Debt free by 40 -- 19 Months and counting

StressedSteph

Puzzcat wrote: »

Hi ss,


I also second/third/fourth the holiday on your own with the children. DD and I have been going away just the 2 of since she was about 6.. I have to say we don't do though as I've never liked not having my comfy bed and somewhere to plug my straightners into.... I am more of a somewhere..


I've not had a problem with unwanted male attention.. although I normally have my nose in a book and we now usually go to the same place so have ready made friends to 'hang' with....


Hope you have a fab half term, I know your looking forwards to it. xxxx

Hi Puzzcat,


It's good to hear that I am probably over worrying the "woman away without a man" issue :rotfl:. I am getting nearer to 40 now so don't know why I am still concerned about overly attracting the opposite sex :eek::D.


I too would much rather a sunbed on the beach type holiday, but needs must. Any break is better tha no break for me as I love the atmosphere of not having household chores to worry about etc. I can't really switch off at home, there is ALWAYS so much to do .


So glad its half term now, but unbelievably Dd is already complaining that she is bored!!!!!

mfmaybe wrote: »

Steph it's interesting to hear how well you got on with S#nt@nder. I opened an ISA with them 2 years ago and it was shambolic! Glad it's not all as bad as it seemed. Certainly seems like a good plan for you.

Not sure what to suggest about the payment date for your mortgage. If you are paid weekly can you draw up a table and plot them out? Presumably you need a couple of weeks pay combined for the mortgage (taking into account other payments too). I know I was surprised to discover that nearly everything I spent was in the first 2 weeks of a month, then there is a huge lull, with 2 final DDs just before payday.

Hi MFMAYBE,


I do think that somehow timing the mortgage payment for the week the Childrens Tax Credits goes in would be good. That seems to be the end of each month, although abit weird as its paid every four weeks, that date does change. Will have to keep an eye on it. Hoping to get its sorted in March as our accounts are starting to settle down now. Am getting past the "How am I going to pay these bills" panic. Thankfully xx

StressedSteph

Morning diary,


Hubby and I had abit of a rubbish Valentines night. We had agreed to split the cost of an Indian takeaway from our nearest town, but with all the bad weather we read on F#cebook that the road in was flooded so had to re-think. I decided to drive to a small town in the opposite direction that has some takeways. Hubby had a kebab £7.50 :silenced: and I had a Chinese £11.70. I then popped into the corner shop and bought a Chocolate Orange £3.39. Both meals were funded out of our FUN money pots and I split the cost of the Choc Orange. Unfortunately both meals were pretty disgusting, so it ended up feeling like abit of a washout and waste of money. Will definitely remember how horrible they are and not waste our money there again.

We just about survived the horrendous storm last night, but a huge branch/bough broke off a tree over our oil tank and now hubby is desperately trying to cut it down so that it doesn't hit it. That will keep him busy for the day. I went out there to help but he doesn't seem to enjoy me getting in the way :silenced:.


Paid three bills today. Argos £50, Overdraft £100 & Tesco cc £100. I am now at 11% paid for this years debt.


I have achieved February's Mini Goal of getting under 19k. I am now at £18,833. I still have my Co-op Credit card to pay so that will be another £100 before the end of February. Taking me to £18,733.
Think I will definitely set March's Mini Goal to get under 18k.
Will feel really good to go down 1k every month. Feels like I am really getting somewhere.


Think I have had abit of good news this morning. The post has just be delivered and I had a Final bill from Wessex Water. Thought this was abit odd. But it has our new address on the top but referring to our last home that we sold in 2011.
Apparently we are £162.31 in Credit :j . I thought all of that was dealt with, but I obviously missed this one.
I have tried to ring them but they are not open over the weekends. Fingers crossed this Final bill is correct and I can get a £162.31 refund. Will pay that off against our first Snowballing debt (B#rclaycard) if I do get it. :T.


Also we were invited to a party in the village tonight and I reluctantly had to put £40 into our entertainment fund to cover the cost of a baby sitter and some drink to take with us. Well, I received a text last night saying they had a stomach bug and were cancelling, hubby was sad it was cancelled, but I am :j.
Have moved that £40 into our Vehicles fund. That's the cost of an MOT :rotfl:. All this money savings malarkey doesn't make me a very exciting person but I am loving the new way I am thinking. Money seems to have much more value lately.


So all in all, a weird but quite good day so far. Hope you all got on ok last night in the winds.

maddiemay

Hi Steph
I've been having a lazy morning (think I might have a cold coming - hope that yours is getting better).

Sun is out, although we have had some showers and wind here, nothing in comparison to the north of the county and coastal areas. I stayed up until about midnight checking out facebook and local area flood and storm news for the Bridport and West Bay area, it was horrific. At one time there was no road access whatsoever from West Dorset to East Dorset as all roads were impassable because of floods, trees down, or lorries having been blown over and the residents of West Bay were evacuated to a nearby pub and the school was standing by as a further evacuation centre::eek:

Sorry about your Valentine meal, such a disappointment on two levels, financially and having looked forward to a treat.:(

Your Tax Credit should arrive in your bank account every 28 days, except when the 28th day falls at a weekend, when that happens I seem to receive my pension on the Friday preceding, with virtually everything that needs to be paid going out once per calender month it does make budgeting a bit tricky sometimes:(

Great news on the February target and hopefully the cash to come from the water company (keeping fingers crossed).

