Lemons to Lemonade!!

Hopefuljoy

Hello everyone! Having lurked and sometimes posted over the last few years and avidly followed a number of you, I am screwing up the courage to share my moneysaving exploits and efforts with you.

I was debt free for three glorious months but now find myself back in a debt situation having had a bout of depression and made some foolish purchases. I'm working on an accurate state of affairs but for now can say that I have....

Interest only mortgage of £94500 which I want to start overpaying.

CC at 0% with £970 which I pay £25 off pcm.

Car loan (don't even go there with the guilt!) of approx £3,200 which costs £125 pcm.

HMRC overpayments to pay off at £53 pcm (they stop in November 2016 thank goodness!)

Student loan from when I trained as a teacher (an old one!) six years ago. Paid off direct from salary at £89 pcm so I don't really count it as debt if you know what I mean.

£50 pcm payment to my parents for help with essential home improvements. They are extremely kind but I never want to borrow from them again as it's not fair on them and I find it humiliating.

That's it folks! At the age of almost fifty and having made heaps of mistakes I have set myself the goal of paying off as much of my mortgage as possible by 2026 and clearing my car laon and CC by the end of this year.

I've started today by making a payment of £250 to the car loan and putting together a mean budget on YNAB which I shall share tomorrow.

I'm new to this thread writing and hope I can be a bit clearer tomorrow! I'm going to press post before I totally chicken out!!!

:A

prosaver

Forget about the morgage till u paid of your real debts... good luck:):):):):)

Hopefuljoy

Thanks for the advice prosaver! That is exactly the plan. I'm setting a target date for the other debts of March 2017. Seems an awful long way off but I will need that time as I'm not on the greatest of incomes.

Thanks for your encouragement.

Hopefuljoy

:money:Evening all! Just having a read of BrizzleDFW's thread for inspiration and had a thought. My current DD for gas and elec is pretty low at £58 but I want to get it down over the next 12 months. So..... the tumble dryer is going to be unplugged in favour of the airer and washing line for starters and tomorrow I'm going to turn all the radiators down to 2 for the remainder of the cooler nights.:T

I'm going to use my YNAB figures for my state of affairs as most of my costs are pretty stable. The horrible truth is I spend way over my budget in Sainsbobs. I have a habit of popping in after work when I have plenty of food in the fridge and freezer. It's a combination of tiredness and laziness with a bit of 'I deserve a treat' thrown in for good measure!:eek:

I also went on the CAP UK money course 18 months ago and I'm going to start taking my grocery/petrol/DD allowance/ents money out as cash again each week and leave my two debit cards at home. :A

Thankfully I have no idea what my pin number is for the CC and have no inclination to use it. Also I think I've lost it which is probably the best thing ever!:rotfl:

Am also going to start cooking from scratch again and run down the freezer. I'm sure I can cut down my weekly shop to £20 per week for the next two weeks just by using what I have and topping up at Li£l once a week. I'll keep a record on here so you can see how I'm doing and hold me to it.:o

Am off back to Brizzle land now and PLMBL. They are both fab!:T

Nite nite to all in MSE land.:)

brizzledfw

Hey, found you. Have subscribed of course..

Plans look good and yes bin that TD, turn that heating down (you live in sunny Sussex after all ) and get home cooking. I would suggest you bulk cook if you lack energy in the evening and take left overs into work for lunch.

Also could you get a lodger? If you can it makes a huge difference. But depends on your circs of course.

Brizzle x

basketcase

Morning Hopeful!

Found you diary and just wanted to say that I relate. Especially to the going into Sainsbees because you're feeling too tired and/or idle to be bothered and anyway... (Ask me why I can relate...?! )

I'm currently not so much a DF Wannabe as a DF WannaStay. Didn't have much to pay off in the scheme of things and used some of my redundancy pay to clear it.

Got another job on a lower income and heading for retirement, so need to work out a better way of doing things. I cringe at the amount of money I could have if I'd thought of this earlier. Know what I mean?

Anyway, I'll be cheering you on, and shall subscribe, if you don't mind?

Go Hopeful!! :T:beer::T

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary
A year is so not long in the great scheme of things
Keep posting!

please-let-me-be-lucky

Found you and subscribed! Ready to cheer you on :T.

Thank you for your lovely comments both here and on Brizzle's diary. Nice to know my ramblings inspire someone . Xx

CoffeeBean_2

Lots of luck, you sound really positive already which is fab
CB x

doingitanyway

You sound just like me me. I call it having L'oreal moments where I've had a stressful day and I stop of at the supermarket for uplifting treats (because I'm worth it)...I've almost
stopped since I've been on here.
I am going to be on these sites for at least a year and a half so I'll be here to cheer you on

brizzledfw

Helloooo..how's it going?

Hope alls good. I too have those L'Oreal moments DIA... frequent hazard even now. But definitely posting regularly on here makes me better able to cope with them and then resist ('cos although I am worth it (as we all are)..I want to pay down the mortgage more than anything...)

Have a great Easter folks