AimeeMum's Debt-free challenge

aimeemum

Today - 5p to Help to Save (not much but that's all there was to skim! lol)
DD went out for Hubby's car that was scrapped....as it happens we have a cancellation fee to pay so that'll probably cover some of it.
Done my first on-line shop with Morrisons to be delivered on Thursday. I'm normally a Tesco customer but the quality has been shocking. Trying Morrisons as I have been doing my weekly shop in-store at Morrisons since November and it's so much nicer. Cost will be £71 including delivery - budget is £80 so that's good!

As I've done my shop my Meal Plan for the next few days -

Tonight - Fajitas
Tuesday - Jacket potatoes with Chilli/Cheese/Beans
Wednesday - Prawn Curry/Beans for the kids
Thursday - Pork Stroganoff/Pizzas for kids
Friday - Freezer meal (pie and veg)/ Fish cakes for kids
Saturday - Freezer Meal (Bean Casserole) /Sausages and Spaghetti for kids
Sunday - Sausage Casserole
Monday - Turkey Tacos
Tuesday - Spaghetti and Meatballs
Wednesday - Meatball subs

aimeemum

Child Benefit today - all goes towards this months DD's but may take £10 ish out and take the kids for a treat at the weekend.

I found I had been paid £4.11 in cashback on my bills account, so that's gone into my savings account - skimming etc to pay for our holiday in May. So far there's £12 in there and I need £72 by the end of April.

Not a lot else going on....enjoying a nice quiet day while the kids are at school and hubby is back to work tomorrow. He's off all next week so will be getting him in on the decluttering.

aimeemum

Ended up at the corner shop last night as we had run out of toilet roll....£2.50 for 4 rolls. Argh! Never mind, you live you learn.

Hopefully a very LSD today - hubby needs to get himself some fruit bars for his locker at work, other than that nothing required. On-line shop done to arrive tomorrow, payday tomorrow too so another set of bills going out. Can't wait to update my spreadsheet tomorrow but not counting my chickens....

In the meantime today - not got anything on the agenda today. I need to do my ironing, and put a couple of loads of washing through, but apart from that nothing pressing. I will at some point go round and do my morning routine, but right now I'm drinking tea with my feet up. I have the next 3 days on my own with no hubby/kids....and I know it sounds horrible but I do love my time alone in the house

aimeemum

Joined Swagbucks....it looks like it's quite hard to get the points to start off with but I should think that it'll add up. Will see how we get on with it. Would be nice to get a few £s towards Christmas

aimeemum

BIt of a strange day yesterday. I spent the afternoon sorting out bills etc and planning activities for the month - found a few free/cheap days out for us to do which is awesome...looking forward to that now.

Hubby gets paid every Thursday and for the past 2 years I've ordered Tesco on-line to arrive Thursday afternoon. Tried to do the same with Morrisons and it's all gone wrong. Unlike Tesco, they tried to take the money yesterday. Annoyingly I had the money in my other account but I assumed that they would take payment on the day of the delivery same as Tesco.....Anyway, that's my mistake. I got a text to say there'd been a problem. Instead of giving me the option to pay for my shop with an alternative method (Tesco in the past have called me to ask for an alternative too) the system simply cancelled my order. I tried to re-book and I can't get a slot until late Friday - so now I'm going to have to go into town (in this freezing weather) to do 2 days of groceries, then pay double for delivery on Saturday morning! I'm so peeved it's not even funny anymore - I tried to be organised and it's all backfired....it's my own fault for not checking etc, I know that, but had I gone with Tesco as normal this wouldn't have happened. Feel a bit silly and while the quality of Morrisons is superior, I don't think I'll be using Morrisons again as our week works Thursday to Thursday and I've literally never had anything like this happen with Tesco.

Anyway, today is Thursday, so payday. Paid £140 to creditors and utilities...which means that I've paid £105 off my debts today. This now puts my total paid at £823, which means I've officially gone below £4k of debts! Our total now is £3,958. Wooooooo!!!! Some good news at last!

aimeemum

Since I posted this morning I have booked a new grocery delivery tomorrow lunchtime with Tesco.Not costing me as much for the actual shopping either which is a bonus! Decided it's best to keep to the status quo and use Tesco for online and Morrisons for in-store shops when I have the car on Thursdays.

