Brighter Fairy light and a five year plan

chocolatebum

Well i have came to the conclusion that i really suck at 2 things. 1) keeping up a diary (onto number 3 here, hopefully this one will make it past 6 or 7 posts) and 2) sticking to my budget plans.

About a year and a half after starting a diary full of hopes and plans i am now returning with a new diary full of the same type of things. will i succeed? who knows but i know i need to try.

My light bulb is really still a fairy light in that i know what i need to do and i'm trying, am i trying as hard as i can? the honest answer is no. Family health issues mean that there are times where i really don't have the strength to be as strict as i need to be and sometimes i just need to let things go to get through those periods of time. my hope with this diary is that it will help me pull back those letting it go moments quicker than i have been doing this past year.

Which leads me to this past year, after successfully paying off a huge amount of debt we owed we are now at the point we were previously at with a debt of £20,456.57 more redundancies, ill health and generally underestimating the toll of living off a students income as a mature student with a family has resulted in the debt rising again. i've done the lamenting woe is me moment about life sucking and how did that happen so it is time to move on.

Family details we are still a house of 8 although that should be decreasing to 7 by the end of the year. i'm a student and am just about to start my 4th year of a 5 year degree. DH is employed and we have some older kids, some teenage kids and some little kids who inhabit the house with us to some degree along with our 1 dog.

this diary is hopefully ( i say this whilst rolling my eyes) going to keep me on the straight and narrow to being debt free. my title tells of a 5 year plan even though my DFD is less than 4 years away because i am giving myself some needed leeway for those stressful moments where things go wrong but also to incorporate the nice moments that i really need with my kids and family to make precious memories.

chocolatebum

i'm working on my list of debts and my SOA to share (maybe) but i am beginning with something that i signed up for on here a while back.

Apologies but i can't remember who initially had the thread but basically we broke our plans down into 12 week time periods and detailed what we wanted to achieve over 12 weeks. i am a great procrastinator (essay time sucks) but i found this helped me to keep focused so i am restarting my 12 week plan.

this slot will take me from 1/9/18 until 24/11/18

plans are

1. Lose 12lbs
2. Clear Simply Be account
3. Declutter living room, selling/recycling/tossing anything that isn't needed
4. Sort out youngest child's clothes (far too many and some could be sold)
5. Sort out youngest child's toys (same as above)
6. try to do 2 car boot sales
7. Write a rough christmas list
8. get organised for uni
9. stay up to date with uni work and stop procrastinating with it
10. Decorate one room in house

rollercoasting

Welcome!
Sounds like you have a full house and loads going on.
X RC

chocolatebum

rollercoasting wrote: »

Welcome!
Sounds like you have a full house and loads going on.
X RC

thanks rollercoasting, tbh things are hectic and whilst i love my kids dearly it is time for some of them to be getting on and shipping out lol. even though they are adults they still revert to kid mode at home and previously i have let it slide but with everything else going on in our lives its not sustainable or good for anyone.

todays plans

1. do SOA ( a true one not the type where i fudge the numbers lol)
2. wash school uniforms
3. make a start on decluttering living room

Red_Athena

I like the idea of a 12 week plan :T

chocolatebum

Red_Athena wrote: »

I like the idea of a 12 week plan :T

had to have a scroll back through old posts to see where i first got the idea from. it was sallyx way back in 2009. i haven't always did it but when i have i found it helped my procrastinating tendencies.

just had a wee read of your diary. good luck moving forward with your DMP.

Mumoffourkids

Hopefully this is the diary you stick at.

I know what it is like having a houseful. I have six kids as well aged between 2 and 16! We often have extras as well as my eldest two's friends often come and stay. I like the fact that my kids and their friends enjoy staying at my house but it does make it very chaotic at all times!

I like the idea of a 12 week plan as well. Although I tend to stick to weekly plans or monthly plans. Apart from my finances where I have spreadsheets estimating income and expenses for the next five years!!

Good luck with decluttering, I am forever doing that. It seems no matter how much stuff I get rid of, there is always more to go! For example I have probably taken 25 odd bin bags of clothes to my local cash for clothes place in the last 8 months and I now have another 5 bin bags to go. I mean where do all these clothes come from!! :rotfl:

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary

chocolatebum

Mumoffourkids wrote: »

Hopefully this is the diary you stick at.

I like the idea of a 12 week plan as well. Although I tend to stick to weekly plans or monthly plans. Apart from my finances where I have spreadsheets estimating income and expenses for the next five years!!

Good luck with decluttering, I am forever doing that. It seems no matter how much stuff I get rid of, there is always more to go! For example I have probably taken 25 odd bin bags of clothes to my local cash for clothes place in the last 8 months and I now have another 5 bin bags to go. I mean where do all these clothes come from!! :rotfl:

Thanks, i have been a lurker on your diary for ages. You have did so well clearing your debt. i have all kinds of plans, probably because i am a stationery fanatic and have notebooks and lists and pens and highlighters, my daily plans tend to get rolled over frequently possibly because life is hectic but i suspect more so because i am a great procrastinator.

with you on the clothes, i think the clothes in my house breed and just expand everywhere. probably doesn't help that 2 of the kids are older daughters who think nothing of having thousands of clothes.

Mumoffourkids

chocolatebum wrote: »

Thanks, i have been a lurker on your diary for ages. You have did so well clearing your debt. i have all kinds of plans, probably because i am a stationery fanatic and have notebooks and lists and pens and highlighters, my daily plans tend to get rolled over frequently possibly because life is hectic but i suspect more so because i am a great procrastinator.

with you on the clothes, i think the clothes in my house breed and just expand everywhere. probably doesn't help that 2 of the kids are older daughters who think nothing of having thousands of clothes.

Yes my oldest daughter seems to have clothes and shoes that breed! I think three of the bags are her clothes that she doesn’t like any more! I do like a good list and do love to plan my finances, I have been doing that again today. I have found that I get most done when I get up early and stack my list first thing in the morning. If I leave it until the afternoon then I don’t get anything done :rotfl:

chocolatebum

Mumoffourkids wrote: »

Yes my oldest daughter seems to have clothes and shoes that breed! I think three of the bags are her clothes that she doesn’t like any more! I do like a good list and do love to plan my finances, I have been doing that again today. I have found that I get most done when I get up early and stack my list first thing in the morning. If I leave it until the afternoon then I don’t get anything done :rotfl:

I plan my finances all the time, just don't always follow through on the plans the way that i should be doing. i'm similar and need to do things in the morning, by the time it gets to afternoon and evening i am firmly in procrastination mood.