Single mum to 5, striving for debt free life

joedenise

Well done on walking out of your marriage.  It must have been a very difficult thing to do especially with 5 kids.

You have done amazingly well in the last 6 years.  Good luck with the getting rid of your debt.

Strether2020

Hi, I've only just started posting on here but am so impressed by what you've done - both in terms of debt and in terms of taking huge steps in your life! I'm sure you can win against the debt, given all you've achieved already! 

Hugsinabox

Wow well done you. I am following your journey good luck xx 

[Deleted User]

What a journey you’ve been on, I’m blown away by how much you’ve achieved, you should be very proud of yourself. Will be following your diary 

Jill12

Wow, I am astonished by all the comments. They are lovely to read so thank you to all you xx

My £20 cap on spending today was blown out of the water by 9.30am!! I purchased another two dresses at £20. Think I can see a pattern emerging here lol. My oldest daughter has special needs and was needing bloods taken today. I bribed her with ice-cream during the procedure to keep her happy and calm. However, ice-cream for one child is not acceptable and now everyone is having ice-cream for dinner inplace of my turkey mince spag bal!! That has cost me a further £30 at the supermarket. So £30 overspend and only day two of debt free dairy. I can see I may need to modify some things if I want to hit the £1000 monthly overpayment. Prior to these purchases the last clothes I had bought myself were two long sleeved tops in a sale that were £17 each and before that I have no idea. So I can defo say clothes shopping in general is a rare event for me. But I do love my new dresses xx

Jill12

After a lovely weekend of Christmas cheer it is now nearly Monday again. My kids were with their dad all weekend so I had a work Christmas party and a stay over at a lovely hotel on Friday. Christmas party night £40 and hotel £22.50 and it was a lovely place to stay. On Saturday night my brother paid for the whole night including dinner and all drinks, my only spend was £10 for taxis to and from home. I have completed an in depth budget using a spreadsheet and I am delighted that I ll be able to stick with my original £1000 overpayment each month. My first payment date will be 21 December. I am nervous and excited at the same time. Debt has featured in my life since I was 18 and got my first job with RBS. I took out my first credit card with RBS only so I could hit my weekly sales target lol. That was 20 years ago. Time now for a new narrative that does not include the word DEBT. I shopped at Asda today costing a whopping £160. But that should be me covered for at least the next 10 days. £30 for school dinner paid and tomorrow I ll fill the car with £70 of diesel.  My weekly budget is usually £300 and this covers everything from shopping to clothes and all other essentials and kids club so I am back on the wagon now with a set weekly budget. 

I have signed up for an exercise class on Thursday night also. This is the first exercise I will have done in 3 years so I expect it will be painful. I have also found myself decluttering small spaces, hopefully this will turn into larger spaces. Sometimes when you change your thinking on one  area it flows over into others areas of your life. I am loving this positivity xx

Jill12

I have signed up for the pay off all your debt by Christmas 2022 challenge, just waiting on being assigned a number x

CL21

All sounds super positive! Yay for a child free weekend -sometimes that’s just what you need. 

Great you’ve got your budget done and can achieve the overpayment. Some wise people on here mentioned that an EF might be a good idea before going full steam ahead on the debt so I’ve decided to put £1k in before making big overpayments. Might be something to think about? I was so excited to start paying my debt off I didn’t even think about it 🤣 

Jill12

CL21 you are perfectly right about the EF. I had one before but was so gazelle intense that every time I got it to £1000 I chucked it at the debt!! I should have around £1000 left at the end of January. So this will become my EF. I am loving your diary and currently working through it. You have come a long way in a very short time so well done you x I am going to have to take a look at Monzo as love the idea of virtual pots. I have tried the envelop system before but because I dont use cash I found it inconvenient and it therefore failed. So much advice and motivation in this forum x

enthusiasticsaver

You have a lot going on with a  full time job and five children and well done for walking away from a bad marriage and starting again.  I would second the suggestion that you set up some emergency savings so should there be an unavoidable expense you do not need to resort to credit.  The main thing when paying down debt is to move away from the crutch of using credit cards when you run out of money.  Far better to set a plan to reduce the debt at a steady affordable rate even if slower than you would wish and get used to budgeting, saving for things like christmas, holidays and annual bills and emergencies. I would target that paypal debt as that is the most expensive.