Put away your purse & become debt-averse

foxgloves

SavingMore - The asbestos is the last part of a shonky old garage we had demolished years ago. We got rid of most of it via the local council scheme but forgot about this last stack of sheets which were over the council's limits. They were stacked up behind our big garden shed in a sort of 'no man's land'. Until last year when we extended our garden slightly, we had forgotten we still had it! We rediscovered it & I have point blank refused to start any of our home improvement works until it's gone.
Mr F, who is massively hot on Health & Safety risk assessments at work & has even been on asbestos training, is bizarrely relaxed about our pile of the damned stuff, which he assures me is practically zero danger. Don't care! Want it gone! And by tomorrow lunchtime, it should be.
F x

foxgloves

OceanDream - I'm so glad you found my conversion to budgeting (the main theme of my diary, I guess) inspiring. Pre-LBM, I also felt I "had no money", even though our joint income at the time was over £56k. We had no budget, so we haemorrhaged money right left & centre. We reckon we saved £2k per year just on changing to packed lunches instead of the expensive sandwiches, crisps, cake, bottled water run every day (x 2 as we both did it). Cutting takeaways back to around 4 or 5 a year rather than at least one a week was another big saver & a huge one was implementing a grocery budget & meal planning. We both love cooking from scratch & there can be very significant savings to be made on grocery/household shopping & just being a bit more 'old-style'. At no point have we felt unable to afford healthy foods. It's just a case of looking at where the sensible savings can be made. Neither of us are big on brands, maybe except for 3 or 4 particular items, so that was another saving.
'Chipping away' at debt is important & every little helps, but if they are only very little 'chips' , it will make virtually no significant inroads. Budgeting puts you in control so you can via more money into debt repayments. Saved £5 this week by sourcing necessary toiletries or cleaning products in a cheapo shop? That's an extra fiver to be paid off the debt you are currently targeting. It's an amazing feeling when it's all gone, so do keep at it. It took me a few failed attempts before I found a budgeting system which worked for me, but once I'd found it, things started to fly.
Paying off debt doesn't have to be regarded as a horrible time of denial & self-pity - it is paying yourself 'back to normal' so that all of your monthly income will soon belong to you and not to creditors.
Going back to the expression 'chipping away'.......Long before the LBM, I had a store card debt. Imagine me even touching one of those now? It wasn't for a huge amount, but despite paying my minimum payment each month & never missing, it never really seemed to go down. Mr F was just about on the scene then....early days of romance, lol, & he picked up the bill I'd just received & did a few workings out, before informing me that he wasn't surprised it wasn't going down.....I'd had it so long, I was paying the equivalent of over 60% interest!! Well, it may have been pre-LBM by many years, but I transferred some money from my ever-present overdraft to get rid of that store card there & then & I never had another one. We can think we are chipping away & find that we're not really making the inroads we hope we might be making.
I guess there is just no alternative to being in full control of the facts & learning to love the whole concept of a budget (which thankfully, I now do)
Good luck with it all, OceanDreams. It is well worth getting in control & making your money your own again.
F x

Lemon_Tree

Well done for getting rid of your asbestos and doing it with a local company. Our builder only lives about 10 houses away so we definitely know he's local, can't wait to get started

foxgloves

Lemontree - That is certainly nice & local! I've been researching local builders & have found one I will certainly approach for a quote. Am determined to progress it but not to rush things as it all needs thinking through & prioritising..... it's a range of jobs, rather than one huge one iyswim. We have some outside stuff - tree work & soffits, fascias & guttering which I'm aiming to get done first. It'll defo be a busy year.
F

foxgloves

Lovely to sleep right through to 5.30 again. Ideally I'd like another hour of sleep but this is good for me. I can feel a productive day coming on!
F x

foxgloves

Now I am happy,
No longer forlorn,
I once had asbestos........
And now it has GORN!
F x

Chrystal

foxgloves wrote: »

Now I am happy,
No longer forlorn,
I once had asbestos........
And now it has GORN!
F x

:rotfl: :rotfl: :j :j :j

wishingthemortgaheaway

Wooohoooo bye bye asbestos.

foxgloves

And hello properly from The Newly Asbestos-Free One,
I was right about it potentially being a productive day. I reckon Mr F must have made Magic Porridge this morning, as by the time the asbestos man arrived, I'd already cleaned the house, apart from vacuuming, had a good tidy-up & been down the garden to empty the compost bucket. Afterwards, I wielded the Dyson in the general direction of assorted muck, did my meal planning for next week & wrote the grocery shopping list. That always leads to a bit of a triage session with the fridge & fruit&veg baskets to see if there is any forgotten treasure. Discovered an open big pot of yoghurt, which was just enough for a batch of garlic flatbreads, so I got those made & into the freezer. I also stewed a load of sad looking left over cooking apples. Despite their appearance suggesting stegosauri were almost certainly roaming the orchard at the time they were on the tree, they were actually OK inside. They made quite a good sized container of cooked fruit which is much better than wasting them.
We're going on our city centre trip tomorrow - the one we postponed last week because I felt as though my head was being repeatedly hit by kettle bell. I've done a little bit of planning for that because while I still love shopping, I'm not intending to leak money on unnecessary things. So I have ready:
*My water bottle
*All relevant vouchers/discount codes
*Grocery shopping list
*Non-grocery list.... some items are to browse/research rather than buy.
*Sandwiches & crisps. We will be out at lunchtime. I want to avoid the panini & chips for two people & the disappearing £15+ scenario. So I have again made a packed lunch.
We will doubtless treat ourselves to a coffee & maybe a cakeypoo but that will come from our Personal Spends, so won't impact our budget at all.
It's so different from how I used to throw myself into a city centre shopping trip, but I enjoy it much more this way. It wasn't nice standing at various tills in the Spendy Decades hoping my cards wouldn't be declined, & I used to worry about that every month from about two weeks after pay day until the arrival of my next wages.
And the money I used to spend in the January sales..... well, that just added to an even more horrible bills/overdraft combo by the end of February!
And I wasn't even always all that keen on the stuff I bought. I've said before, I've had some duff buys from the dreaded Sale Rail Temptation!
Anyway, tomorrow won't be anything like that & I'll enjoy having a trip out after the lergy.
Enjoy your evenings, all.
F x

Blackcats

Great poetry.