Debt free by 40 -- 19 Months and counting

maddiemay

Hi Steph
Just a quick thought, in a rush this morning.

If you have an Aldi anywhere, their dishwasher tablets are "Which" recommended, also try cutting any dishwasher tablet in half and using that. For most areas this works really well. Our water here is rated as hard, but the half tablet is fine. Not sure if this would work with cheapie tablets, where we lived before the water was rock hard and had to buy decent tabs, but the Aldi were great there too.

Have a good day, catch up later.

MM xx

FinanciallyUnsavvy

Hi Steph

Things are sounding fabulous here! So pleased to hear all bills are paid this month - and £249 in savings in YNAB pots is fantastic! :j

Well done on the £75 ebay sales - excellent going. I'm confident the Skylanders will sell for a fair bit too, they usually are good sellers. If any don't sell, you should relist them as a bundle - they tend to be quite popular.

I hope the missing £100 is found soon by the bank. How annoying that is - I'm sure I've done it before though with a phone bill, its so easily done, and banking systems aren't always the most user-friendly to make sure you've got the right payee in there!

Hope you have a great day - keep up the good work
xx

Chrysalis1976

Hi sounds like you are making fabulous progress and even with the mistake of the payment you have managed to cope with this and move on (although I do hope the payment comes back quickly).

Well done, keep it going!

C x

PlymouthDad

good morning, im sooo envious of the fact you are so in control! I can't wait...im getting there though. Do you grow your own veg? do you have any tips for a complete newbie like me? Thought it would be fun and relatively cheap for me and kids to start a little patch in our garden

StressedSteph

Hi all


Wow thanks for all the replies.


Hi MM
We do have a Lidl but it is a 30 mile round trip so ruins any saving on fuel costs .
Our water is rock hard and noticing even with a whole cheapy tablet the glass's come out quite cloudy. I try to keep a look out for discounted glass conditioner stuff, but run out at the moment.
Will get some cheapy stuff from Mr T tomorrow and try to put away £20 in a pot for a Cash & Carry trip to buy some bulk washing powder.
Can't complain, I can't remember when I last bought washing powder, I use an egg cup to measure it out so a large box last for what feels like a whole year :T

Hi Kim
Thanks for all the kind words, I do feel in control at the moment and all is going well. I chatted to hubby last night about me trying to put as much as possible away into our Emergency & Vehicles pots as I know that the July MOT's are probably going to be super expensive. I also told him how I REALLY didn't want to break into the Birthdays & Christmas's pots under any circumstances and he seems on board with my ideas. Trying to tell him stuff rather than keeping it all to myself, so when I have a wobble he will be in the picture and be able to help keep us on track. Fingers Crossed


Hi Chrysalis,
Hopefully that £100 will come back into my account soon and then I will try to send it straight back to B#rclays (with the right details ) so that I end up paying £150 this month. Trying to turn my mistake into a positive. x


Hi Plymouth Dad,
I do feel in control, but its very tenuous, if you know what I mean. One false move and we could be right back in the mess again. I operate well in panic mode, we are now just this month moving out of that phase into the loooong boring phase of just plodding on paying off the debts bit by bit. I have to be careful here, because in the past I have gotten bored, stopped posting on MSE and then fell straight off my budget. Its amazing how quickly you can undo every bit of hard work you have achieved. I mean business this time


Thanks so much everyone for posting, it means loads to me to know that I am not just waffling away to myself. You words of encouragement mean the world to me.

Just back from town. Banked the cheque and posted off Eb#y parcels. Total postage ended up being £14 so made an extra £6 on delivery charges :T.


Treated the children to a Happy Meal each out of my FUN money because they behaved so well.


Need to get washing machine going again and get cleaning this mess of a house.


Take care all.


Ps. Posted my CPP letter, apparently we should hear with 8 weeks. I have no clue what payment protection this was for but if they are will to pay me some money then I won't complain

misstara

Hi Steph,

Congratulations on getting your first debt paid off :T must be an amazing feeling!

Hope you get some good news from the CCP letter you posted.

debtfreewannabe321

Hey Steph just catching up

I second what Maddie says, I use the a1di dishwasher tablets and they are great. I always snap them in half too. For the rinse aid section I have always used white vinegar and my glasses come out sparkly clean. It acts as a de-scaler too to keep the dishwasher in tip top condition. Our area is hard water too.

Well done on the money saved, and all the debt payments. You are doing a super job :T

I've found some seeds I must have bought ages ago, in the car of all places! I'm going to try and grow them this year as opposed to last year where all my plants died I've got cabbage, cucumber, tomatoes and something else i've forgotten?! Hope I can grow them this time around, trouble with our teeny garden is there isn't much sun at all so that's probably half my problem!

Hope you have a lovely day (and everyone else reading)

mizmir

You are doing great! And congratulations on zapping that first debt - brilliant! :T:T:T

StressedSteph

Thanks for your replies all.


Have been super busy the last few days, so feel like I haven't had time to catch up with everyone's diaries as much as I would like. Sorry about that. I will get over to them soon I promise.


Feeling abit pulled in all directions at the moment but not overly achieving anything.
The sun is shining so I ought to be gardening
The house needs tidying and sorting out
My craft business has been abit abandoned a need to getting going again on that.
Aaargh

Have been digging holes at the school this week for these 11 fruit trees I purchased. Just this morning I delivered 11 2" poles up to school, I have roped in a kind dad to come and hammer them into the ground. Don't think I have enough muscle to tackle that job.
Then hopefully at the end of the week we will have a big tree planting morning, getting them all in the ground.
I have counted up the cost and with the trees, stakes & ties it is just short of £100 :eek:. Glad all the purchasing is finished now so that I can draw a line under it and move on.


The end of February has seen my resolve slip ever so slightly I am £50 over my monthly target food budget. Mostly from having friends over twice in one month and just slightly going over my £60 limit per week.
I have also seem to have spent around £30 on misc bits


Feeling annoyed with myself, but I am dusting myself off. Accepting that it is spent and too late. Going to finish February and then start fresh in March, with a definitely plan to not have any misc overspends.

Its a slippy slope once you allow yourself the odd want not need purchase. It seems to open the flood gates to allow more.

I am bolting those door firmly now and that will be the end of it.

Thankfully it doesn't seem to have overly impacted the bank account. But it wouldn't take long for me to not meet a bill if I kept doing it . Don't want to go there again.

StressedSteph

Ps. I can't remember how to do a STRIKE through in my signature?
I will be paying off Arg#s at the end of this week and want to put a line through it in my signature but I can't remember how to do it?