Looks worse when it's written down!!

enthusiasticsaver

Looks like you are doing well with the NSDs so that is a good start. Mind you I always think it is easy to be frugal in January because of the overspending and overstocking of food etc for Christmas. We are still eating out of the freezer and cupboard and delaying doing a grocery shop after seeing the horrific size of my credit card bill for January which was really only used for food and fuel over December. Horns reined in much to DHs disgust after I told him I wasn't buying chocolate, cake, beer or wine in January.

GTBT123

It definitely is easier in January. Our freezers are still pretty full so I just need to keep reminding myself to take meat out of the freezer to defrost. I order our groceries because I find it's definitely easier to keep track of the cost and so far this month my grocery bill is much lower than average. I also don't tend to do much in January. Everyone is too skint to go out anywhere, it's cold & wet so nobody wants to venture outside & the dark evenings make me want to get in from work and just cosy up indoors. A definite money saver : )

I've been busy working this morning so not had chance to check up on the finances, but once I'm back from doing the school run I will tick that task off my to do list and post my update. I want to keep track of the updates, even the small ones, to stay motivated.

GTBT123

Not much to update. I posted the item that sold on ebay & transferred the money from Paypal in to my bank. I was going to leave it in the Paypal account but sometimes my husband uses Paypal to pay for things that he orders for work, which he pays for from his card, but if there is a balance on the Paypal account it automatically uses the Paypal balance before it takes anything from the alternative payment methods. I don't want my ebay sales money being used to pay for his work stuff.

I have allocated the £35 to my Netflix budget straight away, so it's not available to be spent on anything else. I'm so pleased I've already paid for 3 months of Netflix. It's a small challenge compared to some, but it feels like an achievement. I'll be putting more things on ebay this weekend so hopefully get another few months paid in the next week or two.

I've got a boring, busy day tomorrow in work as I have a meeting with our accountant. I hate meetings! I would much rather just go to the office, put my headphones in & get my work done.

GTBT123

Husband's weekly contribution has gone into the joint account today. He gets paid weekly so pays in a certain amount every week and then that gets allocated to our bills, groceries etc. We worked this arrangement out years ago because it means all our family/joint outgoings are covered and then we both have spending money of our own.

I currently have just under £1000 to allocate to debt repayments. I haven't allocated it yet because I am sure I've forgotten about something that needs paying for. I did have everything allocated but it was all on my old laptop, which is irrepairable, so I've had to start again with everything. It looks like I will be on track to pay around £1200 extra off the debts though, as predicted at the beginning of my diary. I will pay that off the Next account to start clearing down the balance as quickly as I can.

I remembered yesterday as well that February and March are the two months I don't pay council tax, so that will give me an extra £400. I was going to pay it towards the debt but I actually think it would be a good start to the emergency fund.

I am still itching to get to the end of the month so I can make the big lump sum debt repayment and then update the balances.

GTBT123

I'm trying to focus on small things at the moment because mid month there doesn't seem to be a lot happening on the debt front, so feels like we're on stop. A card payment has gone out today but just the minimum direct debit. I'll update balances at the end of the month, but I can't wait to make a big overpayment beforehand.

Achievements today/yesterday
Sorted out a few things to put on ebay. Haven't put them on yet but at least they are ready.
Remembered I have vouchers from Quidco so checked my emails & printed these off. I have £10 for New Look and just over £30 for M&S.
Logged on to my Nectar account & noticed I have over £200 on there. I need to spend these asap. Going to see if there are any good deals for anything, otherwise I'll just go to Sainsbury's and stock up on household cleaning stuff, toilet roll, tinned food, crisps, biscuits etc. Should really keep the shopping budget right down then because I'll only really need to buy fresh stuff like bread & milk for a while.
Checked Quidco to see if any cashback has become payable and there was £4.95 available so I have opted to have this paid straight into my bank.

Things to do this week:-

Gas & electric tariff ends next month. We're with Eon & the new tariff they have offered me is quite expensive so I need to look at other options.
Put stuff on ebay.
Remember to put work expenses/mileage claim in ready for payday next week.
Try to find cheaper craft items for a gift I need to make (already budgeted for but want to try & make the budget go further).

GTBT123

Not much to update, just my achievements for yesterday & today really.

