I felt I could ask one from them.


Need to do a food shop today, but will leave it until tonight so I don't have to drag two moaning children round with me.


Hope you are all well.


xxxx

Verbatim

All busy as usual there then. Hope your dd continues to improve. Sounded awful for her, and you. I haven't sown any seeds yet but think I must see what I've got and maybe get some courgettes going.
Can't remember if you said what the outcome of your oh's consultant visit was. Does he have a date yet for his op?
Well done on all dds paid. Don't worry if debt destruction has to take a back seat for a little while as I'm sure you'll be firing on all cylinders once you're eating from the garden.
V

StressedSteph

Verbatim wrote: »

All busy as usual there then. Hope your dd continues to improve. Sounded awful for her, and you. I haven't sown any seeds yet but think I must see what I've got and maybe get some courgettes going.
Can't remember if you said what the outcome of your oh's consultant visit was. Does he have a date yet for his op?
Well done on all dds paid. Don't worry if debt destruction has to take a back seat for a little while as I'm sure you'll be firing on all cylinders once you're eating from the garden.
V

Hi Verbatim


Oh's appointment went well, and apparently the waiting list is 4-5 months!!. I am carrying on as if op date is soon so can get the money saved up asap. Although with heating Oil delivery and hubbys work being abit thin on the ground I am not making much headway.


Typical when I need to save money asap it all dries up!.


I will just keep being as frugal as possible and saving every penny. I can't do much more.


xxxx

Verbatim

Could you suggest your OH puts some of his "extra" money towards his time convalescing?

StressedSteph

Verbatim wrote: »

Could you suggest your OH puts some of his "extra" money towards his time convalescing?

If only verbatim. I struggle keeping hubby on his £20 allowance every week. We both have £20 per week and he uses all of that on skittles. He then tries to play badminton every Thursday and golf once a month :mad:.

He saves up spare change for his badminton nights most of the time but we have to find an extra £20 for golf once a month,

It is all very annoying. Although he thinks I buy lots of bits through the month but most of it is items needed for the children or food for the pets, or just misc items that are needed. Never treats for me.

Ok will stop moaning now, but any attempt to stop the £20 would be hit with alot of moaning so no chance there.:(

xxxx

StressedSteph

Hi all,

Been a busy half term so far. Managed to get my cleaning job done this morning by dropping the children off at inlaws for two hours.

Had abit of a disaster during my last treatment. Half way through the lady nearly fainted and we had to stop the treatment. I got her a drink of water and helped her back to her room, but I have no clue if I will be paid for it or not.

I have another treatment tomorrow morning and will ask then if she ended up paying for the treatment. Annoying :mad:

Money is super short atm, and we will be lucky to get all the bills paid this month. Think I need to sit down and re-do the budget.

Maybe I will do the MSE budget which sets out wether you are in a negative or positive at the end of each month. I know we are over spending on life's misc items that crop up all the time and I do need to find a way to stop those little bits that add up to running out of money at the end of each month.

Feel I have taken my eye off the ball this last week or so. Plan on getting back on track next week once the children are back in school. I really want to try to find some Ebay-able items and get those extra bits of cash coming in.

Will report back with what I discover with the budget.

xxx

debtfreewannabe321

Hi Steph! How are you?! I see money is short in your house too....seems to be a theme in mine too atm, hoping it's just because of a few big bills we had and half term. Thankfully Feb is a short month! I haven't read everything I missed as I think it might take me forever anything major I missed? Please fill me in I take it at the end of this month a congrats will be in order as you get under the 10k going by your signature??? Fab work and so glad to see you're still at it! How's the ynab going? I've had to reset it all again (this is about the third time since I bought this laptop :mad: not impressed as the dropbox didn't seem to work )Anyway I have so many of you to catch up on I will leave it there for now xx

StressedSteph

Hi


Thanks for stopping by DFW. You haven't missed much


Well I have just done the MSE budget planner and I have a monthly overspend of £238 :eek:.


This is with all my debt repayments of a minimum of £650, all usual bills and savings of £20 per week into three categories - Birthdays, Christmas & Car Maintenance).


