How will you celebrate being debt free? How do people stop from sliding back?

Vicky496

Today's expenditure...

Savings:
£1.24 off T shop (price match voucher)

Spendings:
£7.74 T shop (groceries)
£6 parking for the day
£12.61 dinner out with DH and F-in-law.

Free:
Lunch from work meeting

VSP:
£2.64

Vicky496

Spends of the day! On a day of high emotions and lots of work office politics :S

£6 parking for the day
£5 home made produce from a friend at work
£5.15 on lunch (wouldn't have bought lunch, but was over a meeting)
£3.80 on breakfast (aahh! naughty!)

Vicky496

Spending diary update:
Yesterday: £6 on parking
Today:
£6 on parking
£2.70 morning coffee with a friend
£1.95 lunch

I am not managing to stop spending on eating out... next week I will make a renewed effort!

Oh, but £5 moved to my VSP

Vicky496

Today's not over yet - we're going out with friends tonight so there'll be more to add later...
But, am intending to be 5 minutes late meeting them so we can park for free (is only free after 6pm).

£12.80 on brunch (I treated DH )
£27.66 on tesco shop

Savings:
£7.58 through money off and vouchers used towards the MrT shop

Got given a £7 off voucher when spending £50, but I've only 8 days to spend it... so it'll probably go to waste!

Edit: spent £13 on dinner and drinks with friends tonight... not too expensive...
and £7.76 into VSP.

Vicky496

Updated list of free stuff I can get

Free hot drink & cake at John Lewis ([STRIKE]x3[/STRIKE] x2)
£2 left on an Accessorize gift card
£1.67 on my Nectar card
[STRIKE]£6.50[/STRIKE] £0.50 in Clubcard vouchers (worth 2x on boost, or 4x on restaurant vouchers)
[STRIKE]£3.02[/STRIKE] £1.63 on Boots card
Free 6 inch sub from subway (found my old loyalty card)
Free hot drink in cafe nero (found 4 seperate loyalty cards... hoping they'll combine them!)

Money off vouchers I have (they don't make it totally free and are only worth it in some cases when combined with other offers):
£7 off £50 in MrT (until 14/9/14)
£1.15 off PG tips (21/9/14)
35p off worcestershire sauce (21/9/14)
60p off belvoir juice (21/9/14)
£1 off frozen pizza (21/9/14)
£1, 50p, 50p off mum&me products (Dec 2015)
£15 off £60 ocado shop, then £10 off next £50 ocado shop (May 2015)
25p off sudocrem (Dec 2015)
£1 off dettol wipes, £1 off dettol spray, £4 off dettol hand wash (Dec 2015)
£5 off £30, £10 off £60, £15 off £100, 20% off toys, 20% off mat clothes, 20% off kids clothes, 10% off nappies at Kiddicare.
Half price alton towers tickets (x4)

Vicky496

I have started the day on a positive note: with £1.54 transferred into my VSP.

I have to go into town to pick up a friend from the station today, but I'm going to combine the trip with running a few errands so I hopefully don't have to pay for parking more than I need to.

Have very carefully asked for some of the things I was going to need to buy today for my birthday instead - I didn't know what to ask for anyway!

And I'm going to go to CEX today to sell my tablet and some old DVDs... should come to £99.30

I'm also going to use my free coffee and cake voucher in JLewis - will have to google if they let you take out.

I also need to find somewhere in town that does cheap printing (probably the library) as I don't want to buy a new cartridge as we hardly ever use the printer - need to print a ziffit label... will help me make £19.25 from the books I went through with the phone scanner yesterday

Parking is tricky as it's so expensive, but I've found a weatherspoons who give you £1 back from your parking when you spend at the bar. Their parking is £1 per hour and I need three hours (including the time my friend wants to go for lunch... so have suggested this pub... convenient for the parking, but also I won't have to spend much on lunch). But if I buy 2 hours to cover while I'm on errands I can get £1 back when we buy drinks, then I'll buy another hour for £1 and get that back when we order food... that way the whole three hours should only cost me £1 which is crazy cheap in the city and a saving of £2

I am going to try two new mantras:
The first will need me to think carefully and plan ahead:

Never go non-grocery shopping without saving or making more than I spend!

and to help me declutter (possibly making some money at a car boot down the line):

Would I buy a replacement if I didn't have this item?
If not, put it in the car boot box!

misskl

I am due to pay off my loan this month, and as on the 1st oct last year I was roughly £12k in debt, I have done very well and so I bought myself £150 worth of clothes as a treat...felt quite guilty, but this was out of my own money (not savings) so I told myself it was ok and I could afford it!


Also, to stick to paying off my debt I did an excel spreadsheet which I called 'the masterplan'...every month I would write down what I paid off/saved and did formulas to calculate.


Gonna do a new one for this year, for saving!

Vicky496

Hi misskl :wave:
I too keep a spreadsheet Mine's just called 'Budget' though... I much prefer 'masterplan'!
You managed it much quicker than I did - well done
I took the scenic route!

Vicky496

Had a pretty good day today

Made £99.30 selling my old tablet that I never use and some DVDs in CEX.
Then I had to buy conditioner from boots for £1.39, but all paid for using boots card points!
And while I was in town I got a pot of tea (£1.90) and slice of cake (£3.50) free using my John Lewis voucher!

Only spend was £1 on parking (and that was £2 less than it should have been!)

Feeling like a winner today

Vicky496

Nearly forgot...

Bought my my sister's xmas pressy using £6 of clubcard vouchers... boosted to £12
and found some old loyalty cards which will give me a free subway and hot drink in cafe nero. Have updated my posted just up the page - I find it useful to have a list of things I can spend to satisfy the spendaholic in me