Made a soup with a butternut squash that I bought & forgot about. Luckily it was fine & the soup is yummy.
Did some surveys. I used to do surveys before & earned quite a decent amount of vouchers, but got bored of it & stopped. Anyway, I remembered my login details for some of the better sites & have started up again. Going to keep at it to see if I can get a few vouchers together for Christmas 2019.
Had a no spend day yesterday & today.

GTBT123

A few more Direct Debits have left the account. I'm keeping track of it and looking forward to payday and end of the month next week.

Did a survey on Swagbucks yesterday and earned 300 points just for the one survey. It took hardly any time which was good and means I can cash out for a voucher. I'll do more today because I want to earn more points because the £10 Amazon voucher works out better than the £5, as in it takes less points per £ to cash in so better value for money.

I've started using those shopping apps where you upload your receipt when you do any shopping and earn points. I used ReceiptHog before but stopped using it because it does take ages to earn any points, but I'm trying to pay off these debts so I really do have the attitude now of 'Every little helps'. If I can even get to just one payout threshold I'll be happy with that. I'm using Receipt Hog and Shoppix.

Nothing else to update. I'm going to put some things on ebay this evening and leave them on for 10 days so they're on there over 2 weekends.

I had a chicken in my fridge that had today as a use by date, so I've chucked that in the oven for our dinner. Not sure what to have with it yet but choices are chicken with veg, chicken wraps or some sort of chicken pasta. I'll see how much energy I have after the school run & finishing off my work for today.

Guybrush_Threepwood

Congrats on progress so far, keep it up!

GTBT123

Thanks Guybrush. Your progress is amazing, makes me feel even more positive that I can do this!

My updates might be small at the moment, but it all makes a difference. I feel more positive at the moment. For most of last year I just had an underlying sense of worry and feeling anxious. It didn't stop me being stupid and spending money, but it was always there. But so far this year I just feel far less worried because I know I'm making positive changes.

Updates for the last few days -

I had my grocery shopping delivered on Friday. I find getting it delivered helps me stay on track with the budget because I can see the total value of my trolley as I'm shopping, so stops me adding unnecessary items. I have a meal plan for this week but it's in my head, so I need to write it down so I don't go off track.

My extra debt repayments are going to be slightly less than I predicted at the end of the month. I would have been pretty much bang on, but I have had to replace my laptop because it broke. Work have said that they will only reimburse me half the cost, which I suppose is fair enough because it was my personal laptop that broke and at least this way the new laptop will be my own personal property.

So it looks like extra debt repayment will be around £850-£900 rather than £1200. However next month I will receive half the laptop payment back, so next month I will be able to pay that back to the debt repayment.

I've managed to get a £10 voucher from doing surveys on Swagbucks. They were running one of their promotions so I had a few boosts which helped me get up to the £10 value. I've chosen an Amazon voucher so hopefully that will come through soon.

A few Direct Debits have gone out of the account again today. Payday is on Thursday, so I will do one last check of the account on Wednesday evening to see what the balance is, check all DD have gone out and then as long as everything has been accounted for I will pay the remaining balance over to my Next account. Is it really sad that I am looking forward to this? Haha

I didn't put anything on ebay on Thursday or on Sunday, I really need to get my @rse in gear with this because it will be a few extra pennies plus gets rid of some clutter. That's one of my other missions this year, to declutter our house. We have so much stuff everywhere and it drives me nuts.

Plans for today are

Cook some chicken that I can have for my lunch in work for the rest of this week.
Get to Home Bargains to buy the things that I need for mum's present (budgeted for).
Get started on Valentine's Day crafts & decorations (something fun to do to keep me busy & not spending money or eating).
Get all spare change together to see how much there is and use this for next week's groceries.

GTBT123

I've got the new balances for all my debts. In my first post the total debt was £21978.60. Today with all payments for January made, the total debt is £20701.24. So in total I have paid off £1277.36. It's less than I'd hoped because I had to use some of my spare money to buy a new laptop, but February overpayment should be slightly higher. Well I hope it will be anyway! I'm just glad it is going in the right direction and I haven't used credit to buy anything this month. Everything I've bought has come out of real money that was in my bank account. I've put the individual totals in my signature but they don't make much sense comparing them to my original post because I have forgotten what order the cards were in on my first post, plus I made some balance transfers so some cards have a higher balance but this is because I've cleared one by transferring the balance over to a 0% card.