AimeeMum's Debt-free challenge

aimeemum

New week and we made it!! Home-school term 1 DONE! This week is Halloween Week - we're painting pumpkin pictures, decorating the house, watching movies, baking spiderweb buns, reading Macbeth, going pumpkin picking and a trip to Flamingoland just 'cos. I hope it will be a fun week I need to spend some time planning next term this week too. I hope to have all the way up to the first week of January planned up front so I can really relax into it. 
Still unsure what we're going to do about going away - at the moment both areas are 'Tier 1' i.e, lowest restrictions and overnight stays allowed. We should know by the end of the week what we're going to be doing. I have ALL the food, some spending money etc put aside ready. I would very much like to go but we will just have to see. 
Applied for eldest's school place for next year yesterday. Having a few kittens about affording his first choice but we'll make it work (It's a former grammar so uniform is expensive, it's an Ipad school so he'll need an ipad at a good price, and it's out of catchment so will have to pay £350 a year for bus pass........thinking ahead to when there's 3 of them there and it set me off panicking!!) We'll get there though, I know we will. We've applied to the catchment school as his 2nd choice, and he would be back in with his friends from school etc, on the service bus as normal there so no real negatives, but I would love to see him get into his first choice school. We have lots of time between now and then though, and we will find out in March/April I think, which one he has been placed with. Once I know which one he's been placed in I will then be able to do in-year applications for the younger two to go back to school....hopefully in feeder schools to the same school. It's a complicated business this parenting lark!! 
Money wise it's been a reasonable few days. Hubby is taking the bike to work which will halve the fuel bill for this week! Spent a bit yesterday on sweets for the kids etc as we were out and about, but other than that, all good and nothing major to report. Looking forward to the next few weeks to be honest....I'm so excited about all the things we are going to be doing, I could pop!   

aimeemum

Well, what a few days! Getting prepped for the holiday - almost done packing so happy about that! Have all the food etc ready, and just need to wrap eldest's presents ready for Monday and we're there! Hubby is out fishing today so I'm planning on spending some time getting my home-blessing done today while he's out (and so it's done before we go away) and making sure we have everything we need! 
Yesterday we went pumpkin picking - had a great time but spent a small fortune on pumpkins. £20 on 3 large ones! Still, they're massive and seeing as we're not able to have a party or go trick-or-treating, it's not really any more of a spend that usual. I added all the boys' halloween sweets to last week's Tesco, so they're in the cupboard ready for next Saturday!! 
As for me, I'm suffering. Seem to have problems with my teeth and my ear (don't know which is causing which, but they're both aching!) as well as period aches too......miserable me! Dosed up and taking it easy, but it is very tiring. Hoping that the worst will be gone by end of day tomorrow so it doesn't spoil our trip. At least we're not camping.....no tent construction!  
Money wise things are good. The car passed it's MOT and I had £400 budgeting, but we only spent £140! It was all on the CC, so that's good as that's £260 not on the CC and not accruing interest. It still needs some work done in the new year, but I am hoping to put it on the 0% card or, if I can manage, pay cash. Last expense before xmas is the dog's op that he will be going in for in November sometime. Vet quoted me £200+any medication he may need if he gets an infection so it's budgeted for.
I'm getting there with my Christmas plans too, but I haven't bought anything as we're away and keeping all money back for that. Looking forward to getting back and starting properly. I've finally found my Christmas spirit and it's dying to come out!





 

aimeemum

Well, what a couple of weeks! 

We went on holiday as planned and mostly had a great time. Only little blips wer the dog, who refused to poo most of the time we were there!, and eldest getting a little upset about the lack of amenities....there was little in the way of entertainment in the current climate so there was a lot of walking on the beach and movies/pizzas in the caravan lol. I loved it! 

Money wise we've had to do a few things unexpectedly given the current new lockdown. We're stocked up for the pets, I've started the xmas shopping by getting advent calendars etc ready for the 1st December....just in case. I'm adding to the stash each week via my Tesco order so it's slowly coming together. We sorted the car, paid for the MOT and parts as planned but it didn't need any more work than what hibby did so that was a bonus. Added to savings too which is nice

Debt wise - paid off a little but with the spending for the car I think we're a little way over where we were. Looking at the figures we're £15 more in debt now than at the 10th of last month....but with £90 more in savings so all in all I'd call that a success! Still very much on track to be Debt Free by May and for the Elec Arrears to be gone at the beginning of December. 

aimeemum

It feels like time is on a go slow at the moment but at the same time, I'm not sure how we got to half way through November already! 
Not a lot going on here - home-school as normal, housework as normal, monitoring the money as per. Debts etc got their regular payments on Thursday, and we're currently sat at £2,614 as the elec bill went on yesterday. Will do an update on or after the 1st of the month so I know where we are. 
On a positive note I've put £40 aside for Christmas spends and bought 2 of the boys' list presents so it's been a productive week gift-wise. I need to make a start on the family gifts as I've only got 2 weeks to get them ready as I want them out of the door in the 1st week of December. I always aim to have it so that if everything goes to pot at least they will have something they asked for, and I've only got eldest's to sort now. Think I know what I'm getting hubby.......but he's been sending me links for other stuff he wants so I'm a bit confused lol. 
My challenge for this weekend is to plan for the next 7 weeks of meals and fill out my journal for that too. I want to se sorted up to the 6th Jan (as that's when Hubby will go back to work after Christmas/NY) so that I can relax and be a bit more creative rather than worrying about paperwork and meal plans. 

aimeemum

Wow where did the last 3 months go? I appear to have blinked and missed a few weeks of my life!! 
Sit-Rep - 

Debt - £2,185
Savings - £898!!!! 

