Debt free by 40 -- 19 Months and counting

Magsnoodle

Good luck with your planning for the week ahead. There will always be something though that comes about that can knock this to one side. I am a fanatic for planning meals - comes from Slimming world years and there are just some nights when you can't be ar%$d..... Don't beat yourself up about it though.

Have a great weekend. xx

Ciaerda

I do a food plan at the same time as my online shop for a whole week. My family thing that I am mad as I have a meal planner on the sleeve of my folder where I put all my recipes and I have a whiteboard marker pen so I put what we are going to have to eat next to the day. My problem is my meal planner can sometimes be a bit boring chilli, spag bog so I love coming on here to get inspiration of what to cook - I think Steph you do amazingly well, my budget is £300 for hubby, myself and 2 growing boys it is a struggle and school holidays don't help I have only got £36 left of that budget so I am going to have to get a bit creative me thinks.

You are right aswell about not getting stuff out of the freezer that can sometimes be really annoying

Have a good weekend

bess1234_2

Well blow me!

After re arranging all my banking to fit ynab, and trying to keep wages aside for an extra week to use next month, I've just done my first week reconciliation and it makes sense:T:). This could work. The biggest benefit after one week is that I don't have to add it all up on bits of paper- I was always making mistakes that way::o . It's done for me. Can't wait until the end of the month to see if it is still working. It seems to have enforced some simplicity into my financial mental gymnastics, which can only be a good thing .

Thank you , your continuous posts made me persevere. :T

StressedSteph

Magsnoodle wrote: »

Good luck with your planning for the week ahead. There will always be something though that comes about that can knock this to one side. I am a fanatic for planning meals - comes from Slimming world years and there are just some nights when you can't be ar%$d..... Don't beat yourself up about it though.

Have a great weekend. xx

Thanks Magsnoodle. It seems abit like juggling, I am always dropping one bll while I am concentrating on keeping the others in the air hehe

Ciaerda wrote: »

I do a food plan at the same time as my online shop for a whole week. My family thing that I am mad as I have a meal planner on the sleeve of my folder where I put all my recipes and I have a whiteboard marker pen so I put what we are going to have to eat next to the day. My problem is my meal planner can sometimes be a bit boring chilli, spag bog so I love coming on here to get inspiration of what to cook - I think Steph you do amazingly well, my budget is £300 for hubby, myself and 2 growing boys it is a struggle and school holidays don't help I have only got £36 left of that budget so I am going to have to get a bit creative me thinks.

You are right aswell about not getting stuff out of the freezer that can sometimes be really annoying

Have a good weekend

Thanks for posting hun,
I must own up though, We do slightly cheat Ciaerda. We rear our own meat, so we are currently eating meat joints out of two massive chest freezers, so our shopping bills is minus the cost of meat which I think is quite a biggie. £60 per week works for us, IF and only if I stay organised. I manage for a couple of months and then life gets busy and I take my eye off the ball.


Will def get back on track this weekend x

bess1234 wrote: »

Well blow me!

After re arranging all my banking to fit ynab, and trying to keep wages aside for an extra week to use next month, I've just done my first week reconciliation and it makes sense:T:). This could work. The biggest benefit after one week is that I don't have to add it all up on bits of paper- I was always making mistakes that way::o . It's done for me. Can't wait until the end of the month to see if it is still working. It seems to have enforced some simplicity into my financial mental gymnastics, which can only be a good thing .

Thank you , your continuous posts made me persevere. :T

:beer: Fantastic news Bess, so glad you are finding a way to make YNAB work for you. I can't imagine NOT having it now, or how I ever managed to know where I was before it.


Keep going, let me know how you get on. xxx

Julie54321

Steph all companies would take a huge reduction on the money owed if you could pay it off quickly. If you owe for example £5,000 they would take £1000 and close account. Perhaps you would be better off trying to do this than the battle you face. Good luck

Julie

StressedSteph

Ok guys, I need your advice and wisdom.

How do you deal with jealousy?? and by Jealousy, I mean me being jealous of other people .

I've been cleaning the house all day, and during scrubbing the toilets, I received a text message from one of my best friends.It was one of those messages that pretend to be asking how you are, but are really just a way to tell you their latest news. .

