Lunars Debt Free Journy!!!

lunar

Cant believe my total will be under £20000 by next month, it doesnt feel too long ago i was celebrating being under 30k do im really pleased. hopefully i will still be able to make overpayments while im on maternity leave. I have worked out that i will be able to meet my minimum payments throughout the leave at least. My OH has said he will help me to make overpayments when my pay drops.

I need to reduce my snowball date by 4 months more to be debt free by the time im 30, dont know if I will make that target or not but ill give it a good go. Ive managed to put aside £800 to buy things for the baby so I can start shopping soon. I have been bought quite a few things so far which will save me a fortune.

I think i will go back to doing a spending diary for a few weeks just to get me to focus again. Ive got some bits i can get listed on ebay as well.

I checked into my pigsback account as well today, just ordered £20.00 boots vouchers, cant believe they have put the price of them up!

lunar

Ive got my spending diary started again, well ive got a note book out and wrote in it that today has been a no spend day!

I just got a huge water bill through, im waiting for someone to come out on thursday they think that there is a leak somewhere. hopefully they wont charge me the full amount as its £85 more over the last 3 months and i definatly didnt use that much water.

Ive got a few things listed on ebay, ive been keeping the money from sales in my paypal account to use for christmas pressies. Ive got £58 in there so far and £180 of vouchers from various places. Ive also got nearly £20 on my boots card. I have been picking things up through the year as well so im hoping to be super organised this year. I think i will need to be with a new baby at home. I got a babies 1st christmas outfit from next in the outlet shop last month for £1.50!

I would really love people to give me a list of things that are an absolute must to get for the baby, and to know what things you could have done without. Ive got money aside to get what i need but want to avoid wasting money where i can. Thanks in advance for any advice.

penguin83

Hi Lunar - hows it going just having a catch up with your thread - when are you due?

There are some really good threads over on the Family and Relationships board about essentials for a new baby - Ill dig out some links for you.

One thing I found with my first was that we went completely overboard on clothes - all our friends and family bought us clothes when the baby was born and they are only in newborn clothes for about a month. Mine were always in vests and babygrows too for the first couple of months so all those cute little outfits I spent a fortune on never got worn!

Hope your doing ok - Im going to catch up on your diary now. x x

Heres a linky

Baby essentials

lunar

Thanks for the link penguin, im off to check it out now. People have told me not to get clothes, ive already been given a bag of them by a friend who had a boy so ive got a good start on that.

your challenge is a good one, i know you will get those paid off for christmas! its always good to have some extra motivation to make overpayments. Ive also been slipping with odd takeaways here and there...

lunar

Ive joined the pay a debt by christmas challenge. there is no way i can pay off a full debt but im aiming to overpay my egg loan by £1500 reducing the end of the loan by 6 months. So I need to find £250 per month to make it. It feels quite good to have a challenge to give me some new motivation in getting rid of my debts.

It seemed easier to be motivated when i had smaller debts i could target last year, now it seems like it will take forever to make a dent in things.

lunar

OOPS spent £3.50 on lunch at work today as i was to lazy to make something this morning!

I get paid tomorrow so I think I will go onto my internet banking to see if there is anything left in there I can use to overpay to ease my guilt. Ill add it on to my challenge total if there is!

lunar

After checking my account ive been able to overpay by £80, which is how much i had left in my account before payday. I did overpay more earlier in the month but am only including what i have paid since the challenge started. only £1420 to go!

CHEAP_AS_CHIPS_4

hI, Lunar

pleased that all is going okay with the baby, a boy!!1 congratulations!!:j

I am sure that you are getting loads of advice about what things you need for the baby;)

i know when i had my first, we went totally mad and bought everything and anything!!:cool:

i dont know if you have a car, if so you will obviously need one of these, but i also bought a baby chair for the baby and she never went in it, the car seat is great for in the house as it keeps them safe and when there a little older its great for feeding.

i know people have said clothes and its sooo true, i still have bags of the stuff never worn and i've had another two babies!!

for burping cloths i just ripped up an old t-shirt, as these cost a fourtune for baby to sick up on.:rolleyes:

and toys we bought loads of toys and all my babies prefered my hair/fingers/bobbies!! to play with.:D

most of all just enjoy it as i'm sure that you will, even when you are so sleep deprived, when you baby looks in your eyes and grabs your fingers its the best think in the whole world:D

take care
cheapsxx

Snaggles

Hi Lunar, awwww, you're having a boy....that's lovely news. :A Boys are much easier when it comes to nappy changes - not as many nooks and crannies...lol. But they do tend to pee up into the air (or often, onto their own faces) when you take their nappies off in the early weeks, so beware when you take the nappy off!

The only tips I can think of really are:

Don't stockpile wipes/nappies before the baby is born, as they might be the wrong shape/size or the baby might have a reaction to them. But once the baby is born and you have found a brand you are happy with (Tescos nappies are the best on the market in my opinion, better than even Huggies and Pampers, but different brands suit different babies), watch out for offers and buy as many as you can afford. We use the Pampers sensitive wipes, and they quite often do offers on 4 or 6 packs.

Don't buy a baby bath - I used mine twice! It's easier to just take them in the bath with you (have hubby on hand the first few times you do it though).

Don't bother buying 'proper' clothes in newborn or 0-3 sizes, just go for sleepsuits (they look soooo adorable in the plain white ones that are really cheap in George etc when they are tiny). You will get quite a lot of little outfits bought for you. Oh, and 'coming home from hospital' outfits are a lovely idea, but they invariably don't fit, and you bring them home in a sleepsuit, or use the outfit but with the sleeves turned up about 20 times and the legs dangling a foot below the actual ends of their legs....NOT a good look!

If you get a lot of very small sized clothes, consider taking some of them back and swapping them for bigger sizes, as they are literally in newborn sized clothes for about 4 minutes.

Shop in sales but think about the season you are buying for. At the end of summer, they sell off the summer clothes, but you need to buy them in the size they will be in next year, not the size they are in now (seems obvious but I keep forgetting this!).

Baby blankets are sooo expensive - but we bought a couple of baby sleeping bags in the Debenhams sale, and have just bought another in a bigger size from John Lewis (£16....they seem to be among the cheapest), and they are fab - the baby never wakes up cold because they have kicked their blankets off.

I'm sure there are loads of other tips but I think I have waffled far to much already! :rotfl:

ps - no luck for my sister yet btw - they have had another failed attempt but think they will try again.

lunar

Cheaps, my mum has bought me a car seat and pram so i have those covered, and a friend has just bought me loads of baby einstein toys ranging from 0-12 months so im getting well set up there. Im trying so hard not to go mad and buy everything i see when im shopping!

Snaggles, im so sorry your sister hasnt had any luck yet, its such a difficult thing to deal with. Im keeping my fingers crossed that it works when she tries again.

I have had one of those baby sleeping bags bought for me its so cute, ive also had 2 different coming home outfits bought for me. I have had loads of gifts all ready, I think its because it took me so long to get pregnant, it seems my family are as excited as me about it.

One more bit of good news, my debt total is sub £20000 which im so happy about. It feels like a huge milestone.