I feel like we've come a really long way in the time I've been away. I've set myself a target of being Debt Neutral by the end of March and I'm working REALLY hard on this. Our current figure is -£1,287 but I've paid off nearly £500 in this last 4 weeks which is massive. Aim after that is to clear the 2 CC's completely (we have are currently at c£1,950 so a big amount to go The other little bit is my old Vanquis balance. I pay £5 a week as a token payment and I keep asking for an F&F but they only ever give me 25% discount so I'm just letting it tick down. 

Big milestone today is that I put my first £10 note (physical cash!) in my Emergency fund envelope. I coloured in my first square on my tracker and everything. I also have £12 in the Christmas savings account It's amazing that I'm doing this. I've also managed to stash the cash to pay for the Dog's castration op last week (paid in full in cash!) and also hubby's birthday pressies! My current saving targets are we NEED a 2nd car so I'm aiming for £1k in June. We are also away (all being well) in May and we'll need spends for it........£200 to cover the cost plus another £200 for spending. Our main car will also need some work in the summer so that will need to be cash-flowed! 

Anyhoo.....other than money there's not been a  lot going on. Kids and I are somewhat stuck at home (thanks to lockdown) and with home-school and the crappy weather I've not been at my best. House is ticking along - I need to do a good spring clean and de-clutter as soon as the weather starts to improve. 

Whatlifeis

Wow, great progress on the cashlow and debt front. Good luck with the car savings pot too (reminds me that I must start one of my own!)

aimeemum

Thursday payday so time for another update -
(I haven't been writing on here and I've missed it. I will have to get back to writing more regularly.)

£67 paid towards debts this week - regular payment of £65 plus an extra £2 as that's what hubby got paid over the minimum I use for budgeting. Interest went onto the CCs in the last couple of days so an extra £16 was added to the debt   The current payment stands at:

£944/£3,078 = 31% paid

....annoyingly I miscalculated yesterday as I changed it to 920 when it wasn't that high  but never mind...it's correct now and we're so close to that £1k gone mark on here. 

As yesterday was our big payday with our UC payment etc coming in I did my moving around, made some payments (the rest go out by SO/DD on the 1st) and updated things like SFs and savings accounts. Hubby paid me a bit extra so that's been put away like I had planned. Right this minute our net figure stands at -£1,113.26. 

aimeemum

Another week down, another payday and a mini milestone hit too!! 
Paid a further £65 in regular payments, £6 additional payment, plus put £36 into my savings/sinking funds. I am now at £1k paid off on my challenge to pay off all the debts and our NET worth is now -£999.......less than £1k in the red

Total debts remaining is £2,078 and I hope that I can pay off that £78 next week to take it below the £2k mark which would be awesome!!  Our savings and sinking funds are looking very healthy and I still may have more to add to it this week as we've still not been food shopping - if I can keep below budget them more can be put away

All in all it's feeling positive. Keeping fingers and toes crossed that I can keep up this pace and get us to £0 NET by April 1st like I am hoping. 

aimeemum

Another week, another lot of payments. I've missed doing these weekly updates - motivating to change my signature etc too  
I've only done my basic payments so far as I'm still waiting for my tesco order to go out etc. 

Debt payments made then were £65 + £2 'extra' from wages that were over the amount I budget for = £67 payment made
New total is £1,067/£3,078 = £2,011 remaining.
If I can I will try to send a few extra £'s over once all my outgoings are gone for this week as I would dearly love to get to less than £2k of debt. 

Savings wise I've not done anything yet this week (again because my outgoings haven't gone yet) so I'll come back to that this afternoon. I have my SO of £20 a week that's gone out already plus I've put my seasonal £10 into the house account too as that's in the budget too. 

With all that, my new NET figure is £903......that's a big jump!!!! I have 7 weeks left to get to my target. This month is a 5 week month for UC so I know I may not make as much progress in the next couple of weeks, but hopefully March I can make a big jump - fingers crossed!!!!!  

aimeemum

Oooh I'm just so darned frustrated with this debt!!! 
I know in the grand scheme of things it's not a massive amount but it's holding us back so much and I've literally run out of ideas. I've sold everything worth any money. I've decluttered to the nth, I've cleared out all our un-necessary bills and tightened our budget to the point of tears. I have a lot of expenses coming up this year - going to have to buy a second vehicle, eldest child starting secondary school so will need a huge amount of uniform and equipment, especially if he gets into first choice as it's an ipad school and he'll need bus travel - and I would love to be out of debt as if we were, we could afford them no issues.......granted it will be tight, but with debt it will be impossible. 
I've started selling my writing work but it's going to be slow going and being on the UC means that we wont see any massive amount of difference to our income for many moons! (I'm still going to do it, but it's just not going to be reliable for a long time...if ever!) We can't increase our income and I've reduced outgoings as low as they will comfortably go......but it's still going to take 7 more months clear this debt!!! Arghh!! 

Anyway, now I've got that out of my system I need to come up with a workable solution. We're booked to go on holiday (all budgeted for and already have most of the money to cover it planned in/saved) in May and, provided we can actually go of course, I would love our CC's to be empty when we go. They have a balance of £1,766 today and I pay £60 a week minimum (imagine what I could do with £60 a week more income......arghhh!) At that rate it will be gone by the 2nd September. I am hoping to raise it by £10 a week to get it all gone by 5th August.....1 whole month earlier!.....but I can't really commit to any more. That means I need £786 between now and May 20th to be Debt Free by the time we go on holiday. There are 14 weeks so that's £56.15 a week which feels impossible but I can but try....every £1 is progress........