I am already abit sad about this friend as she lives about 20 minutes away from me, but we go back a long way. Well the last few years she has made a friend that lives round the corner from her and they seem to be in each others pockets. I don't get to see her much anymore because she works full-time and it seems any spare time she does have is filled with the new friend she has round the corner. They have friends in the same school and share babysitting etc, so its easy for her. But it does make me feel abit left out in the cold .

Well she text me this afternoon and said that she was off looking at ponies today with the new friend because her friend was looking for a replacement pony for her daughter. She then said that she was also thinking of renting her friends old pony from her for her daughter.

I don't know if any of this is making sense and I put the phone back in my pocket and carried on cleaning, but it wasn't until an hour or so later that I recognised that I was now feeling in a bad mood and that it was because I felt jealous of my friend.

Jealous because I feel that I am not needed by her anymore because what little spare time she has is easily filled by the new friend, and also jealous because she is renting a pony for her daughter, which I could never dream of affording at the moment.

I KNOW this is all really silly, I have plenty of other good friends so not overly sure why I am letting this bother me so much.

Think I just need to buck up and stop being silly.

I just wondered how you guys dealt with jealousy over friends telling you about their new purchases etc?


Re-reading this makes me sound 18 now 38, but I will commit to posting it as its how I have felt today.

StressedSteph

Julie54321 wrote: »

Steph all companies would take a huge reduction on the money owed if you could pay it off quickly. If you owe for example £5,000 they would take £1000 and close account. Perhaps you would be better off trying to do this than the battle you face. Good luck

Julie

Hi Julie,


I must admit, Virgin did offer to work out a Full and Final settlement figure, but I just don't know how to find that few thousand it would cost to pay them off.


Maybe when I have killed off these little debts and I am down to the last two biggies. I might consider saving up a few thousand and calling them up.


At the moment though, I think we are trapped.


Thanks for suggesting it though. If only we had a rich and generous relative somewhere hehe.

Ams40

Just think about your friend might be in debt or get herself into debt to rent the pony. Just think of your end goal which is getting nearer by the day then text her to say you BROUGHT a pony:j

I still can't see how your signature adds up or am I going mad? The Next figure must be upto date as that's the one your are hitting but the others.... Are they exactly correct as of today as I don't think I have seen them change although they must be automatically going down because of the normal monthly payments. Or am I missing something completely here? Confused. Sorry !

Chrysalis1976

Steph, I have friends who seem to have lots of spare money and family who have lots of money but when I look at their lives compared to mine it reminds me that it's not about what we have but what we do with our time. In fact I have literally just had this conversation with my dh, we are our most happiest when we are out on the canoe or camping, or walking in the hills. All low cost activities, many people are jealous in our world because we get out and do it but hey if they wanted to they could and we don't do it for show but because WE want to.

There's a family across the road who have a massive tv on their wall (it's that big that you can't fail to miss it), it irks us not because we don have one but because we work bloody hard and then see people like this who don't work can afford to splash out!

In terms of feeling neglected, it's only natural if she's been your friend for a long time but why would she send you the text. To share her excitement or make you jealous? only you know your friend.

I've got to the stage (38 this coming Thursday) that I can't be doing with messing around with people of looking at what they have, which possibly could be on credit anyway.

Maybe she doesn't realise that you're left out?

Look at what you've got around you and give yourself a big pat on the back for what you've achieved.

C x

StressedSteph

Ams40 wrote: »

Just think about your friend might be in debt or get herself into debt to rent the pony. Just think of your end goal which is getting nearer by the day then text her to say you BROUGHT a pony:j

I still can't see how your signature adds up or am I going mad? The Next figure must be upto date as that's the one your are hitting but the others.... Are they exactly correct as of today as I don't think I have seen them change although they must be automatically going down because of the normal monthly payments. Or am I missing something completely here? Confused. Sorry !

Hi AMS,


I double checked my figures and I must admit to being £12 out somehow. I will double check against statement to see where i'm wrong.


All the other debts go down each month, but as I am only paying the minimum amount on them I guess it barely shows. The original starting amount is shown in red.


xxx