My money saving diaries

saving_not_spending

Hey there, this is my thrifty money saving diary. To be updated as often as possible to help me become debt free for the first time since I was 18.

In recent months I have paid off the remainder of my student loan (approx £2,000) and a credit card (approx £2,000) but have some way to go.

saving_not_spending

Daily update from yesterday;

In an effort to bring in my lunch from home I had salmon and lettuce from the fridge - salmon was questionable but I seem to be doing OK today :cheesy:

Walked back to the P&R saving £1.35. Well I guess it all adds up.

Took 2 tins of paint back to the shop for a refund of approx £36.

No spenders yesterday

saving_not_spending

Daily update today so far;

Home-made Mexican cottage pie from the freezer with Avocado for lunch. Yum

Might walk back to the P&R car park again instead of getting the bus.

Picked up a paint chart for Little Greene paint - cheaper than F&B and supposed to be better. Planning on painting the windows ourselves and saving the £1k plus we would have spent on decorator.

No spenders today.

Pay day tomorrow and not just any pay day - bonus pay day.

BEAT_THE_DEBT

Walked back to the P&R saving £1.35. Well I guess it all adds up.


It does all add up!! Well done and welcome

saving_not_spending

So I did walk back last night and saved P&R fare

Breakfast today was smoothie made with leftover fruit, avocado etc from the fridge. Lunch is tuna, broccoli etc - leftovers from dinner last night. As I've run out of left overs I have no idea what dinner may be.

Gym session after work which is pre-paid. Possibly walking to P&R again to save the fare depending on the weather.

Pay and bonus day today - as soon as I get my CC statements through I will be updating my sig and starting to really pay them down. Hopefully will be able to work out my debt free date.

Hmm......... my smoothie tastes a bit tangy, maybe the leftover strawberries were not such a great idea after all.

saving_not_spending

Having a bad day today for a few reasons;

1. we had new carpet fitted in November in our living room. The old one was, well, old. And smelly. And our cat had peed on it a few times. I worked out why she was doing this, which was to do with her cat litter, so that was all sorted and the new carpet was down, so that was that issue solved. Until last night, when I accidentally shut her in the living room all night. And it's not her fault, it's mine, I should have checked (I usually do) but I saw her leave the room before me when I went to bed. She snuck back in, and I can't blame her, she needed the toilet. So i've pulled up the carpet where she has peed, binned the underlay in that corner of the room, and sprayed excessive amounts of urine off spray on there. I'm hoping that a few rounds of spray and some new underlay for that corner will mean it's as good as new, but I'm not optimistic from my past experiences of cat pee and carpet.

2. Today was a spendy day. As well as the urine off spray (about £13, it's expensive) I bought over £100 of paint and painting accessories ready to do the windows this weekend. Also had to buy food for dinner.

3. No exercise/walking today as working from home.

However, on the plus side a builder friend has let us borrow some scaffolding type thing so that we can get on with the windows tomorrow. And I have the paint and everything we need ready. Overall we will save a lot of money doing it ourselves, so I guess that is a big plus.

The CC bills are starting to flow in so I will update my signature as I get the updated figures.

saving_not_spending

Quick update on the carpet situation, managed to sort of soak the corner that was peed on in a bucket of water after rubbing cleaner into it. it's not actually the carpet that smells bad, its the concrete floor under and the wooden things that hold the carpet down. have saturated them with the urine off spray and will hope for the best.

i forgot to say earlier, when i was driving along something flew in through the window, which i thought was a leaf. It was actually a bumble bee which went in through my passenger side window and hit the inside of my closed driver window. it ended up in the footwell, i noticed it a few minutes after it happened, i thought it was dead at first. It had its stinger out so when it started moving i panicked and found a place to pull over. i stopped at a garage and took out the car mat, the poor little bee seemed to be waking up after its collision with the window. i got a sachet of sugar from the garage, mixed some water, and it seemed to perk up

saving_not_spending

Over the weekend we managed to get all of the windows/door frames at the back of the house sanded, put on the undercoat and get the first coat of colour on. we will be working on getting the 2nd coat of colour on this week in the evenings, weather dependant.

Carpet seems to be drying out ok without too much of a smell, although it will never be the same. My brand new carpet :-(

Just waiting for my statement to come through from my AA credit card before I update my sig and then start to pay some of this off. At the weekend my OH offered to give me some of his savings to help pay this down - but i've refused. It doesn't seem fair, as this was all pretty much my spending.

I'm looking forward to updating my totals as soon as I have all of the info, hopefully later on today.

saving_not_spending

Right so I have updated my debt totals and I have paid off what I can so far with my April pay and bonus. I'm really lucky to receive a bonus, but I'm still disappointed with the amount that I have left to pay. I'm looking at another 6 months minimum to pay this all back, and I should have got serious about this ages ago.

As soon as I got home from work I tried to log on to online banking to make the payments, but found that I was locked out as had forgotten my password. Spent about 45 minutes and 2 phone calls to my bank trying to get it all reset. I almost ended up in tears in the first phone call as the guy at the end of the phone was being really impatient and rushing me, so I reset my password all wrong. Anyway, that's all done now.

so the upshot of this is that I only have debt on one credit card now, so it's just the last slog to pay this back.

However, I should add that I also paid back about £2k of student loan at the end of last year, and then another £2k on a credit card earlier this year, and so actually, my starting total was closer to £14,000 !!!! :eek:

Don't know why but it just doesn't feel like I've made progress, although I really have. I mean, I've paid off about £8k so far. I think it's just because of the length of time this has been going on, it was April 2016 when I got into the peak of my £14k debt, and I really thought that in a years time (so about now) I would have paid most of it back.

Anyway, progress made and time for bed now. Doing well on the no spend days so far, and I have the right mind set, and that's the most important thing.

saving_not_spending

Just paid another £54 off the Halifax card so now my running total is £6,200.

I'm owed some expenses at work so hope to pay a little more off in a few days.

Doing well on the no spend days, bringing my lunch to work etc. trying to keep up the minimum spends. Saw a quote on someone's signature which said something along the lines of 'the pound I save today is a pound I don't have to earn tomorrow'. I think that is so true and keep thinking that every time I need to make a purchase