Happier Nat's debt free diary

linz

Hi,

Just browsing and noticed your post above re leeks - I follow this Jamie Oliver recipe normally with leftover Xmas turkey, I don't bother with the chestnuts -  it'd work with leftover chicken too - https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/turkey-recipes/turkey-and-sweet-leek-pie/

Aimingforthegoodlife

Hi Natlie, have ready your diary over the last couple of days, incredible work on the debt payments, especially given how tough you have had it as a family!

Loubarella

Hi, I have just read your diary start to finish. You could publish it as a book!. Thank you for documenting everything. 

I would love to hear how you are getting on now. 

natlie

Hi

its been so long since I talked about stress at work last year and that has continued and its taken time away from me. I feel like I have been a machine the past 6 months. Christmas was lovely we decided to go to Paris instead of doing a traditional Christmas and it was our first holiday in 6 years it was fantastic and I recommend this as it was cheaper than Christmas usually is for us with a big family. We used Tesco vouchers to pay for National Express tickets to London and paid £48 for 5 of us and we got a Eurostar deal for £59 return each. We saved money by buying sandwiches from the bakery for lunch instead of eating out it was great. 

@Aimingforthegoodlife for you posts and for reading my diary. 

Onto the money saving my DMP is now down to £1821. However I do also now owe £400 on my next account and £3158 on a Monzo Flex account. I had to move house unexpectedly from the house we had lived in for 11 years as our landlord suddenly decided to sell. We were left without furniture, the old house had fitted wardrobes and sofas, we had to pay for a removals company as my husband has a bad back and can't lift furniture and we had to pay a deposit which we hadn't saved for as it was unexpected. Our new house is a third more expensive than our old house because our landlord had only increased our rent by £350 the 11 years we lived in the house. 

I will say though that we are managing, I am still paying £385 off the DMP that finishes in October and I am paying £70 a month off the Next account. Monzo Flex is a bit like Klarna so the payments are fixed and short term so that won't be long either. 

Update on my parents: my mum is good she has POTS after her surgery and a hernia but doing ok, my dad has another aneurysm he has Inherited Aneurysm Disease, recently diagnosed, I worry as they are so young (65 & 67) about my health in the future. 

My focus at the moment is trying to have some influence on making the culture at work better not just for me but for my mostly female team and making some money from car boot and Vinted fro mall the boxes stuff we decided to sell but had to move with us at short notice. 

Thanks for reading if you got this far
Nat 

Aimingforthegoodlife

Christmas sounds perfect @natlie! What a great idea and well managed financially! I'm sorry to hear about your folks conditions, that sounds stressful and I'm not surprised it has you concerned.

Sorry to hear about your home, I hope you have managed to settle. Sounds like finances are going in the right direction.Good luck with shifting the work culture!

natlie

Hi, 

Its been long time since I last posted. 2024 was not a great year for me. Following on from my post above about trying to make the workplace culture better, I ended up raising a large grievance in September which still hasn't been closed. I took 2 months off work due to stress and I had to have counselling, I also had support from the Samaritans and Primary Support Services for mental health crisis. I am feeling much better now but somewhere in all of that I have lost a lot of confidence, gained some weight and gained some debts again. It took a long time for me to settle into our new home, which I understand as part of my counselling I had associated with all the other stress going on. I don't think I have slept more than 3 full nights in my bedroom I tend to wake up and go to sleep downstairs on the sofa. I feel very unfit and very sad and I want 2025 to be when I find myself again. 

I currently have about a stone of weight to lose and around £7,800 of debt to pay off. I have been living month to month on my pay as my rent is high but I had a small pay increase in November and I am going to use that to help pay the debt. I don't own much now so I don't have much I can sell. I have decided not to do DMP for my debt this time as I have odd little debts like Klarna and I have some Universal Credit / HMRC debt I am not sure can be paid via DMP. 

I am hoping, no spend and meal planning can help me cut my budget a little more. 

At the moment my main focus is on getting my confidence back.

Nat  

vampirotoothus

Hi Nat it sounds like a tough year, so wishing you well in 2025. V x

natlie

Hi all,

Happy new year. 

Started the new year with sales of £19 on Vi*ted, going to try listing some things on E*ay again now its free, haven't used it for a long time. Have a parcel to post and I am going to go through my accessories drawer later to see if I have anything to sell as I am currently around £150 short for bills this month. I have £200 put away for food and have plenty of food in. 

I have started to take down the decorations I like to take them down before I start back to work. 

Hope you all have a good new years day 

Nat 

natlie

Morning, 

Did the weekly shop at T*sco this morning. before I left I loaded my £6.50 of vouchers and my coupons, I saw I had a free month trial offer of clubcard plus and they gave me 2 x 10% off vouchers (have to remember to cancel this!) I had £104 of shopping for £73 which is brilliant however since when does 3 bags of shopping and 9 toilet rolls cost £104!!!!

I sold another item on Vinted today for £8 so £32 pending payment now. I checked my sons school dinner money account today and there is enough in there for a week of meals. We swapped him to dinners from packed lunches for the winter. 

I cleaned my desk and set my laptop back up ready for work tomorrow and I cleaved the mirrors and windows downstairs, did a load of dishes and put the food waste bin out. Priority for later is getting the VAX washy hoover out of the garage to clean my rug and the bedroom carpet which my cat threw up on this morning, he had been eating the green bits that fell of the christmas tree yesterday when I took it down. 

I am going to make pie for dinner tonight its been raining here for about 16 hours now and its freezing, no snow for us

Nat

backinbusiness

Hello - just found your diary and subscribed. Seems like you've had some tough times, but you seem resilient with a common sense approach - hoping for a better year for you in 2025 x