A debt free Beautiful - Moose

Beautiful-Moose

Another new week is upon us.

So my weekend didn't pan out as planned. My sister's boyfriend had a rather nasty turn on Saturday evening which involved an emergency doctor coming out to see him. So we ended up staying round at their house in case he had another one in the night and to keep my sister company and help her look after her kid. First time in a long time that I have been woken up by a kid at 6am on a weekend!

So our plans to go and clean out my room never happened. Still there isn't such a rush to do so now as the buyers for my parents house have pulled out sadly. So their search continues........

We still had a lovely sunday, went to my OH's family BBQ (yep never to early in their house!) luckily it was all done before the thunder storm hit.

I managed to get a Race for Life training session in on Saturday morning before all the drama happened which I was very pleased with, lovely weather for it too. On to week 4 of the programe now, things are getting tough!

The only spend we had this weekend was a take away on Saturday night which cost £25 for 4 people, not an ideal spend but at 9pm at night we didn't have much choice in terms of food. My OH paid for it all which was very nice of him :-)

So plans for this week consist of
Enjoy some well deserved time off from tomorrow until next Wednesday! WOOHOO!!
Continuing to eat whatever we have left in the fridge/freezer for dinner.
Sort out a balance transfer for my Natwest Card.
Get another 2 Race for Life training sessions in to complete week 4.
Enjoy a night out tomorrow with one of my best friends to see Adele.
Enjoy spending some quality time with my grandparents.

Most important task this week - Have an amazing anniversary weekend in Liverpool with my OH to celebrate 4 years together. Just because we are in debt doesn't mean we can't still have fun, we just need to make sure we don't got mad and overspend on things. There can be as much romance in sitting together with a cup of coffee as their can be with an expensive meal. Honestly as soppy as this sounds I am just looking forward to spending some time with him away from work and London.

Calling14

You seem to be taken to debt busting well. Good luck with your diary and have a lovely weekend away.

Beautiful-Moose

Well what a lovely few days away! I really enjoyed my staycation. Adele was amazing as expected! Had a 2 course meal for £15 and one drink so spent a maximum of £20 all evening which was my budget.

There was a little bit of overspending on my credit card I must admit while we were away but it needed to happen as it was on extra petrol and we needed to get home so I am not too upset by it. But everything else was paid for by myself or the boyfriend on debit card. He won some money on the Grand National so we were able to stay in our hotel for an extra night which was an amazing treat and the hotel upgraded us as well for free which was a nice little perk! We used up the free £50 from Barclaycard on a lovely meal out with some friends we haven't seen in about 2 years. I would say my time off has been a massive success, others wouldn't but the fact this was the first time where we haven't just thrown our credit cards at everything and buying up stuff we knew we couldn't afford.

This weekend I have a friends Hen Party which I have already paid for and includes drinks and food so I should only need £10 for the evening as emergency cash.
It's also my dad's birthday and we are heading out for breakfast, I have looked at the menu already and worked out what I am having so I will only need £5 for a coffee and a croissant.

We are still eating everything we have in the freezer for our dinners, everything is slowly going down. I am going to be making a Pasta Bake this evening and then using the leftovers again for my dinner before I head out to the Hen Party, line my stomach before the wine starts flowing!

I am hoping not to be too hungover on Sunday so I can head out for a Race for Life run, I have had 2 weeks off from running so I need to get back in to it ASAP! Eaten a lot of bad food too so need to get back in to a healthy eating habit once again.

All in all this month has been a bit mad! I am hoping that come April payday I will be able to take a bit more control on my money in May and start sorting out bigger payments on my cards and things like that.

endoftheostricheffect

Subscribed! I have taken my first step today, and started my own DFD- well done on yours so far!

Beautiful-Moose

The weekend was really good. My dad had a lovely birthday breakfast and paid for us all to celebrate getting a new job! So saved some money there on not having to pay for breakfast.

However I think this weekend I have realised that my clubbing days are coming to an end. Rolled in to bed at 4am but what a great night out! Everyone had a great time, probably because we don't get to do stuff like that very often anymore. I think I am still suffering today in terms of tiredness so an early night is on the cards tonight.

This week I plan to live off the last remaining bits of my money in my purse, well in fact I shall be living off them until my next payday. A week of sandwiches, cereal and soups for lunch is on the cards.

Due to being so tired on Sunday morning I never made it out for a run but I have my running buddy fit and well again so tomorrow night we will be starting up with our next bit of training.

I have noticed how weird I am about getting paid these days. I like being paid of course but I just get so scared about being paid and all my bills being covered, I slightly dread payday. However I think it has made me realise that I function better when I have cash in my hand as apposed to having it on my card. It worked on Saturday night as I didn't overspend. I took £20 out with me and that got me home and £10 in a whip for extra drinks. It makes me think twice about spending on things so this may be a tactic I take with me in to next month and see how I do having a weekly budget in my purse and just spending from that.

Willowpop

Hi BM,
Cash definitely worked for me.
If I didn't have it in that cash budget then I simply didn't spend it. It really helped me stop any impulse purchases too. I was really, super strict with myself.
Hope it works for you too...

Beautiful-Moose

So today is payday!

Bills to be paid and budgets to be drawn up. I am more determined than ever to get debt free.

