6 months till debt freedom, time to change some habits!

Aphidgirl

I thought I'd start a diary to help me through this month particularly, as I've realised I've only got £50 now to spend on food and entertainment till the 30th June. This is probably a relatively generous amount for some people on here but I have a terrible habit of spending hours sat socializing in pubs at the weekends and pubs really do eat up huge chunks of my income, so this needs to be tackled!

My debts were at their highest back in January 2014, when I owed almost 10K on loans and credit cards. I now owe £1900 so I'm onto the home straight and am on course to be debt-free by Christmas 2015.

I keep going on city breaks and weekends away which is slowing down my progress somewhat. I also have a £200 overdraft facility with barclays that I keep dipping into each month. Once I've used some of it and incurred the daily charge I think, !!!!!! it, I might as well spend the whole £200 now and pay it off next month. This behaviour has been repeating itself for months now!

So the main aim for this month (and into the future) is to stick to spending only £50-£60 on food and entertainment. I shall do this by:

- Avoiding pubs! Stick to free/cheap social events such as house parties, BBQs, gatherings in the park, free festivals, etc.

- If I must go to a pub avoid excessive spending by pre-loading (drinking at home first), carrying a sneaky hip-flask to sip from and buying only lime and soda at the bar (60p!).

- Visit supermarkets just before closing and buy only reduced items to keep food spending to a minimum. Buy lots of value-range items.

- Avoid buying food in cafes or restaurants, taking a packed lunch out with me if necessary! Always take my own lunch to work.

The main challenge will be changing my fully-ingrained habit of always arranging to meet friends in the pub. Hopefully now the weathers getting warmer they'll be more visits to parks and free outdoor events anyway. If I can get through till next payday without going into my overdraft at all I'll be very happy

Aphidgirl

£3.88 spent on food today. That got me a loaf of bread, some big naan breads, 4 fish fillets, 6 eggs and some sandwich filler, so not bad at all.

I was very tempted to stop in the pub on my way home from work as it was so warm and sunny this evening - I even got out a tenner at the cash point! - but I resisted and just bought the food. Going into Te$cos was a good distraction actually, I just wanted to go home and eat after that.

I saw this morning that some friends are having a gathering at their house next weekend, good news as it means socializing on the cheap.

I'm still not sure what I'm doing this weekend but I will be going out for a drink on Sunday as part of a surprise birthday thing for a friend. I'll have to plan in advance how I'm going to avoid spending too much there. And Saturday will be tricky as I'm meeting my boyfriend and he does enjoy his expensive cask ales! I'll try and suggest going to the park maybe or sitting down by the harbourside.....

Will get my thinking cap on!