A new debt free journey

lcc86

Been a very productive day so far today. I was absolutely shattered last night so went to bed early, which meant I was up early today. Forced myself to go for a run, which was absolute torture after horse riding yesterday :eek: I've done all my washing, dusted everywhere, done my food shopping, cleaned my guinea pigs and hoovered the entire communcal area of my block of flats as it was filthy. Now I just need to hoover inside my car and I'm done! Just charging my hoover before I can do that so enjoying some lunch.

I found hay in wilko's for half the price I normally pay in another shop, so snapped that up. They never used to sell hay in my local one so hopefully they'll keep selling it as it will all add up and any spare can go into continuing to build an emergency vet fund (currently £25).

Did a bit more painting last night, no Monet but I actually enjoyed it a lot. Depending on how much money I get from extra work and expenses, I would like to go horse riding twice next month if finances allow, but debt must take priority.

Have a good weekend everyone :cool:

Orange_Ena

Hi lcc

I've been catching up with your diary. Congratulations on the new job, hope it's going well.

I'm subscribing

lcc86

Thanks Orange Ena hope I didn't bore you too much with my ramblings!

lcc86

Just a quick post to say I've picked up six zero hour shifts over the next 4 weeks, which should total about £200 extra in my pocket come the end of August :j this is great news as I can really make inroads into the debt with this. I should also have some additional work for the following 8 weeks after that, so money wise things are hopefully on the up!

lcc86

Just had the BT visit, turns out I shouldn't have been turning my modem off at night or when I go to work, it should be on all the time. I turned it off to a. Save power and b. No one was using it so there was no point keeping it on! But turns out it should be on all the time to prevent faults, so potentially I may get charged £130 :wall: the engineer couldn't say either way. It's frustrating as I thought I was doing the right thing in not unnecessarily leaving something running but hey ho. We shall see.

I was going to go to a meditation tonight which costs £7 (plus parking and fuel) but I've decided not to now. I've found a free one which is further away but even taking into account fuel costs it's cheaper so I'm going to do that. Plus it's on a weekend so no mad rushing around.

Not much else to report really, I didn't spend any money in the last week apart from food shopping. No plans for this weekend involving money either so should be able to get through to my main payday. I also get paid from one of my zero hours jobs this Friday, that money will go towards debt.

lcc86

Went for a run this morning and really enjoyed it, definitely a good way to wake up! It's officially the last week before payday for me now. I've got about £30 left unallocated for anything but will need a teeny tiny amount of food e.g. salad, nothing major. Anything that's left is going straight towards the debt. The money I get tomorrow from my little job will go towards paying off my bed. Think it will be about £40 but not 100% sure. Will update signature tomorrow. :money:

lcc86

I was adjusting my budget for next month earlier and realised that I may have to go back on my word about making overpayments :mad: I think I've got the go ahead at work for the voluntary practice element of the course I want to do, so it seems to be a goer. While this is undoubtedly great news for my professional career it means I will need to try and put as much money aside out of my already stretched budget between now and September/October...

BUT it's for the right reasons so I must try and keep that at the forefront of my mind. As I only know a ballpark figure for the course (I've been told £700 approx) I don't know how much I need to save. I'm going to see if I can get any sponsorship through work once I know more about costs.

There's a chance I may have to borrow again :mad: but I'm going to try my best, if I can get enough extra work over the next couple of months then I'll be able to minimise any potential borrowing. On that note, I spent nothing out of my £10 unallocated budget last week so I'll put that in an envelope and make a start! :T no time like the present!

In other news, I finally heard about my parking fine appeal.... Popla have said I need to resend everything as they don't have it any more !! :wall: I'll get it sorted eventually :rotfl:

lcc86

Mini payday today, a grand total of £31 (damn emergency tax!). It was a bit less than I thought but it went straight towards paying for my bed. Signature updated. I'm pretty busy next week so thought now would be a good time to review July's targets and look ahead to August:

1. Start second zero hours job - still dragging on, thought it had been sorted but it just keeps getting passed to different people. Fingers crossed. - finally managed it! Only done one shift so far but I have regular shifts set up now for the next 12 weeks.