If I take out the savings then we just about break even but that isn't really preparing for future large events is it.


What is even more scary is there are countless other bits I end up paying out for that are not included in this budget.


Ds's £120 school trip in March (Been paying £35 per month)
Clothes for the children
New school Shoes
Breakdowns of household appliances etc.




Aaaarrrrggghhhh :mad:


Admittedly I didn't add in my Spa treatment money because I have no clue how much I earn. 1 month I could not hear from them for two weeks and then I get 3-4 treatments in one week.


Looking at the budget here are the few things I think I can cut down.


Cancel childrens Swimming Lessons £46 pm
Cut down SKY again (Hubby wont let me cancel / Already had that argument)
Cut down food bill (currently £80 per month)
Can't cancel mobiles as both in long contracts till end of next year.


Can't see what else I can cut down without starting to cancel important stuff like Health and life insurance.


I just need to up my income somehow. Also definitely need to put a stop to all the dribbles of money going out the account.


I get so frustrated with being poor

debtfreewannabe321

But you won't be poor for long, just keep looking ahead!
I got rid of sky & virgin and we have been so happy with our freeview box. I pay the £9.99 a month for movies as we do love movies in our house but if i'm broke one month I just cancel it with no notice and it's fine. The initial outlay of the box was well worth it! Perhaps try again on him...show him a few options of how far they've come along in recent years. I save £50 a month now on phone/internet/tv and although we've lost the sky channels we haven't missed anything major....


I would still put some money in the car maintenance but xmas/birthdays can always be made up another time when you're feeling more flush? What is your estimated DF date will it be before xmas? If so just think you'll have a load of extra cash in those months running up to it to top up funds like that?


Keep smiling and taking the agnus castus (she's my new best friend lol) xxx

StressedSteph

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

But you won't be poor for long, just keep looking ahead!
I got rid of sky & virgin and we have been so happy with our freeview box. I pay the £9.99 a month for movies as we do love movies in our house but if i'm broke one month I just cancel it with no notice and it's fine. The initial outlay of the box was well worth it! Perhaps try again on him...show him a few options of how far they've come along in recent years. I save £50 a month now on phone/internet/tv and although we've lost the sky channels we haven't missed anything major....

I would still put some money in the car maintenance but xmas/birthdays can always be made up another time when you're feeling more flush? What is your estimated DF date will it be before xmas? If so just think you'll have a load of extra cash in those months running up to it to top up funds like that?

Keep smiling and taking the agnus castus (she's my new best friend lol) xxx

Thanks for the reply DFW,


If it was just me on my own I would happily cancel SKY, hubby seems to be football mad though so watches all the matches on SKY I have no hope. I could cancel the movies though, that might save £5 per month


Our DFD is looking more like Spring 2016 atm. It all depends on how quickly I can get hubbys operation money saved up (He needs 2 weeks off work soon) and also our 1k Emergency fund. God knows when I can save that.

I am now aiming more on the loophole of still being debt free by 40, but maybe just before my 41st birthday in July 2016

I don't know. I think I just need to really tighten our belts again, I have breathed a little easier lately and took the kids and two friends to the cinema and treated Dd to new jeans & a Tshirt in Tesco the other week. These bits HAVE to stop.

It doesn't take much to totally ruin the budget.


I think you are right about putting Christmas & Birthdays savings on Hold for the moment. Our first expensive birthday isn't until September and I might have gotten a lot sorted by then.


Think I might also cancel the childrens swimming lessons as that also costs me a lot extra in fuel driving to big town.


I am also wondering about going back to home delivery of food.
As much as I like selecting my own bits, at least if the food shop goes too expensive, I can easily go through the shopping list and cancel bits off. Its quite hard doing that once its in the bottom of the trolley. When I was doing that I often got the food bill down around the £60 mark. the last few weeks I have been lucky if the food bill was much under £100 :eek:


I am sure it is all in my head but have been taking the Agnus Castus for about 1 week now and I already think I feel brighter.
I am not bothered if it is real or imagined as long as I feel good.
I have noticed that I seem to be enjoying the "moment" more lately rather than thinking "If only". Does that makes sense?


Anyways enough gabbling from me. xxx