5 years to finally clear these debts

aimeemum

YORKSHIRELASS wrote: »

Balanceby50 love it! I keep dreaming about how much better my finances will be by the time I get to that big birthday, glad we are together on this.

It's been a tricky week, lots going on at work, and some challenges with the finances. Dithered for ages about whether to renew my parking permit, at £30 for six months it gives me some free parking and I use it when the car park is full at work sometimes, but £30 feels like a lot at the moment. I did buy it in the end, still not sure if it was the right decision.

Food shopping has been hard too, need to do better with mealplanning, but I have kept to the budget. Will check finances properly tomorrow.

With the parking permit, keep a note of how often you use it and how much that parking would have cost you. If by the time you've had it 6 months you're in profit the you'll know it's worth re-buying it. It's also nice to see some freebies
It sounds like things are going well so far, small steps make for the biggest results so keep going. :T

BabyStepper

£30 for a 6 month parking ticket sounds cheap to me, probably a good move. In my money saving efforts I don't think I have paid enough attention to keeping travel arrangements easy and I'm regretting that now. This dfw journey can be very stressful in a million ways so making sure you don't need change for a parking meter, then write the spend down somewhere, and it's all taken care of for 6 months is a very good move in my opinion.

At one of the places I go to work staff pay £60 per month for city centre parking. That would really break my budget.

YORKSHIRELASS

Thanks, I have already used the parking permit twice so it may just save me money, keeping a record of how many times a week I use it is a good idea.

DS2 has got a new job which pays more and has set hours. We live in a tourist area but a lot of the weekend jobs have very irregular hours and pay, plus this job is close enough to home for DS to cycle there in better weather. This is great for us because it means that DS1 can be more self sufficient.

And we are praying for good news from the hospital this week that DS1 can go back to college and his work placement next month.

I have just done a mealplan and online grocery shop. I find that shopping in our local Li@l saves me a lot of money but there are some things that are hard to get locally and the nearest big supermarket is 20 miles away. I was very strict about what I ordered and this will bring my spend to £150 for the first two weeks of the month - against an average of £455 a month last year.

I also discovered that I have £16 in Tesco Clubcard vouchers, will keep saving this until Christmas I think.

Igamogam

YORKSHIRELASS wrote: »

Well, I have decided to use an envelope system on the basis that if I stop using my cards, and live on cash, it will stop me going into the overdraft.

I use the envelope system and only use hard cash for food shopping. I have various change pots too and I was amazed how quickly they filled. Once full I choose a CC to pay the rubble against I love the self scan option when shopping - quicker, pack the bags as you go, keep a running total. Meal plan and shopping lists have also been my new friends. I had a bit of a lax year in 2018 because lets face it debt busting can be a bot boring but I am determined in 2019. I found the frugal thread and downloaded the spreadsheet and that has really helped so far.

Good luck *subscribed*:D

YORKSHIRELASS

Morning everyone

Everything going well here. I got an email from an online shopping site yesterday offering me 25% off everything and found myself browsing. Luckily I put a stop to that before I bought anything, these habits are hard to break though.

Keeping busy at work and going to the gym quite a bit distracts me from wanting to spend. I have a couple of birthdays coming up so I need to plan for that - quite often I leave it until the last minute then grab something more expensive than I really wanted to give.

enthusiasticsaver

YORKSHIRELASS wrote: »

Morning everyone

Everything going well here. I got an email from an online shopping site yesterday offering me 25% off everything and found myself browsing. Luckily I put a stop to that before I bought anything, these habits are hard to break though.

Well done on resisting :T:T

That is what these retailers are counting on that offering discounts will entice people to spend. Try saying to yourself would you buy this at full price before being persuaded to spend on something you had not intended to buy simply because there is a discount attached? It is much easier to stop taking up offers doing that. I simply ditch the emails looking like they are advertising deals.


Just say to yourself it is only a bargain if you were going to buy that particular item anyway and it is substantially reduced in price. They clutter up the house as well.:rotfl:

YORKSHIRELASS

Hi all

Not been the best week, spent £17 at the supermarket yesterday on things that I didn't really need. Found out that DS is going to need physiotherapy and we either pay for this privately, or wait for (poor quality) NHS treatment. We have booked him in for an initial assessment at a specialist clinic next week which is going to cost £45, and will take it from there. Waiting to see if doctors will give him a sick note for another couple of weeks, if not he will probably lose his Universal Credit.

Need to sit down and work out some figures tomorrow. Also wondering if I have anything to sell on ebay.

beanielou

Why do you think poor quality physio on the NHS?
Ironically I see the same physio as I would on the NHS privately.

YORKSHIRELASS

Morning

BeanielouDH needed physiotherapy a couple of years ago. After waiting 3 weeks he got a 10 minute appointment with a lady who hardly touched him, she just gave him a printout with some exercises to do at home and said to go back in 2 weeks if it wasn't better. DS will be referred to the same person.

In the end we paid for 3 private sessions with an osteopath for DH and he was pretty much sorted. I worry that because DS is young, and is going to do a very physical job, if we dont get this sorted properly now he is going to have problems later on.

He also can't go back to college unless they know that he is 100% fit and they have recommended this treatment.

Have just updated my spreadsheets and looked at my cashflow. March doesnt look too bad, and it helps that we have no council tax or water rates but this also depends on how DH gets on at work this month, February is typically a very slow month for him.

Planning a very low cost weekend, with hopefully some cycling if the weather stays good. Do need to get a couple of things from Li@l but have made a list. Washing is out on the line so that's a good start.

beanielou

Blimey.
That is truely dire.

I suppose I am different as I have a disability that means I have had regular pyhsio since being small. I have never heard of such a poor initial appointment though.
So well worth going for the private in this case.