58k in debt to frugal living..

debtfreeoneday

Another quickie from me. Well weight wise, post Christmas and New Year, it's a 6lb gain.. I follow WW.. and use the online service, but start a new account every three months and the cashback usually covers the subscriber cost.. well a friend pointed me in the direction of an app called Value Diary - it's good if not better than the WW app and cost £2.99 - so I downloaded it and will end my subscription now with WW.. Worth having a look for anyone doing WW.

sashybo

Hiya DFOD, you've been a busy bee.

Sorry to hear about the MOT but good that you managed to get to the hairdresser during the money off special.

Hope you manage to get some painting done and keep the wee ones away from it. :eek: My sister has twins and they get into much more mischief than her older kids as there are two of them - one to distract and one to carry out the mischievous deed. :rotfl:

I use My Fitness Pal every so often to try and track what I'm eating/cut down on junk food. Really don't do dieting as it just makes me want to rebel.

debtfreeoneday

I use MFP as well Sashybo to track my weight.. but cals don't work for me.. I've tried WW loads of times but this time it's just clicked with me! Whatever works for each person is good isn't it - you just have to go with what is right for you..

I've only got twins, so can't compare.. but they are rascals at times.. I've always tried to be quite chilled out with them though or else I would have torn my hair out a long time ago!

debtfreeoneday

Today has turned into a non productive day - oh well!

Mr T delivered and I'm £1.75 under budget this week, so that's good.. I get quite competitive with it and if a banana pushes me over £60 then grrrrrr..

Rest of day involved ironing a skirt! Baths for the littlies and shower for me..

Will persuade DH to repaint a frame white though - we have a collection of various different frames that we intend to paint white to go on a wall in the hall when it's all painted, but have to paint them all first! This frame had casts of one the littles hands and feet from when they were really small and I want them back in the frame where they are safe!

Have a good rest of the day all - be back online later probably!

VanyaHargreeves

Hi!

Loving reading your diary, it's so inspiring! I'm so impressed by the amount you've got rid of, both debt wise and money wise!

Just a quick note, I saw you were talking about internet security before - do you mean an antivirus? If you do...there's no need to pay for it. I've used AVG Free for years and years, and found it works better than any of the paid ones. And it's totally free! They do offer a paid "premium" version but I find that the free one is more than sufficient.

Hope that helps!

debtfreeoneday

VanyaHargreeves wrote: »

Hi!

Loving reading your diary, it's so inspiring! I'm so impressed by the amount you've got rid of, both debt wise and money wise!

Just a quick note, I saw you were talking about internet security before - do you mean an antivirus? If you do...there's no need to pay for it. I've used AVG Free for years and years, and found it works better than any of the paid ones. And it's totally free! They do offer a paid "premium" version but I find that the free one is more than sufficient.

Hope that helps!

Awww thanks Vanya, it's great to know my diary is inspiring - although I don't think so!! :-)

I'm married to a techy freak (putting it nicely) and he works at home, but it means data going between him and who knows where, so he's always gone with Norton for his own piece of mind. I managed to get it for £32 for the year for 5 machines, so a decent saving, but I will look at AVG for next year - so thank you! :-)

debtfreeoneday

No much else achieved today, though I did get the frame painted, but DH has hidden it in his man cave (garage) where I can't see it yet.. That probably means he didn't do it!

I've arranged for a builder to come round mid week to give us a quote for some work in the garden - we are not intending to do the work this year unless it's super cheap, but we have a raised bit to our back garden, which we want reducing in size massively and a new retaining wall being built. We've ummed and ahhed about whether this is our forever house and it's definately our house for a long time, so the space this would give us in the garden would be worth it, we just figured we'd get a quote as we have no idea what it'll cost.

We've also thought about doing it ourselves, but it would take a looooong time as it's probably about 15 skips worth of earth so the cost would be pretty steep. Be interesting to see what the quote is anyway.

Sooo back to work tomorrow, back to nursery for the little people and back to proper normality.. 5 weeks to half term (not that i'm counting!!!)

One item collected today from fb selling page, so £5 earnt!

sashybo

debtfreeoneday wrote: »

I use MFP as well Sashybo to track my weight.. but cals don't work for me.. I've tried WW loads of times but this time it's just clicked with me! Whatever works for each person is good isn't it - you just have to go with what is right for you..

I've only got twins, so can't compare.. but they are rascals at times.. I've always tried to be quite chilled out with them though or else I would have torn my hair out a long time ago!

Yes you're quite right, whatever works! Some people I know are doing the 5:2 diet and it's working great for them but I don't think I have self-discipline when it comes to food.

Ah, I think all kids have their moments & it can really depend on their wee personalities as well. My sister seems to specialise in mischievious wee monkeys :rotfl: nah they're good most of the time really.

Hope the garden quote isn't too steep.

debtfreeoneday

Strange old day today. Started off with a power cut this morning, so we had to get dressed and eat breakfast by candlelight! One way to save on electricity I guess.

Got to work and within a few mins, emails and people had conspired to annoy me. I love my job in terms of hours and flexibility, but I've never worked anywhere quite so difficult in that people are just very grumpy.. anyhooo I then got a call about a job I nearly went for last year which is available again. Cutting a long story short, I've an interview this week. The field in which I work and where we live, means not many part time jobs come up in it, so I am really chuffed this one is back on the horizon again. Lots of thinking to do about juggling childcare / school runs etc and the fact I'd lose all School hols off with the kids which I value massively.. but I'm going to go for the interview and at least meet then!

Mobile phone bill paid and it was less than budgeted, so little bits have gone towards the emergency fund, debt payoff and mortgage payoff.

Tonight is all about searching for house insurance to beat the renewal quote from our current insurer and hopefully get some cashback in the process!

debtfreeoneday

Rather pleased with the home insurance renewal. Current provider quoted £163, I got the renewal down to £83 and went through tcb and got £60.60 cashback.. House insurance for next year has cost us the grand total of £22.66!!