Small Steps Out Of Massive Debt!

EssexHebridean

Oh my word you've nailed it GC - THE best couscous combination in my world is shredded leftover lamb fried off, with roasted chickpeas, chopped dried apricots (add them to the dry couscous before adding the water) and a huge handful of chopped parsley. Maybe some cherry tomatoes as well. Just LUSH!

Isitdoable

So impressed with how you are doing, and very interested to hear how you get on with monzo....people rave about it.

[Deleted User]

I usually just make bigger dinners and take the leftovers to work and warm them up. If I make a chilli, curry, stew or whatnot, I'll usually make double and then freeze a few portions. All I do then to prep a work lunch is move the Tupperware container from freezer to fridge the night before, then grab in the morning and heat up at work.

Naomim

Moguline wrote: »

I usually just make bigger dinners and take the leftovers to work and warm them up. If I make a chilli, curry, stew or whatnot, I'll usually make double and then freeze a few portions. All I do then to prep a work lunch is move the Tupperware container from freezer to fridge the night before, then grab in the morning and heat up at work.

I tried bigger dinners, the teenage man-child just ate more!:rotfl:

If you have a toaster at work GC, you could also make scrambled egg or beans on toast. I often bring in a tin of beans for lunch.

Good luck with Monzo too. This will be my 2nd month of pot building although I'm not doing any rounding up as I need every penny but I have locked the car insurance/Christmas/house insurance and emergency fund pots as they should just build up whereas my petrol, dog food, birthdays pots are all constantly moving. I have a tidy build up in the dog food pot and if it's still there at the end of the month I'll sweep it out as an over-payment.

Naomim x

Silver_Queen

Naomim wrote: »

I tried bigger dinners, the teenage man-child just ate more!:rotfl:

If you have a toaster at work GC, you could also make scrambled egg or beans on toast. I often bring in a tin of beans for lunch.

Good luck with Monzo too. This will be my 2nd month of pot building although I'm not doing any rounding up as I need every penny but I have locked the car insurance/Christmas/house insurance and emergency fund pots as they should just build up whereas my petrol, dog food, birthdays pots are all constantly moving. I have a tidy build up in the dog food pot and if it's still there at the end of the month I'll sweep it out as an over-payment.

Naomim x

I was thinking of locking my EF pot, but what do you do if you have an emergency and need to access it?

Naomim

Sorry can't quote as on my phone. With monzo you can just unlock the pot if you need to. There's no set limit.

Naomim

GeorgianaCavendish

Ooh, lovely shiny new forum! Just a quick update to check in and say hello as it has been a hectic week or so. 
I'm doing well with the lunch prep (cous cous is a definite winner! I'm roasting veggies and cooking lamb twice a week and have cous cous, lemon juice, dried apricots and feta cheese at work). 

I've written before about my spreadsheet anxiety. I've noticed this creeping in more and more over the last few weeks, most likely because I am already feeling stressed about a big project at work. I was checking my spreadsheets multiple times a day and making lots of 'just rounding down' payments (despite my new Debt Buster Account!) and in general it was wrecking my head. I've decided to take a conscious step back for a few weeks and try to relax a bit. I'll definitely be back again to update towards the end of the month as I make my next set of repayments, but I'm going to take a bit of a breather from obsessing over the micro details. 

GeorgianaCavendish

As part of my mission to understand my anxiety and obsessive behaviour with the spreadsheets (really there is no merit to running the figures 8 times a day), I've been listening to a couple of great audiobooks about money. The first is Lost and Found by Geneen Roth. It is all about the emotional relationship with money and I've had a whole string of light bulb moments while listening to the first 4 chapters (visualising a string of fairy lights trailing behind me as I listen!). 
The second one is How To Worry Less About Money by John Armstrong (part of The School of Life Series).  I listened to this last week and found it incredibly helpful, as one of the reviews says "this is not a book not a book about saving money, or making more money. This book is a book that will change the way you think about money, the way you deal with money, and the way you feel about money." 
Obviously there are the money worries that are about money and debt, but there are a whole lot that might deep-down be about something else and money / spending has been the scapegoat. I think all the recent changes with getting to the end of mid-term financial commitments (the loans; clearing a credit card balance) have unsettled me because I'm starting to make significant progress towards being debt-free and after having debt since I was old enough to sign a credit agreement, that feels terrifying. I've been so scared of going back to old habits, at times it feels like there is something inevitable about it, so working on untangling the emotions from the facts is really helpful. 

In other news, I had a great couple of weeks with surveys and market research. It really goes in fits and spurts, I get nothing for months and then loads come along at once. I've cashed out (directly into the Debt Buster Account) and will make a decision on what to do with it the night before payday. (Almost definitely it will be going towards the Tesco credit card debt).  
House-hunting has hit a slump. We've been really close several times but either someone else has pipped us to the post or we've discovered something that is a deal-breaker. I'm trying not to get obsessed with previous 'perfect' houses and looking for something identical in other listings, there isn't much around at the moment but it can all change so quickly, so we need to stay open and flexible. It is extremely challenging as I do not like uncertainty AT ALL. 

EssexHebridean

If it helps, I absolutely get where you are regarding feeling terrified that the old habits will resurface - I think a lot of us have been in a similar place. It took literally years for me to trust myself with a credit card again after having got into a muddle with one when I was 18 - I was SO convinced that I'd end up running up debt again. I didn't though - and I still think that was because I'd been through the process of paying it off, having to deal with the provider etc, and that taught me deep down that I NEVER wanted to get back into that situation again. I've been in debt since - loans, OD's and obviously the mortgage - but it's always been manageable, and never left me with that panicky feeling that the card debt did back then. 

We're now in a position where we have NO debt at all - and initially that felt really strange indeed. (I'm not counting the 0% card as the money is sitting there in the savings to clear that off tomorrow if we needed to do so) It takes far more time than I thought it would to get out of that feeling of guilt when I spend something on myself, or go over our (still quite tight) food budget - and even now that is a process I'm still going through, three years on. I worry when the surplus in the joint account at month end isn't as high as I'd like - in spite of the fact that the whole point of the surplus is that it does allow us to get a takeaway here and there, have an unscheduled meal out, or to decide to go out somewhere for the day - and we really do still budget for pretty much everything, too.  I suspect it will take you a similar sort of time to get your head around being DF when your time comes as well - but perhaps it actually needs to - the lessons we learn (teach ourselves, really!) have such a lot of value maybe those feelings of slight fear that things will all go to pot again are actually the very thing that ensures that they won't? 

astrocytic_kitten

This is really thought-provoking, thank you for the book recs - I’m definitely going to check them out, they sound useful.

I’m trying to focus on living in the moment and not getting wound up about possible futures at the moment for other reasons. It’s made me realise that I find myself fiddling with spreadsheets and YNAB and projections most days and there’s no real reason for it. Definitely something for me to do some thinking on too!