Scrimping behind the scenes - with debt of £31,000!

Dobbibill

Thanks Inod for asking the question about the 8 day week and also SSG for answering it, I was curious about that too :think:


Finger's crossed PO vs Halifax card doesn't take too long to go through, at least this is the final payment for you, even if you have got to borrow from the Christmas stash, end of an era, beginning of a new chapter with the PO :T

in_need_of_direction

Did you notice in martin's email that there's a free Neal's yard hand cream with a £4 mag? Thought this may help with the keeping up appearances. Hope the balance transfer comes good.

Chrysalis1976

Fingers crossed it goes through quickly, then you can get on with your debt busting!

C x

Seasidegal58

Evening all!:wave:

Thanks for the positivity dobbi and Chrysalis and also for the handcream alert inod. :A

A big plus today is that I was given a pay rise! I’ll have to wait till I get paid next week to see how it pans out after tax, etc but there will be some extra to pay more off the CCs each month! In addition I was awarded some units in the employee incentive scheme that has just been set up .The units are basically like shares in the company so if it was sold later I would benefit, but if I left the firm they would lapse.:j

It’s end of Week 3 of Scrimp Month 3 and it’s been a unscrimpy week as I’m £58.14 overbudget! There’s £10.31 available from this week’s food underbudget to offset, but calculating the ad hoc overbudgets against the food underbudgets so far this month, I’m still £ 89.59 over at the end of Week 3.:mad:

So next week is going to be very scrimpy indeed!:D

dawnybabes

Brilliant news on the pay rise, not so good on the spends xx

in_need_of_direction

Well done on the pay rise. Re the overspend, the important thing is that you can see it. A year ago would you have even noticed? We all have spendy times. The trick is not to let the become habits. I do think though that you should put your first month's pay uplift aside for a treat. I know you want to be debt free but it's hard work getting any kind of a pay increase so I do think you should reward yourself a bit.

Seasidegal58

:wave: to dawnybabes and insightful advice as always from inod - thank you.:T

It was three months last night since my first Scrimp diary post. I did update my signature last night, but as I was absolutely shattered I didn’t post, but went to bed!

So I am delighted to announce now that my Elephant in the Room has shrunk a minuscule bit and he now stands at £28,046.75 which is a pay off percentage since LBM of 9.86% so I am absolutely thrilled :j ! I have changed the “Currently reducing” line in the signature to reflect my M&S card as this is the card that I will be focusing on. Hopefully the Post Office balance will hit the Halifax in the next few days and it will finish.

Positives for the last month has been:

• Lovely times with family and friends (even though it meant that I did not manage to scrimp as much as I wanted, but it was worth it!);
• Getting kissed by celebrity chef, Gino D’Acampo!;
• Managing to get a 0% credit card for 18 months with a low transfer fee in order to blast away the horrible high card at over 21 %;
• Getting a pay rise plus employee incentive units at work;

And an extra positive and thanks today for air-conditioned office and trains on the hottest day of the year!:j

Thanks so much again everyone for all the support and being there :A .

Dobbibill

wow!!!!! well done on reducing the debt by that much in just 3 months. You are making so much progress so quickly.......it's amazing. :j :j :j


Lots of positives to reflect on so a big hooray for that :A


keep up the good work


DB

FZwanab

I think you are doing a great job, it must be challenging to have so much debt. I just wondered if you ever get theatre tickets through tkts in Leicester square, it's the first place we went to when visiting London and NYC for shows. Also is there no chance you could let your daughter know your circumstances? , I'm sure she would not judge you and may even come up with more ideas for you. When I was trying to pay off our mortgage early on a very low income I didn't tell anyone except close family and they helped me become even more savvy. I read tons of books on being frugal, looked at oldstyle board a lot and dfw board for ideas and I achieved the goal chipping away £50 a time. I know it's not the same as your debt but it was debt for me. I learned how to colour my hair and then visit the hairdresser for the cut, go to the theatre at cheaper times preview, or matinee, shop in Aldi etc.. lidl do a good hairspray and cotton wool pads, Aldi good creams etc. Save on the prices you pay in boots. I used to decant cheap stuff into expensive bottles, use better shopping bags etc, now I don't bother, people can just love me for who I am, and if they don't they're not worth it:) must be my age at 40 I am who I am now.

On another note, your writing reads very well, did you ever think of becoming a writer? Perhaps you could have a novel in you ?

Seasidegal58

Thanks Dobbie :wave:,

Hello and welcome FZwanab :hello: and thanks for posting – my Elephant in the Room is an enormous challenge for me, but my Elephant Joke is my mantra –e.g. Q: How do you eat an elephant?; A: One bite at a time! At the beginning of my LBM I decided not to involve my family and friends on my debt-free journey. For most of my adult life I’ve been in and out of money difficulties – due mainly to my own making .The current debt is the worst I’ve had due to keeping my head in the sand for years.I want make this journey on a solo basis as I don’t want to worry my family and, as well as reducing my debt, I am finding the whole exercise extremely good training for when I retire and won’t have so much disposable income – which will be in a couple of years’ time. My daughter wouldn’t judge me, but she would worry and immediately want to help out. To be honest my family and most of my friends aren’t that frugal because they don’t have to be, and I’m probably a lot more savvy than they are because of this forum, reading certain debt guru books, and how I’ve had to cut back.

I’m rather chuffed that you think I could be worthy of being a writer – not had that ambition since I was at school! Mind you I wish I had written the Harry Potter novels (£££££££!) – no debt worries then!

…and I’ve had s NSD today and as it was the monthly pay out at the dress agency, I popped in there and was paid £3.50! Which is a small amount but it is still going over to the M&S credit card!