My Debt Busting Diary 2016

ScattySkewbald

Slimming World
So it was time to face the scales last night and it wasn't pretty!!! I've weighed in at 2st 3lb above what I see as a good weight for me- the heaviest I've ever been :mad: Ideally would like to lose 7lb-14lb on top of that to put me back to my lightest adult weight, but got to face facts I was 10yrs younger when I weighed that! So initial SW target is to lose 31lb!

Payment a day Bingo
£3.63 paid yesterday and £3.08 today

Challenges
40p added to the 20p pot taking total to £4.40/£100
£2 added to £2 pot taking total to £10/£100
Potentially got somebody collecting a fb item later, but won't add that til the money is in my hand.

Fly
Not a lot to report - took Christmas decs down. Need to get cracking the house is a tip!

Overpayments fo Month
£91.50/£100

Plans for Today

Arrange return of item bought in sale - £19 to be refunded
Phone bank to query item on statement
Meal plan for SW and make a list of anything that needs buying

ScattySkewbald

Payment a day Bingo
£3.62 paid yesterday and £1.97 today

Challenges
80p added to the 20p pot taking total to £5.20/£100

Fb buyer didn't show grrrrr! But currently have £8.00 in eBay sales ending today

Fly
Still not a lot to report - a couple of loads of washing done but that's it :mad:

Overpayments for Month
£97.09/£100

Plans for Today

Still need to arrange return of item bought in sale - £19 to be refunded
House insurance quotes


It was pay day for me yesterday. Had a nice suprise in that I'd still got some maternity pay I thought I'd gone down to SMP now. This means barring any financial emergency, I should have enough to take the year providing we're careful!

Managed to get a couple more bargain Christmas pressies crossed off my list. Was hoping to use swag$ to fund Christmas but it's just not happening at the minute. I'm wondering whether instead I should buy a £10/£20 giftcard every month to spend at Christmas? With having the little one I'm not getting the time to spend on it and in all honestly seems like a lot of time and effort fo £5. Not very :money: I know but spare time is prescious at the mo and I don't seem to have a great deal of it! Will give it a ponder.

ScattySkewbald

Payment a day Bingo
£1.53 paid

Challenges

£8.00 eBay sales + £3.00 fb sales = £11 paid off = £54.89/£1000

20ps - another 40p added taking total to £5.60

Fly
Bedding washed and changed
Glass to recycling

Overpayments for Month
£109.62 /£100 :j:j:j
I've got 16 days left of this pay period, fingers crossed for more sales and overpayments.

Plans for Today
Post eBay item

I listed another load of items on eBay yesterday and so far have £10 in bids.

I also had a play with the spreadsheet and if I'm successful in making £100/month overpayment to CC1 it'll be gone before the end of next year :T Would be great to do this......

ScattySkewbald

Payment a day Bingo
£3.61, £1.87 and 56p paid

Challenges

20ps - another 40p added taking total to £5.80

Fly
Quick general tidy
Clean washing sorted and put away
Hoover downstairs

Overpayments for Month
£117.66 /£100

I've got £13 worth of bids for items ending this week so should be able to add to this.

Plans for Today
Pop to town
List another couple of eBay items

ScattySkewbald

Seems like ages since I last updated......

Another £6.53 paid off in payment a day bingo

Challenges - £32.15 made in eBay sales taking total to £87.04 / £1000

Overpayments - a further £38.68 paid taking total for month so far to £156.32

Weight loss - had my first weigh in and have lost 8.5lb /31lb, long weigh to go but pleased with my start!

ScattySkewbald

Right after giving myself a good talking to I'm back, re-focussed and raring to go lol!

Reality has hit home that I'm over a third of the way through my mat leave, my wages have dropped and I really really want part time working to be an option but give us a comfortable life at the same time.

So what progress have I made - not a lot :mad: If it wasn't for a TCB payout I'd have just made my standard payments for the month. Anyway here we go......

Scores on the doors for February.

O/D was £814.50 now £784.33 (£30.17 paid)
Cc1 was £4356.96 now £4200.49 (£156.47 paid)
Cc2 was £1455.54 now £1425.54 (£30.00 paid)

Total was £6627.00 now £6410.36 (£216.64 paid)

Weight loss 18.5lb / 31lb :j

So, the socks have been pulled up lol! So what's the plan of action?
1. Sell, sell, sell. In the last week
I've made £96 in eBay sales (pre fees) and £22 in fb. This has been paid straight off cc1 (will count towards March's total). I've got a pile more stuff to sell so will get more listed this week.

2. Readresss pony costs and see where money can be saved.
I've taken the big lad off his calmer (cost approx £22 / month), as he's no longer ridden. We're a few weeks in and no change in temperament so looking good so far! I've asked the vet for a prescription for the meds. I'd been paying £33 per month via vets but have just bought just over 6 months worth for £110 including prescription charge saving £88 or £14.67 per month. I also received a whopping 25% off voucher for local feed store so have bought 2 months worth of feed saving me £15.00ish in total.

