pickle me's diary

pickle_me

eco_farmer wrote: »

no problem, the whole point of these boards is to (hopefully) give good advice when its asked for, to be supportive and BIG up success when you see it and you to me have got clearly defined goals which you are achieving :beer:

Well thank you

And thank you aartisuk too! I never actually sat down and priced a loaf of homemade bread before but since a 1.5kg bag of flour is 75p, and will make almost 4 loaves (the recipe I use calls for 400g per loaf), I make that 20p's-worth of flour; and the other ingredients (salt, milk powder, sugar, yeast, butter) are in tiny quantities and cost literally pennies. So I'd have a guess at 25p per loaf. A bit smaller than your average supermarket loaf and we get through probably two a week but still, that's got to rival the cheapest supermarket bread, and the quality is so much better. We actually finish the homemade loaves whereas we'd get maybe halfway through a supermarket loaf, then it would be so dry as to be almost inedible, and I found even frozen to make it last, it didn't taste particularly nice once defrosted. I used to throw away lots of bread - now it can be a struggle to spare any to feed the ducks :rotfl:

I'd never make it by hand though, I'm far too lazy - it's all about the bread machine. So you have the initial outlay of that (mine was given to me, fortunately) but it's so worth it. I'll never go back to buying bread in a shop again.

I was feeling very despondent a few days ago. Having gone overdrawn last month, just a few days after payday this month I was overdrawn again, not by much but it meant that there was no leeway for any extra bits and pieces for the rest of the month, nothing spontaneous, no little treats for the kids Getting out of my car I managed to catch my car door on that of my neighbour's, breaking the plastic cover of her indicator light in the process. And I've had toothache since Sunday meaning an unscheduled trip to the dentist. I have one social engagement this month, a school reunion of all things, and was dreading having to pay for lunch at the reunion (just a pub lunch, so not expensive, but still), plus the damage to my neighbour's car, plus my dental work ...

And then, miraculously ... a cheque through the post. It never happens when you really need it - except just sometimes it does! My parents bought shares for me many years ago - I don't really think of them as mine to do with as I want, as I know they were bought as a long-term investment for me, and also because my parents are very generous and I feel very strongly that I don't want to rely on their generosity - I'm an adult and should be able to take care of my family myself. (I'm very grateful of course) But this was a dividend cheque for £207, which is an absolute fortune to me right now and will get me back into the black as well as paying for my neighbour's car (only £12 as it turns out, thank goodness) and my poor tooth (extraction at a cost of £50 - but preferable to a complicated, can't-be-done-on-the-NHS root canal and reconstruction at an estimated £700-800 :eek: ) and a few other things that are coming up this month.

It will also enable me to top up my emergency savings to cover my September shortfall - I'm still planning furiously to make sure I'll have enough saved up, which I should, comfortably *touch wood*

I must update my signature too, now we're officially under £10k :T but first I'm going to copy my May signature for posterity. I think it's Stressed Steph who does this and it's a great idea, I wish I'd done it from the start.

LBM October 2013: 3 credit cards £8306.60 / £3280.83 / £3605.69 Total £15193.12

May 2014: £3789.89 / £3015.54 / £3269.69 Total £10075.12

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pickle_me

Signature updated: HELLO JUNE!

Hello to a total debt under £10k :j

CC1, which started with the biggest balance by far - more than the other two combined - now has less than CC3

CC2 is under £3k

Ebay sales are ticking over - I'm feeling much more cheerful about current Ebay business now that I'm no longer trying to make up a £100+ shortfall by selling a few kids' clothes :rotfl: I should make £15 this week, which I'm quite happy with. I've just done a Pinecone survey so that's £3 into my Paypal account, and I've succumbed to the Swagbucks offer in Martin's email this week, so have my eye on a £15 Amazon or M&S voucher (hello new sandals for my holiday, I think )

All in all, life is good. The sun is shining, it's Friday night and I feel happy. Have a lovely weekend everyone

pickle_me

I've been looking forward to June since I started my debt-busting journey, since I first sat down and calculated how the debt would go down each month and saw that in June we would reduce our debt to four figures.

As June finally approached - my god it's been a long slow six, seven, eight months - I started to think that it wouldn't feel as good as I'd expected. Because you know, we've still got four figures of debt to pay off and another year of payments before we're clear.

But it does feel good I keep looking at my new signature and I like it. There's no stopping us now :j

in_need_of_direction

Brilliant progress. Well done on hitting four figures.

mfmaybe

And it's not just slightly under £10k, it's nearly under £9k :j

Really well done.

pickle_me

Thanks INOD and mfmaybe

I've just been filing credit card statements and enjoying seeing the minimum payment on CC1 going down:

Jan £145.52
Feb £136.43
March £119.38
April £102.32
May £85.27
June £68.21

So satisfying We're paying off £750 a month so way over the minimum anyway but it's a nice measure of how quickly the debt is dropping.

I really don't like Swagbucks. So much annoying tat on the website and so many dodgy looking offers. I'm gritting my teeth and persevering to get my £15 Amazon or M&S voucher and then I am done.

mfmaybe

pickle_me wrote: »

I really don't like Swagbucks. So much annoying tat on the website and so many dodgy looking offers. I'm gritting my teeth and persevering to get my £15 Amazon or M&S voucher and then I am done.

I feel the same. The surveys take a long time some of them, especially as you keep getting screened out, and watching the videos is incredibly slow, it only works if you can do something else at the same time. I think I'll do the same, get to a certain point then stop.

pickle_me

I'm glad it's not just me! I think I was screened out of half a dozen or more surveys this morning - so annoying!

NHS_worker_bee

pickle_me wrote: »

Signature updated: HELLO JUNE!

Hello to a total debt under £10k :j

WELL DONE!

I haven't quite joined you in the sub 10k club yet but still aiming to be under 10k by the end of June too...

pickle_me

Long overdue update. It's been a funny month - not great financially, even despite my windfall. I've just felt sick of watching the pennies this month and have loosened the reins a bit. Nothing extravagant, nothing even particularly indulgent but I have spent more on grocery shopping than usual, have bought the odd ready meal here and there.

BUT it's payday on Monday, thank goodness. I have promised myself a clothes shopping trip in July and I'm going to keep my promise, because I need a little reward for getting this far. It will be my first clothes shopping outing since LBM 9-10 months ago!