Diary of a lazybones...

dfbefore30

Hi! Welcome to my new shiny diary!

I've been lurking for a looooooong time on these forums and I find other people's diaries really useful, so I thought I'd finally start one of my own to see if it will keep me on track!

First of all, a bit about me...

I'm 28 (very nearly 29) and I live by myself in the North West. I have a decent job, but since I was 21, I've managed to rack up the following amounts of debt:

Graduate loan - £10,000 (This was essential for my chosen career, so I don't regret this for one instant)
Credit card 1 - £2500
Credit card 2 - £800
Overdraft 1 - £500
Overdraft 2 - £700
Total - £14,500

Wow - never actually added all of that up before. Scary stuff! :eek:

BUT, and it is a big but - I've spent the last few years hammering this debt and I'm very proud to say that I'm down to the last £400! :j On 31st July 2014, I'm hoping that I'll finally be debt free for the first time since the moment that I was old enough to get into debt!


So why the diary, you may well ask?

Well, truth be told, I'm finding the last few hundred quid a bit of a struggle. It feels like I've been fighting debt for a long time now and I can feel myself loosening the reins.

Also, once I'm debt free I want to put the same amount that I was spending on debt towards a house deposit.
Need to save up about £18,000 over 3 years, which will be no mean feat!

So, all comments, support and kicks up the a*se are welcome!:)

dfbefore30

So, plan for the day!

It's my friend's birthday today. Luckily, she's invited me over to a meal with her family rather than having a night out, so that won't cost anything. I also managed to find a birthday card in the house that I bought for someone else but forgot to send. It says

"The older you get, the better you get. Unless you are a banana". :rotfl:

So far, so MSE. But I do need to get her a prezzie (for tonight. Nothing like being organised!) I think I might just get her some sweeties though, and then take her out for cinema or something next week (hopefully on Orange Wednesday!). She's been a bit down recently and I think a night out might do her a bit of good. So I'm not just being lazy on the present front!

Ok, the lazybones thing....I should probably explain that.

When it comes to most things, I'm as active as most people. Except when it comes to cooking...I'm a culinary lazybones.

I have never tried to make lunches/batch cook as part of my debt free journey, cos I know I'll fall off the wagon. I live alone and must confess that I live off convenience food most of the time. I make sure I'm still getting fruit/veg/salad though. I tend to shop on a daily basis for what I want to eat that night. Now I know that all you MSE experts will hold your hands up in horror at this, but my reasons are twofold:

1) Whenever I do a big shop, I find that food goes to waste. I often decide to go out after work at the last minute, so find meal planning difficult.
2) I live about 12 steps from the shop and I can often find yellow stickered items at the end of the day

I do need to give myself a daily food budget though, because like all top-up shops, I often buy things I don't need!
As far as work lunches are concerned, I work opposite a big tesco and there's a kitchen at work, so I tend to stock up my desk with stuff like soup/uncle ben's rice time etc. I used to buy a loaf of bread at the beginning of the week and keep it in my desk drawer, but since we moved to open plan offices I've stopped doing that cos I was getting weird looks :rotfl:

I think I'm going to set myself a budget of £5 a day on food. Let's see how that one goes!

dfbefore30

I was really hoping that I'd get through the month without going into my overdraft but it doesn't look like it's going to happen unfortunately.

I only have £123 in my account to last until 31st. While that doesn't seem too bad I've got the following still to come out:

Car insurance - £53
London trip payment -£45
Netflix - £6

Yep. Definitely not going to happen. So time for a spot of damage limitation. I'm going to try and limit my overdraft spending to £100 max. That should still mean that I can be debt free on payday (although doesn't leave much wriggle room for staying that way in August). I definitely can't go more than £100 overdrawn though!

Ho hum. I know that a lot of other people are in a lot more debt than I am and I should be glad I've come this far, but if I miss my DFD I'll be gutted!

dfbefore30

Here's a question. Is there a way of keeping tabs on your diary? I keep losing it everytime I log on and have to scroll through pages and pages of diaries!!

Today was a pretty good day on the whole I managed to stick to the plan. I only spent £1.12, and I got that out of loose change rolling around the bottom of my bag, so my bank account remains untouched. Woot!

Got my friend a terry's choccie orange. Only £1 in Tescos! And who doesn't love a choccie orange?? I'm going to take her to the cinema next week too. Had a really nice meal at her parent's house tonight. I've known her since we were teenagers so know her family pretty well too. Hadn't seen them in a while so it was nice to have a catch up

I have a feeling this weekend is going to be a bit on the spendy side. After work tomorrow, I'm driving up to the North East for the weekend. That's where I'm from and my family still live there. I haven't been home in two months so a visit is wayyyy overdue. Can't wait! The downside is that each trip is £50 in petrol. And then I've promised my mam that we'll go out into the country on Saturday. And various friends want to meet up. I'm really looking forward to it all but going to have to keep an eye on the purse strings! Might see if my friend fanices a dvd night in rather than going out.

Jonesy88

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Happy new diary btw, good luck in achieving your dfd.