£50k to zero - made it across the finish line

One-step-at-a-time

We never had a written budget and always been a really terrible influence on each other in the travel department since we met, and this accounts for chunk of the debt. In very oversimplified terms, the spending above and beyond what we could legitimately afford would probably work out something along the lines of 20% debt from past relationships, 10% home improvements put in motion after mortgage and before a job loss, 10% car, 30% travel, 5% hobbies (mine is now a business area but it wasn't for the first few years of dabbling in it), 5% miscellaneous (things like popping car insurance on the card with the intention of paying it back, then not bothering), 20% interest accumulated from simply not caring/worrying enough to address things properly and only doing minimum payments for far too long. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!
Because it's mostly been 'big ticket' things and payment mismanagement is why I think we managed to successfully do an about turn last year once reality had slapped us in the face, and although I'm hugely embarrassed that we (and realistically, the driving force for most of it was me) let it get so out of hand, it's not a mystery as to where it all went.

MoneysavingmadGem

I have just read through your thread and really admire your determination and goal setting.

Love the idea of only going on little holiday if earnt through ebay. At present I have gone through mine and families cupboards over last 2 years with nothing left to sell!! But I enjoy it so much tempted to have a small pot of cash to get bits from carboots to sell on!

Im intrigued as to your craft. I knit and crochet.

Good luck!

strawberryfield2233

One-Step - Makes sense why its been difficult if you both in the past want to spend but I think you can’t sort things out without fully understanding where things went wrong and judging by this thread and your sea change in attitude its all going in a good direction now!!!
Keep it up!!

Am also curious as to what your craft is too guessing it might be top secret though :rotfl:
Tc

One-step-at-a-time

Hi Gem,
Thanks for stopping by and reading!

I figured selling things was the best way to still manage a holiday, I had a lot of fun planning it out, and am going to repeat the performance this year to split between paying off more debt and having some excursions (seven more things have gone on eBay tonight, £100-ish in the pot after fees if they all shift). I don't doubt that I will run out of things to sell at some point, but there's a way to go before we are truly minimalist!

We've got a wedding to go to in August that I need to budget for, and a couple of things in May and September that we'd really like to do when friends from overseas will be on holiday over here. The wedding takes priority, but I have a spreadsheet with the breakdown of all the potential costs to work to, and the more I can do without touching wages, the better.

I think I can say the expensive hobby/job is photography without incriminating myself at all
My area is a bit of a niche (not weddings/families) so the work is quite sporadic, but I have a few decent repeat clients. It's not very lucrative, but over the last few years the initial spend on gear has started to justify itself, so I will keep plugging away.

Signing off with today's MSE report: I made dessert to take to a family meal using the contents of the cupboards, and splurged 57p each on two veggie quiches that have solved the problem of what my lunches will be this week

strawberryfield2233

Is the afternoon already ?! Hello All,
One-step - Photography sounds like a great hobby/business to me and if can bring some £ in all the better !!
£158 away from the 30K barrier... you are so close breaking through that one Good Luck TC

MoneysavingmadGem

Wohoo! Well done you!

Like yourself im finding setting little achievable targets to over pay ccsI over a month easier than looking at it as a whole big sum!

Im working in cash ( bar dds) and finding that im able to pay at least £10 a month extra to ccs by putting back lose change (5ps, 1ps, 2p,) and £2 coins I get. Similar o rounding up/ down bank account

One-step-at-a-time

Not a bad day today, overall! There was a meeting in my office today which resulted in leftover chocolate biscuits - no complaints there :rotfl:

A post about Prolific Academic surveys (which was new to me) popped up earlier; I signed up and have done five (and am already £6.21 up), then did some grocery shopping that we were originally going to do tomorrow, got everything on the list and came in £3.34 under budget (mostly thanks to Asda being very cheap for cheese and anchovies today). I forgot to buy the pesky battery, though, so tomorrow won't be a NSD, but after that I don't *think* I'll need to buy anything until the weekend (milk supplies permitting).

Monday night is generally my sit around at home and be a bit of a sloth night (hubby is in charge of cooking today), but at a minimum I will make some pizza dough and sauce to pop in the fridge for tomorrow, and do a sourdough starter (which is something I have been meaning to do for ages as I love sourdough but have never tried to made it, and I actually have time this week to feed the starter and do it all properly).

Tomorrow I need to remember to go to the pound shop for the battery, and the bank to pay in the £5 in coins that is sitting bagged up in my desk at work, but nothing else is pressing!

strawberryfield2233

MoneysavingmadGem wrote: »

Wohoo! Well done you!

Like yourself im finding setting little achievable targets to over pay ccsI over a month easier than looking at it as a whole big sum!

Im working in cash ( bar dds) and finding that im able to pay at least £10 a month extra to ccs by putting back lose change (5ps, 1ps, 2p,) and £2 coins I get. Similar o rounding up/ down bank account

Just jumping in to wish you well on your journey MoneysavingMadGem Really good to use cash where you can as no room to forget anything and saving your change to pay ccs is a great habit to get into. :j

strawberryfield2233

One-Step Prolific Academic is quite good (have slacked off lately only due to other commitments) but the tasks can be quite interesting. One thing though re cashing out if you dont have CIRCLE then worth searching on mseforum referral thread for circle and when you reach threshold for payment its better than using paypal. The referral was a nice extra bit, moving £25 to my husband who I referred to Circle was an extra bit too

*See the full circle referral thread

One-step-at-a-time

Thanks - we both already have circle accounts so the referral bonus is long since gone, but I will try to be patient enough to get to the threshold before cashing out

I did the semi-regular trawl through pockets and bags last night and dredged up just over £5 - this will cover remaining spends for the week so I will chuck another £5 at the CC today.