2. Train for 10k race - this isn't until September but I need to take it a bit more seriously than I am right now! - I've started this by doing some running alone and am doing my first parkrun tomorrow morning.

3. Stick to budget meticulously - same as last month, particularly important this month as my finances have to go a little further due to five weeks between paydays - eesh I messed up again on the food budget but luckily had the funds to cover it. Now that I'm making a conscious effort to eat much more healthily I think I need to adjust my food budget to reflect that. I also had my little splurge that I shouldn't have had, so again, could've been better.

4. Pay remainder of vet bill completely - I still have £60 on a credit card to pay for this, and it will be cleared this month. - done.

5. Pay remainder of phone handset - got this on 0% for three months, have £34 left to pay. Paid £9 this morning which leaves £25 to be cleared. Will probably use my expenses for this. - done.

6. Try painting again ? I used to like painting in my spare time. Nothing amazing but I still have watercolour pencils so thought I might give it a go. - actually enjoyed that more than I thought, have been inspired hehe.

So, looking ahead to August, I've set myself fewer targets but here they are:

1. Do parkrun twice - really need to crack on with the training for the 10k so I've got to knuckle down and build my stamina!

2. Sort out whether I am definitely doing the course and if so, save £100 towards it - while I've pretty much got the go ahead from work in regards to the support I'll need from them, I still need the final details of it before I commit. Unless there are any major red flags I anticipate it will go ahead. So with that in mind I need to try and put some money away towards it. I've got £10 so far (humble beginnings :rotfl:) and have budgeted £30 from next month's budget towards it, so I need to try and scrape another £60 together from somewhere. I'll make cutbacks where I can from my unallocated budget and use any expenses from work too.

3. Stick to the budget meticulously !! - Just need to try again on this one, and actually nail it this month, particularly with the course in mind.


Fingers cross I can pull it all off. Have a great weekend everyone

lcc86

I'm having a bit of a crisis today thinking about this course I want to do. I know I said in my previous post that getting into debt over this would be for the right reasons, however I'm conscious that I've not made the progress I thought I would've made by now for various reasons and I still don't have an emergency fund.

Another factor in all of this is my pension. This time last year I halved my pension contributions in order to help pay for a postgraduate course but ended up dropping out. I'm almost finished paying for it now and should increase my pension contributions back to what they were. One option could be to keep them as they are to help fund this course, but I think it was quite irresponsible in hindsight to half my contributions last year in the first place.

I have a tendency to think "oh I'll buy X now on my credit card and pay for it over X months", but then things come up in life and it ends up taking longer etc. Equally I don't think something like this should be causing me such anxiety before I even commit to it!! Perhaps I should take that as a sign. Perhaps I should take the next year to settle in at my main job, get my debts under control, and save up for the course if I still want to do it. Historically most of my debt has been caused by an inability to wait for things and I really do need to learn that lesson properly if I ever want to be debt free again. I'm quite career driven but at times I can be rash and make decisions that ultimately work against me in regards to this. I'm going through a period of major change at work and am working towards better personal balance and I think I need to allow time for all of that to settle.

I have a lot of thinking to do....:huh:

lcc86

I've decided to amend my August targets slightly in light of my previous post:

1. Do parkrun twice - really need to crack on with the training for the 10k so I've got to knuckle down and build my stamina!

2. Stick to the budget meticulously !! - Just need to try again on this one, and actually nail it this month, particularly with the course in mind.

3. Try to clear Barclaycard in full (£120)

4. Start making plans for a thrifty, low-budget Christmas

5. Try to make first loan overpayment (not going to beat myself up if I can't achieve this one, the credit card is my main focus)