Me, him and 3 small boys

MrsPee

Right, here goes...
I've posted on here for a few years, but I've definitely been more of a lurker than a poster. We've managed to run up a credit card with a balance quite a bit larger than I'd like and clearing this is our first priority. We are also on interest only on our mortgage so we need to start overpaying this and trying to get some equity in the house.
We are a party of 5 living in the North of England. There's me, mummy to 3 small boys, wife the small boys dad and part time administrator for a small company. Him, my long-suffering other half. Our 3 small boys are VERY close in age, I have 2 now at school and 1 due to go next year, so we're almost there in terms of no more pushchairs, nappies and childcare.
Him and I are going to sit down and go through our budget later so I can post a SOA (again!). I've recently started working again, so we're better off than we've been in a while and really need to pay off as much debt as we can and try to get the credit card paid off and get some savings behind us.

MrsPee

Had a big chat with hubby last night about debts, the mortgage and money in general. It seems we might be finally singing off the same hymn sheet. The plan is to pay the credit card off ASAP, the balance at the moment sits at £3,800. We've budgeted for this month carefully, I think it's realistic and hopefully we will start next month with a clean slate ready to throw some money at the dreaded CC.
Hubby has told me he thinks I'm 'addicted' to spending and I think he's right! If I'm a bit bored, the first thing I think about is shopping. Either on Ebay or local selling sites, or wondering down to the charity shop. I never spend a lot, but I spend on lots of occasions. This month I'm going to try and not buy anything that we don't NEED. I'm also going to try and do surveys etc to see if I can earn any extra money for Xmas.
Over the next few months it gets an expensive time of year for us. We have 2 littlie's birthdays, Xmas, and a couple of other celebrations too. We're going to try and celebrate, but without going overboard and doing things well, but cheaply. This is going to be a thoughtful month for me...

stewby

I am exactly the same... I am always looking at buying stuff the minute I have nothing to do.

However, I am also quite competetive so I find that the NSD or spend free day challenges are brilliant as I want to win at it.
Basically you have to have achieve a set amount of days in the month where you don't spend any money (standing orders and direct debits are excluded).
I find this has reduced my spending dramatically.

Hope this helps and I wish you well on your debt free journey.

chevalier

The other thing to do, is to look at entering comepetitions. That way you might win yourself a nice new thing, without having to pay for it. There is a whole forum devoted to this on the site.
chev

MrsPee

I'm quite competitive too, so I think this would sit well with me. I had to stop myself though, when I thought "Ooh if I manage to get all the NSDs I want I could buy myself a prize!" Guess that's the kind of mentality I need to work on :rotfl:

chevalier

a small treat is not too bad, but it has to be small. ie special cup of coffee, or ONE magazine or something. lol
chev

MrsPee

Morning!
Well so far I've had to NSDs this week. I did our food shopping on Tuesday (which I actually meal planned for) and apart from top up bread and milk, we should have enough to last 10 days.
Im meeting a friend in the park this afternoon with DS3. She's a bit of a 'spendy' friend and we said we'd go to the cafe, but Im only going to take about £3 with me. Enough for a couple of drinks and maybe a snack for DS.
I have a mystery shop to do at our local cinema tonight so that will be a bit of extra money to go in the pot too

MrsPee

Hi,
Well I've done 4 NSD's this week, which is honestly unheard of for me. I've stayed away from the shops as if I go, I just want to buy things, so I'm best steering clear.
The meal plan is going well and we have done 6 days with £100 and we've got £20 left, which will hopefully last us another 4 days for any top ups we might need (probably just milk and bread). My meal plan idea is for us to budget £100 for 10 days instead of for the usual 7 days, which will mean that at the end of the month, we would spend £100 less than usual on food!
I'm in the middle of a mammoth loft declutter at the moment, which will hopefully provide some things we can sell to make a little extra money.
Next week I'm going for 5 NSD's. Bring it on! :j

MrsPee

Wow, long time without posting!

Hopefully within the next month we will be debt free!! Hubby sold some shares that he had with his company (had to hang onto them for a certain amount of time), so that was around £1500 that we used to pay off the credit card. We should also be getting around £2000 in the next month that will finally clear off the last of the credit card. I can't WAIT to be debt free!
The plan is then to slowly do the house and garden up a bit and plough some more money into the mortgage. Onwards and upwards!

MrsPee

Hi all. Got a few updates, so here goes...

1) We are debt free :j and have been for a few months now, next step savings!
2) After the school hols I'm increasing my hours at work by 50% so our income will be going up. Any extra money I earn will be going straight into a new savings account.
3) I'm slowly decluttering the house and taking all the stuff we don't need / use / want to the charity shop. I'm hoping that as we gradually have less 'stuff' it will be easier to keep the house clean and tidy and will mean we have more free time.

Erm, I thought I had more news than that, but I can't think of anything now. Will try and update more often.