The 300k debt-free diary!!!

pandapaws

chocaholic110 wrote: »

Hi, don't know how I missed this thread before, but I've found it now!

I'm a fellow pregnant DFW and just wanted to say good luck for your scan today! Did you know there is also a thread in the moneysavng and families board that is a pregnancy thread? It's quite interesting and people often post freebie ideas etc.

Hi!

Congratulations - what's your due date?

Just had the scan and been dated at 8 wks 4 days, giving a due date of 14 March. Was a really clear scan and could see arms, legs and most importantly the heartbeat! :j Now actually accepting the fact that I'm definitely pregnant, and so will start proper on the baby preparations! Will take a look therough the families board when I'm at work later, hadn't realised there was a specific pregnancy one - there's so much on this bloomin site! - thanks!

chevalier

Hi there and welcome to DFW.

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this but if you joing www.freecycle.org, there are often people giving away baby clothes/other things for FREE. All you have to do is pick them up.

Ref your food bill. Erm I would say that this is an area that you could cut down quite a lot. Eg by meal planning, shopping online ( so don't get tempted by things:rolleyes: , plus there are lots of discount codes available to get free delivery etc), and doing a shopping list and sticking to it. I try to operate a 'just in time system' eg I have one tin of tomatoes left, so that goes on to the shopping list. That way I don't have a big stock of things laying around in cupboards.

If you are going to use disposable nappies, then keep an eye out now for deals on packs, it is s*ds law that when you need them all the packs are full price. And by doing it now, you can spread the load of the price.

best of luck with the scan and your debt busting
chev

pandapaws

Sorry - another long post!

Hi chevalier!

Thanks for taking the time to look through the SOA. You're absolutely right about our spending - we probably could cut this down quite a bit. The only thing is (hear me out, I'm not trying to make excuses!) that we have set ourself 'budgets' for things before, and are absolutely cr4p at sticking to them. Until the LBM we generally spent £200 every time we set foot in Tesco (or Waitrose - those were the days), ate out several nights a week, and if we wanted to buy something - clothes, toys, posh make-up, washing machine, tv, holiday, car, you name it we've bought it - we just did. I don't know what planet we thought we were on or where the money was coming from, but the credit was always there, so we spent it. And if credit was running out, then no problem - we'd just get some more.

My biggest objective in doing this whole process - certainly for starters anyway - isn't so much paying off the debt any quicker, as we've got a DFD of 2012 which I'd like to reduce but can live with for now. It's rather about making sure that we don't slip and end up spending on credit again. Rather than saying "£40 for food, £10 for entertainment, £10 for clothes" and so on, I'd rather have a budget that we're likely to stick to. We've set up a £500 standing order to a Switch account, and this has to cover everything - food, going out, stuff for my DS, weddings/presents, holidays - the whole lot. I know that a lot of people on here spend a tenth of that amount, but they often have a tenth of our debt. Maybe we'll be able to bring that down, or spend less of it and use the savings towards debt, but although it seems loads to most people, compared to the £2-3000 a month we used to spend on useless tat, it is already a massive cut-back.

What I'm therefore really trying to say (in a very long-winded way, I know - sorry!) is that so long as we continue to pay everything and snowball then our debt will eventually go. If we sell our house (still no viewers) then that'll help loads. If we can earn more in other ways, great. If we can spend less than that £500 living budget then FAB, more to pay to the debt. But it we fall off the wagon and spend anything on credit then we're screwed all over again, and I'd rather continue at a steady manageable rate than risk that, so sticking to the £500 for now.

In the old days, the 2 recent shopping trips I've had would have been funded entirely by credit, and I would have bought anything that took my fancy - likely a good few hundred quid's worth. The recent things I have bought have mostly been necessary, and bargains, but the things that haven't (eg the £30 Monsoon dress) are the things that'll make it bearable, and so long as they're paid in cash then I'm half-way there - the £500 isn't just for food, it's food, everything else, and a bit of contingency for slip-ups and random spending!

Sorry for waffling - sort of trying to justify myself. Does that make sense? I really appreciate your comments, and I still agree that yes, you are absolutely right!

Thanks for the other ideas - we've still got all the baby stuff from my 2.5yr old so planning on buying NOTHING! If it's to be a girl (I'm sure it won't) then there'll be a few bits & bobs to get, otherwise we'll try and resist. Have had a quick look at Freecycle and surprised there's more in this area than I'd expected. Might be a good place for us to clear out the stuff that we hang on to 'just in case'!

P.S. I'm very jealous of your 'just in time' shopping, you're obviously much more organised than me - the only thing that would end up in our cupboard would be a load more Chinese take-away boxes!:rotfl:

pandapaws

For those who couldn't be bothered to read the above, I was basically saying that I'd like to leave our food & all other expenses amount at £500 for now, as it's realistic/generous enough and we have a chance of sticking to it. If we reduce it, we might be tempted to use credit for our spending fixes!

Lucy1982_2

If your happy with that then it's ok. And if you decided to cut down even more, then you have somewhere to do it!

Keep up the good work.

pandapaws

Thanks Lucy!

I spent a bit of time on Pigsback last night trying to find the click-cor-points bit you mentioned, but still couldn't find it - couldn't see anything with a purple banner on it. Am I being incredibly stupid, or do you have to go to a specific page to see the offers? All I could see were deals where you get so many points per £ you spend in shops.

Also, I saw the Tesco deal, but the button to sign up wasn't working - probably just a tech fault so will try again this morning, thanks for the tip!

Lucy1982_2

No you can find the on the home page. They do update them and I haven't seen many this weekend. But it is work keeping a look out for.

pandapaws

I'll do that - cheers! Good to know it isn't just me missing something!

pandapaws

Phew, just done the signature at last (hard to keep to 1300 characters with my debt!), and it was worse than I had thought - realised I'd missed Mint Card out of my original SOA, and I hadn't included our overdrafts. So our opening balance was actually a few quid over £80k, which having paid off a couple of small amounts is now £79300 - which would feel like progress, except that I had thought I owed about £72k. D'oh!

We have paid off the First Direct and most of the Nat West Visa cards by balance transferring to the new Egg cards that we got, 0% for a year, but there's a few hundred quid still on the NW - this is next thing to tackle as it is 17.9%, and because it is a smaller amount, it should be do-able.

Target - clear Nat West by end of Sept.

Lucy1982_2

Good luck with your target!!

I try to aim a little debts as the big one looks after itself really. My next targets are the OD's and the Store card.

The store card especially as it has 24.9 % APR!!!