Kids have gone off to school - I think my toes are about to drop off. We use the school transport bus from the village and it was 25 minutes late on the coldest morning ever! We were all so cold. A friend who also gets the bus rang in for us and found out what was going on, otherwise I think we would have bugged out and just got the service bus in.....that would have cost a fortune and wouldn't have got the kids to school any earlier so I'm glad it eventually came....kids are going to be about 15 minutes late for registration but because it's the school transport's 'fault' as it were, they won't get a late mark.

Decided my next target is to try to get hubby's credit card paid off by the end of Feb. I'm currently on target for the middle of March so I need to find 2 week's worth of payments to make that happen. I think that's a reasonable challenge and would be good for my snowballing efforts to get some over-payments in early too

EDIT: Spent £13.63 in Lidl on the bits of tonight and a few extras (bought some cleaning products as I'm rarely in there so thought I would stock up...only £1.50 for 2 massive bottles which should last a good while. Takes my spend this week to just shy of £90 which is £10 over budget. Darn it!! Never mind, at least it wasn't more...I have contingency for £20 a week 'extra' money just in case so I know I'm still ok. Just annoyed that I spent so much....always do in Lidl

aimeemum

1st February and I've decided that I need some personal targets other than financial one.

Having a think about it and I think I will:

- make sure I read 1 book cover to cover (Joan of Arc by Mary Gordon) - I can then put up a review for my blog
- Get back on top of my daily FLY routines (Shine my sink, vacuum, daily load of washing, sweep my floors etc)
- Try to lose 1lb per week. I'm currently at 10st10lb and I would like to be below 10st7lb by mid-march
- De-clutter 28 items this month as a minimum (not including rubbish - that would be too easy! lol)

I think that will do me. I don't want to challenge myself to anything too massive and end up failing.

Financially, today is 'bills' day, so my TV Licence DD went out, as did my Car tax, my EH membership (my one little luxury that's mine....really useful in the summer with the kids!) and Netflix. Also got my Tesco grocery shop coming, and hubby will be putting fuel in the car today too....expensive. Hoping for NSD tomorrow! Only bills still to go out are Plus Net (2nd) and the Rent needs paying at some point before the 6th.

aimeemum

2nd Feb - and I'm so impatient!! Next wages for hubby are on the 7th and 14th, then 21st - 21st is the day we get our UC calculation through normally, and then we'll get paid CB on 26th and UC on 27th. Seems like so far away!

I'm trying to sell a few bits but they're not shifting and I'm tired of being cold all the time! Generally feeling a bit fed up - not in an upset kind of way, just in a 'I wish time would go quicker so this could be done and over with' kind of way.

Does anyone have any suggestions on something to do that will make me feel like progress has been made today?!

aimeemum

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35801951

Interesting read. Suggests a emergency fund initially (for cash type circumstances) of 1-2 week's pay - in our house that would be £600. That's do-able pretty quickly too....hoping that my UC payments (If I've calculated correctly) will allow me to build that up by end of May!!)

It then says a true emergency fund of 6 month's total income....for us that would be £12k (that's all our income including benefits) - that's a huge amount of money for us so I think I'll aim for 1 month first - £2k. If I'm paying roughly £700 a month towards my debts, I reckon I could put £250 ish towards my emergency fund savings (and therefore have £2k within 9 months!) each month, while still 'enjoying' the fact that we're now debt free and having a little bit of 'splurge' plus putting money aside for Christmas, birthdays, holidays etc at the same time.

I hope to be debt free by end of Aug, so 9 months from there would be May 2020. Obviously that's if my UC calcs are correct and nothing changes - I may be able to get £2k together quicker or it may take a couple more months if I have to use my EF for something, but it's good to have a plan!

aimeemum

Good day so far. Woke up to find both my ebay items have sold. After fees and postage I think I've made £12.
Took my two older boys swimming this morning - youngest is full of cold so he stayed home with Daddy. Cost £10.50 and we had a good time. First time we've been swimming is an absolute age. I think we may go back next week as we had such a good time, this time with youngest in tow Did treat the boys to a pack of sweets/choc after swimming so all in cost £13.50 which saying I budgeted £15 I'll take that.

Spent some time reading this month's book this afternoon. Sausage casserole in the slow cooker for tea smells yummy too. Not sure what we'll have for afters - I like us to have a pudding on a Sunday but with this 'healthy eating' hubby is doing we're suffering on the puddings front - maybe just copious amounts of biscuits will do