3. Meal plan.....
I know I've said it before but now it's double incentive as it helps my SW too. Meal plan drawn up for next 2 weeks as so far only fresh bits required. I was shocked at how much I have in the freezer - time to start using the stocks.

4. Aldi, Home Bargains and B&M etc...
I'm using Aldi as my main supermarket. Switching to Aldi nappies (they're fab!) and washing powder has been biggest difference. Also taking trips to local cheapie shops and only using the big supermarkets as a last resort (after checking out My Supermarket for the best deals obviously!)

Here's hoping March is a good month :beer:

ScattySkewbald

Good afternoon!
All my eBay buyers have paid up and all parcels sent. I've relisted all the items that didn't sell plus a couple of others.
OH car insurance is up for renewal - fair play to him, he's managed to sort it and negotiate a decent discount! Maybe I'll get him to sort the house insurance next!
Popped to A$da yesterday to take advantage of a few offers, hopefully for the remainder of the month we should get by at Aldi, with perhaps a visit elsewhere for a few bits for OH.
Little man has been down for a rare decent length daytime nap, so I've took advantage and had a tidy up and chucked the Hoover round. Feel so much better for it - I hate it when the housework gets out of control, it takes sooooo long to get back on top of it again.
Right better get gone and feed the ponies x

ScattySkewbald

Not the best start to the morning - my trusty USB stick has packed in, with it taking all of my spreadsheets with my finances, house stuff, horse stuff, Xmas and birthday pressies - basically my tool for trying to organise my life. Gutted!!! I'm even more gutted I don't have a back up anywhere, so will need to start again from scratch. Feels sad to say but I feel a wee bit lost without it :mad:

Had my wage slip through yesterday and I am now just on SMP. If my calculations are right I will only get 2 weeks SMP in next months pay and then that's it, I'm on my own til October - very scary! Although I've calculated that we should be ok barring any emergency, the overpayments may have to stop, or a the very least wait until the end of the month when everything else has definitely been covered. It's going to be tight, but getting to spend the time with my little man is huge incentive to make it work.

Popped to Aldi on Friday to get some fresh bits, spent £18 which should hopefully see us through. I'm still sticking to my meal plan well and hopefully already have enough home made ready meals in the freezer to see me through 3-4 weeks. Got the slow cooker on yesterday and made a pot of butternut squash soup (yum!) - that's lunch sorted until mid week.

Last weeks weigh in, I hit the 1.5 stone mark, so have now lost 21.5lb /31 lb. Really pleased with my progress there and I can finally fit into some of my old clothes :T

The OH had little one for a couple of hours yesterday whilst he was watching football, which freed me up to have a bit of a sort out and get some draft eBay listings underway. Will upload them all later this evening. Currently have a load listed ending tonight and tomorrow, but only a couple of bids. Every little helps though and even if I could just get in to the habit of making £10 a week it'd be a massive bonus.

Right, plan for today.......
1. Walk dogs and feed ponies
2. Visit Mums
3. Washing, washing and more washing!
4. Make a list of all DIY, admin and other bits that need tackling
5. eBay
6. Sense check meal plan for coming week and adjust accordingly.

ScattySkewbald

My USB sticks come back to life :j :j :j so relieved lol!

Had a couple of items finish on eBay last night and netted £13.59 - not bad going. Will get these posted out today. I've sent this straight to the credit card taking my over payments to March to £119.48 / £100. I've got a couple more items finishing tonight (only 1 bid so far) and listed another 25 last night (may as well make the most of free listing )

Meal plan revised and in place for the coming week. Really wish I could get the OH on board with this as it'd make life so much easier. We always have to cook 2 meals as I'm veggie and he's fussy! And with him not getting back from work til late it means I can't get it prepped and we end up eating late :mad: think I need to have words!
On the plus side, no food shopping needed for me so should just be minimal spends on a few bits for Mr Fussy!

Still need to make my to do list - I'm aiming to making the most of what's left of my mat leave, primarily to spend time with my boy but also to get on top of the niggling jobs that need doing to free up our weekends. Might take advantage of the few minutes I have now until little one wakes up for a feed.

Have a good day X

ScattySkewbald

Made the huge mistake of allowing the OH into a supermarket unsupervised grrrr! He's managed to pretty blow the rest of the months food budget! To be fair he didn't have a great deal in but even so.....:mad:

Another £10.40 in eBay sales last night. Going to leave this in my PayPal account once the sellers have paid up as I've got about £75 worth of 'pay after delivery' purchases to pay for. £50 was little ones high chair and the rest clothes for him. Really need to ban myself from eBay (other than for selling obviously!) as LO has more than enough clothes (charity shops are generally cheaper too!).

Made my to do list yesterday and have already crossed a couple off. The ponies have just moved into a new field so got a bit of work to do there with fencing and weeding but hopefully have enough fencing etc in already so shouldn't need to spend a great deal. Just need a bit of decent weather so I can take LO with me.