The long haul supporters thread...

Happytogetdebtfree

Hi all well done isom on making own gifts hehe. Welcome all newbies x x

jasperconran

hi rambling tree,

I havent posted for quite a while, but as you can see from my sig, we have seriously underestimated our flaming debt!!!! have you got any good debt busting ideas? Dunno where im going wrong! thanks

ramblingtree

Hey Jasper - I'm not the best person to ask!! haha. I haven't made much headway with our debts the last couple of months - things like elcetrics, the car and god knows what else keeps taking anything thats spare.

Our 'secrets' for staying afloat and keeping on top of payments is having a lodger (an extra £50 a week) and my second and third jobs. My second job pays about £70 a week (two pub shifts) and then every other week I clean for a lady. The cleaning gives me £25 in cash. SO i use this as my spending money and try not to spend anything else. Sometimes it doesn't work. I currently get paid my main wage quarterly, which is a pain in the a***. This will change at easter. I'm hoping then to be a lot more organised. When it comes down to it, the extra income is the one thing that improves things once you've stopped spending except for essentials.

My OH is ok, but still spends too much sometimes. I just try and compensate by spending nothing on myself and cutting the food budget. All my clothes are either heavily reduced or off ebay, and I don't do that very often.

And keep coming on here! I started a diary, and although it hasn't had a huge financial effect yet, just knowing that if I buy something I shouldn't I have to come on here and confess is enough to make me stop! This month I'm being a bit more lenient in terms of going out, but all presents are hand made, and hoping to just scrape through to January without increasing the debt.

Good luck! And come back as often as you can, this place really does work!

tlc123_2

Hi all

Thanks for the welcome - its a really positive start. i wish my wedding was coming in under 1k - times that by ten and we may be nearly there! As I said, I know it makes no sense to have such an expensive wedding when I'm in so much in debt, but we decided on that well before my LBM - we'd made the commitment so we're gonna have a bloody good wedding and still bust the debt!!!

Still trying to re jig to get the extra wedding money, while reducing payments and not be paying it forever. Anyone have any epiphany's for me???!!!!

Hi to the other newbies - sounds like we all have stuff in common. i will be trying those threads, thanks for the tips!
x

tlc123_2

In_Search_Of_Me wrote: »

tlc123 (203)

welcome! Despite the thread being here for ages doesent mean people cant join! Its a rolling thread iykwim!! Good to see people chatting, encouaging and helping each other out. Despite being a dfw for years this is the first proper frugal chrstmas where I've made most of my presents and ill spend very little...better late than never eh!

I have to ask, what does iykwim mean???? How do we get a number so we're part of the club?? Making xmas presents sounds like a great idea. I'm one of those people that loves buying presents for other people = altough Ive actually stuck to my budget this year!
x

lucielle

iykwim= if you know what I mean. HTH (hope this helps)
L

In_Search_Of_Me

tlc you have a number - its no 203 so youre in!! Mind you all are welcome and its probably the least wanted club going lol!!!
As for advice try to look at why youre in debt and you can then start to tackle it...having said that its a long process and I think deeply rooted for most - not just in society - ie see adverts - buy this and you'll be a fabby person and have a great time which is b****ocks what they should be saying s buy this, live a fake life and feel physically sick when you get the cc bill... Also for me money/giving/gifts very much tied up in how I demonstrate love for people so having to relearn how I give - getting things from charity shops and changing them means alot more but does take time and organisation...Cooking from scratch, buying second hand, freecycle, bargain hunting....library, not buying mags etc ...these things all add up to a big thing and with effort you can make serious inroads. If I'm honest I've been rubbish until recently and have been much better at not spending, seeing friends at home, doing cheaper hobbies etc...all makes a big debt busting dfference! The other things is to use mse and come her daily...bit like aa for shoppers lol!

sallymander

Hi all, wow Ramblingtree being paid quarterly must be much harder to budget for :mad: But well done to you and ISOM :T for the HM Xmas presents, I very jealous but will definitely get my butt into gear for next year.

Sally x

tlc123_2

Thanks ISOM - totally missed the number but will add it on my sig. Great tips, thanks and I think you're right I think it is about understanding how youve got here and trying to change it.

NOt to get too personal, but I suffer with quite bad depression and have always spent to make myself feel better and have always been very impulsive with money. I'm now paying the price, to think that half my salaray will be going on repaying my debts for the next 4/5 years. All well and good til you add into the mix that we'd like a baby at some point!!

mumto2monkeys_2

1st December tomorrow; pre-festive greetings to you all!! :rudolf:

This month is going badly already and it hasn't even started properly yet. I've been working like a crazy person in the hope of clearing an extra money off my cards, but I've been pretty disappointed to find that the nasty tax man will leave me with much less than I hoped for. I was secretly wishing for a little more just so I could treat the kids and hubby after my first four months of miserable belt-tightening, and still pay a chunk off the dreaded Virgin card.

I've successfully spent over half of the month's food budget since Thursday on nothing in particular. I honestly don't know how I've done it. Nappies and catfood were pricey, but we've had a few quick meals and hubby cooked as I was working. He accidentally picked up full price tuna 4 pack. Nearly fell over when I saw how much that cost :eek:. The work finally slows back down by the end of the week, so I'm going to try my best to get to the weekend with as little expenditure as possible, then do some serious frugal shopping and batch cooking on Saturday. Something to look forward to there then :rotfl:.