Rent, car parking and council tax all to be paid out today. Water, Electric and loan money have all left my account today when I checked first thing.

Credit Card payments all come out tomorrow as does my mobile phone.

Food shopping has all been done for the month. My OH has decided to take that on out of his wages as he pays a lot less than me a month in debt payments.

From next month we have sorted out a proper payment plan so that I can get out of debt quicker. I am going to up the payments on my Barclaycard with my partner giving me the extra cash so that I can up my payments. A lot of the spending has been done by both of us on that card - our holidays, gig tickets, furniture for the flat so although it is in my name it is both our responsibility to pay it back. Hopefully with his contribution and sticking to our plans and budgets according to the snowball calculator we will be debt free by November 2019. A whole month earlier than our original plan of Jan 1st 2020.

At some point we need to sell off some more bits from the flat, old CDs and DVDs and my old car so any money we make there will be wiped off the credit card so hopefully we can bring that date forward some more.

After the bank holiday me and the OH are going on a health kick as well. I need to start getting ready for my 5k run. He is going to start going back to playing football down at our local club with my dad. I have a work awards ceremony and a wedding in June that I want to have slimmed down for so I have some mini goals to work towards.

Kitten868

Sort out your DVDs, CDs, books tonight! We buy books are doing an extra 10% on offers with code GAMEOFTHRONES6 xxx

Beautiful-Moose

So it has been a while since I have updated anything on here.

This weekend I found the strength to say no to something. It was my cousins birthday and she was heading out to a street food festival. Sounds amazing! Did some research online and found it was going to be quite an expensive trip, I decided to drive so I wouldn't spend money on drinks and no temptation to miss the last train and get a cab home. We had a budget of £50 for both of us for the night. Then I thought - don't go at all! We were both knackered from a day of sorting out the flat and putting pictures up and the final touches for our flat. So we decided to stay in and cancel. The BF headed down to Sainsbury's and got some bits costing no more than £10 and that included a bottle of wine. We cooked stuff from bits we had indoors and we made ourselves a little Tapas style dinner and ate it on our balcony in the sunshine. We had a great Saturday night indoors listening to music, drinking and enjoyed our little flat. I didn't feel like I missed out on much by not going despite it being my cousins birthday. I will make it up to her when I next see her, invite her over for food maybe.

Having major drama with Vodafone over my phone contract. They told me it would be reduced to £18 and this month they took £34.99 from my account. Not impressed so I am currently waiting for a £14.99 refund from them.

I am back on the running and healthy eating as I only have 8 weeks until race day now! My jeans seems to fit me much better these days but I haven't stepped on the scales for a while, my challenge this next 8 weeks is to lose 2 pound a week at least.

My company has recently bought out another which means my work load will begin to increase so I am hoping that means a pay rise may be on the horizon which would be amazing! But until then I shall keep plodding along :-)

My BF has found loads of old records that he no longer wants or needs so he is going to stick them on ebay this week and sell them. Which is great as it will put some money in our pockets and free up some much needed space in our one bed flat.

Having had a bit of a break down about money and debt a few weeks ago I am feeling a lot more positive about things the past few days. I feel happy that I am really making a start on things and that I have an amazing bf to help me on the journey to becoming debt free.

Beautiful-Moose

It's been a while since I have updated my diary so here goes.........

This month has been bad money wise, I dipped in to my savings money to help us as we had overspent somewhere along the line. I was so angry and annoyed with myself but rather than keep beating myself up over it I have used it as a valuable lesson learnt to not make the same mistakes this month or any more months to come. We have quite a big month ahead coming up so sticking to a budget is crucial! No dipping in to the savings again.

The Bank Holiday weekend is upon us and always a time where overspending can happen. We have a friends birthday drinks to go to on Sunday. Already our money saving ways have changed us in that we have decided against going to have Sunday lunch with everyone in the pub and eating indoors (I am planning to make a Shepard's Pie and saving the leftovers for another meal next week) We can then just head there for the evening part for a few drinks and sticking to a budget for the evening. We can get a bus there and back again so no spending on cabs either.

We have a friends wedding coming up in 2 weeks time. This is our 3rd wedding in 3 years and all have been at the same venue! So we have now got pretty good at working out our day in terms of train times, how to get home, how much drinks will cost us etc. We are planning to take £50 with us for drinks for the day. £50 for a cab home, it's a lot cheaper than a Saturday night stay in a hotel, plus there will be five of us all heading the same way home so sharing the cab will only cost us £20 as a couple and we have the added bonus of sleeping in our own bed and dealing with our (possible) hangovers indoors.

The following week we have a week off! YAY!! The week starts with a trip to Manchester to see The Stone Roses for my BF birthday. We booked the tickets last year when we were still in our silly spending phase. Again another lesson learnt! We are still excited for it as they are one of our fave bands. We have a hotel booked for a one night stay, we will eat cheap before hand, enjoy the gig and have a bit of a date night, hopefully in the sunshine. Just because it is part of a birthday celebration doesn't mean we need to spend loads while we are there.

It's pay day today so all the bills are paid or will be coming out of the account over the next few days. The rent is paid. Food shopping needs to be done.

But for tonight I shall go home and enjoy a nice bottle of wine after a stressful day.........