I need a few items of food, decided to go to farm shop rather than into town or the SM, although it might seem more expensive I will end up spending less without all the temptations offered by the others:T
MM xx

StressedSteph

Hi Maddiemay,


I heard that there had been some lorries over-turned. Was'nt sure exactly where. :eek:. Hopefully that is the worst of the storms over with now, although it is still incredibly windy out there right now.


Thanks for help with Tax credits, think I need to ask the mortgage company to move my DD to the last week of the month. Think that will have an impact on the interest charged, but I am planning once the debt has gone to continue paying at least half of what I paid against the debt, against the mortgage. Approx extra £400 per month.


Just abit scared at setting a definite date at the moment because I am scared to muck up and not afford it on that exact date. Got to take the plunge soon though as I know the mortgage co are not overly impressed with my DD not being set up .


Hope you got on ok at the shops. xx

misstara

Well done on getting under 19k! I definitely think setting mini targets helps keep you motivated - my current one is to get under 10k by the end of Feb.

Great news about the credit from wessex water, its always nice to get a wee surprise like that.

StressedSteph

Hi Misstara,


Thanks for stopping by. Yes it feels good to do the mini goals. We are in it for the long haul so keeping up the motivation is a big deal.


I am usually abit scared of the post, because it often brings final demands and other scary stuff. So nice to get post where someone owes us money. Very unusual

StressedSteph

Just raided the house and listed 14 items on Fleabay.
Mixture of shoes, clothes and Nintendo Wii games.

Free listings this weekend so thought I would make the most of it.

Fingers crossed they all sell.
Will be an extra payment on my Arg#s account. 1st debt being targeted.


I have to keep myself under control otherwise I get into a listing frenzy and end up selling things we still use hehe

xxx

mfmaybe

StressedSteph wrote: »

Just raided the house and listed 14 items on Fleabay.
Mixture of shoes, clothes and Nintendo Wii games.

Free listings this weekend so thought I would make the most of it.

Fingers crossed they all sell.
Will be an extra payment on my Arg#s account. 1st debt being targeted.


I have to keep myself under control otherwise I get into a listing frenzy and end up selling things we still use hehe

xxx

Haha I know that feeling! Also, I need to hide things from Mr Maybe. He just saw the small pile of things to list, which included 2 tiny things of his that he has never used. I've deemed them clutter; he has suddenly decided they are his favourite things ever. :cool:

Great news on the possible credit. Amazing they actually contacted you after all this time. :T

debtfreewannabe321

Yay to the money (hopefully) coming back to you :T and well done for allocating to a debt rather than fun money

Fab news on getting below 19K :T You are doing a great job! Can you imagine if you keep this pace up you could be below 15k for summer, how great would that feel :j .

I've made around £15 on FB over the last week on bits I wouldn't have got £5 for on fleabay so i'm happy. De-cluttered and made pennies I'm determined to keep on top of the clutter now so that next year will be super easy to pack everything up when we move.

Have a lovely Sunday

StressedSteph

mfmaybe wrote: »

Haha I know that feeling! Also, I need to hide things from Mr Maybe. He just saw the small pile of things to list, which included 2 tiny things of his that he has never used. I've deemed them clutter; he has suddenly decided they are his favourite things ever. :cool:

Great news on the possible credit. Amazing they actually contacted you after all this time. :T

Haha this made me laugh. The pile of Wii games that haven't been played for well over a year were on my table last night. Dd came up and started asking if she could play one of the games :mad:. Too late

debtfreewannabe321 wrote: »

Yay to the money (hopefully) coming back to you :T and well done for allocating to a debt rather than fun money

Fab news on getting below 19K :T You are doing a great job! Can you imagine if you keep this pace up you could be below 15k for summer, how great would that feel :j .

I've made around £15 on FB over the last week on bits I wouldn't have got £5 for on fleabay so i'm happy. De-cluttered and made pennies I'm determined to keep on top of the clutter now so that next year will be super easy to pack everything up when we move.

Have a lovely Sunday

Hi DFW,


Yes got to throw any unexpected money towards the debt as I am half telling myself to pay off 1k per month, but we only really have around £800. So I have to try to find that extra £200 every month, which isn't always going to be very easy.


Hubby earnt an extra £300 a few weeks ago, but we ran out of heating oil so it was better spent on 500 litres of oil to get us to the warmer weather. Annoying though, would have been lovely to pay that off against a debt.


Everything I have listed should hopefully make around £4-£5 each fingers crossed. So even on the conservative side I should get around £50 if they all sell.:T


15k by the summer would be amazing, just need a really uneventful year, with no emergencies, then I should hopefully be around the 10k mark come Christmas. That would feel completely possible to kill off during 2015 . Just got to hope "sods law" doesn't crop up anywhere