Single, six kids and going to be debt free!

Mumoffourkids

So today is the first of the month, the first of the year and three weeks until I turn 40 :eek:

So I have been trying to work where I want to be at the end of this month and at the end of the year.

2018 Goals
Pay off £12,000 of my debt by December 2018
Get to target weight
Have an emergency fund of £600
Save for Christmas and birthdays


January 2018 Goals
Pay off £2200 off my debt
Lose six pounds in weight
Make an extra £100 by the end of the month
Manage 15 NSD

I might add to these during the day but its a good start!

Mumoffourkids

camz2017 wrote: »

£5 for drinks snacks sweet and food, how cheap is life where you are haha? :D

Happy new year! “New year, same me.”

It's a rugby club so pretty cheap! I spent about £35 all night and that included the kids £5 each! :rotfl:

Happy new year to you as well. Any more drama yet? :rotfl:

camz2017

I like your debt goal, excited to see that happen.

Get to target weight:
It’s just numbers, install down my fitness pal and stick to it. Work out and eat the right calories you’ll get there easily. Go the gym, but don’t expect the gym to cause weight loss alone, cutting is 95% diet in my view. When I’m cutting I prep all my food for the week, I have some foods I can eat unlimited which are fruits, vegetables, lean meats (chicken breast etc), water.

RE your emergency fund - could you get that together this month, possibly reduce that £2200 target and get the emergency fund ticked off?

Drama, none yet, new year nicer me right?? Nice me can’t attract any dramas

enthusiasticsaver

How are you going to pay off £2200 from debt in January when you only have a £967 surplus? Great challenge but I would be concerned you may be overstretching. Are you tackling the overdraft first?

Good goals for 2018 but I would set mini challenges to achieve them like maybe no sweets or biscuits on 6 out of 7 days to help you lose weight or £100 per month to emergency fund or maybe pay one debt off every 3 months and so on.

Good luck.

Spendless

Great idea to give the kids money. I find mine are only too willing to spend my money, when it becomes theirs instead they're suddenly more discerning.

cmc_entertainment

The emergency fund should be quite doable. It's very similar target of the save a penny a day challenge. If you could save 12.50 per week, you will be on target (12.50 x 52 = £650)

Mumoffourkids

camz2017 wrote: »

I like your debt goal, excited to see that happen.

Get to target weight:
It’s just numbers, install down my fitness pal and stick to it. Work out and eat the right calories you’ll get there easily. Go the gym, but don’t expect the gym to cause weight loss alone, cutting is 95% diet in my view. When I’m cutting I prep all my food for the week, I have some foods I can eat unlimited which are fruits, vegetables, lean meats (chicken breast etc), water.

RE your emergency fund - could you get that together this month, possibly reduce that £2200 target and get the emergency fund ticked off?

Drama, none yet, new year nicer me right?? Nice me can’t attract any dramas

Thanks Camz, I can't wait to see the debt come down this month.

With regards to the weight loss, I know I can do as I lost just over a stone in the run up to Christmas. My main thing is I have no willpower and can't cut out chocolate etc completely so instead I exercise more to counteract it. I don't have time to go to the gym but instead I walk the kids to and from school five days a week and go rugby training once a week. I have batched cooked last week and the meals are portioned up in the freezer ready.

Unfortunately the emergency fund will had to be built up slowly as the large repayment this month is mainly due to the ppi refund which is being taken off my debt by the company. If it was cash, I was going to use it to pay off my overdraft, set up emergency fund and clear tax credits debt.

And I can't believe you were nice and caused no drama!

Mumoffourkids

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

How are you going to pay off £2200 from debt in January when you only have a £967 surplus? Great challenge but I would be concerned you may be overstretching. Are you tackling the overdraft first?

Good goals for 2018 but I would set mini challenges to achieve them like maybe no sweets or biscuits on 6 out of 7 days to help you lose weight or £100 per month to emergency fund or maybe pay one debt off every 3 months and so on.

Good luck.

Thanks and in reply, the main part of the large debt repayment this month is due to a ppi refund that is coming. Unfortunately it is not cash otherwise I would have set up the emergency fund. But instead it is coming off my largest debt.
The remainder is what I have budgeted to pay off his month along with a bit extra to try and spur me on to make some more money.

I like your idea of mini goals though and I am going to try and clear one debt at a time. I have a spreadsheet and can forecast when I will have extra money for debt repayments so am definitely going to do that.

camz2017

You can have all the chocolate you want just within your calorie allowance.

No need to cut it out, I eat burgers, pizza, drink full fat coke, sometimes eat 3 chocolate bars in a row, love garlic bread. I like to calorie cycle, so say you want to do 2000 calories a day, I would do something like this:
Mon: 1500
Tuesday: 2500
Wed: 1500
Thursday: 2500
Friday: 2500
Sat: 1500
Sunday: 2000

Average over the week = 2000 calories

It works well for me, I eat more calories than that because I’m maintaining. Some days I can have over 3500 calories, because it averages out across the week. It does mean my friends think I’m a huge fatty stuffing my face. I don’t really publicise how I do it people just assume I have a mad metabolism, but I basically plan my high calorie days when I’m out with friends or whatever.

Keep up the walking but don’t eat more because of it, keep the calories controlled. You could be in the gym 4 hours a day, but eating a couple of muffins extra a day and there won’t be results. Weight loss is quite easy if you give yourself the wiggle room to do it, so enjoy the chocolate.

Mumoffourkids

Spendless wrote: »

Great idea to give the kids money. I find mine are only too willing to spend my money, when it becomes theirs instead they're suddenly more discerning.

Yep they definitely were more reluctant to spend their money last night. It gets them to think about what they are spending on as well.