Trying to Hide a Secret £20,000 Debt is as Tricky As it Sounds! (:#)

CMD79

Well....I've not had the most money in the account today, that's for sure - but I have done a mystery shop for £20, listed some Ebay items and not spent a penny, NSD. I had a few pennies to Tilly Tidy and that's another £6.02 Payment a Day'd off my Very!

Penny by penny! xx

Amber1980

Brilliant suggestion from @theoretica I am going to borrow that, I have always tried to keep up but now I need to be honest and admit I can’t right now!👍😊👍

CMD79

Amber1980 said:

Brilliant suggestion from @theoretica I am going to borrow that, I have always tried to keep up but now I need to be honest and admit I can’t right now!👍😊👍

Yep! It's really simple when you read @theoretica's message, and yet, would I have done that without someone saying it??? Probably not to be honest!! 

This is the NEW US!! @Amber1980 - the realistic, honest version of ourselves!! xxx

Amber1980

👍👍👍 I love that,brilliant 😊😊😊

CMD79

Uh Oh!!!

I'm very good at maths! But I have a shocking attention to detail...

Long story short, I'm about to run out of money  I had moved an optimistic £150 into a savings account  - which has never seen a penny of savings in the 10 years since I opened it of course thinking I might, just might....but no!! I am going to run out of money. But that's okay because for the first time since I can remember, I haven't spent anything on any sort of credit, so if I can get through the remainder of the month with £200 cash, £150 ish in Sainsburys vouchers I'll still have achieved far more than I ever thought possible. Usually by now I'm juggling all my credit cards, robbing Peter to pay Paul etc.

I still have a LOAD of stuff to Ebay, 2 mobile handsets to sell, a TopCashback in 'confirmed' at over £100, and just about kept my digninity :0) (If you look past lying to my husband at least)

So, the £150 in my savings is going into my current, I've had a NSD, just completed a mystery shop, started applying to forums, not sure about surveys, but going to see about hitting an hour when daughter goes to bed in a minute. I've got an item listed on Ebay which is ending in 2 minutes as well which is at £5.50 plus £3.20 postage. I have £100 of stamps roughly knocking about that I've had for years since I worked in an office that closed and they shared them out, so I'll look at the postage costs as profit too.

I've being undecided about still paying my NSD £5 off my Very account when I'm going to be so close to running out, but.... because this is how wreckless I am!! I'm going to continue on my Payment A Day mission! Ebay buyer has already paid, so that's £5 NSD, £4 Tillied, £8.70 from Ebay Payment A Day'd off my Very = £17.70

I'll need £30 for fuel, £10 parking, so I will have enough to keep going with the PAD for the moment. I'll keep £100 in the savings  as a little buffer, so I'll stop with the PAD when I hit that if I don't get any more extra money in from surveys etc.

It's getting towards the pointy end now!! EEK!! 

GeorgianaCavendish

Don’t worry, I think this happens to all of us at the start - it gets really exciting paying off debt and it can take a while for the budgeting skills to catch up. 

Maybe you could reduce your PAD amounts and just round down to the nearest pound? 

CMD79

GeorgianaCavendish said:

Don’t worry, I think this happens to all of us at the start - it gets really exciting paying off debt and it can take a while for the budgeting skills to catch up. 

Maybe you could reduce your PAD amounts and just round down to the nearest pound? 

Yeah, definitely gotten over excited! haha

I've reduced the Tillying to round to nearest £2.50 rather than £5. My payment a day I'll continue to pay any extra I make, so £5.66 from surverys today, but the NSD where I had been paying £5 and then the Tillying, I'm going to leave in my "Stop Being A Prat" account and wiill pay it off when I can see better if I can get away with it! If I do it with over 2 weeks until pay day, it's not going to end well I think...

enthusiasticsaver

At least you are not using credit. Building emergency savings is critical to paying off debt so carry on doing what you are doing. Essentially thinking about every penny you spend, stashing everything away that you can for emergencies and really thinking about what is necessary and what can wait and making small savings on essentials. Every little bit adds up. 

CMD79

enthusiasticsaver said:

At least you are not using credit. Building emergency savings is critical to paying off debt so carry on doing what you are doing. Essentially thinking about every penny you spend, stashing everything away that you can for emergencies and really thinking about what is necessary and what can wait and making small savings on essentials. Every little bit adds up. 

Definitely what I need to hold on to! Thank you!!

Yes, I have to keep telling myself, number one priority has to be to not touch the credit. As it stands, my minimum payments are at around £800! (Barclaycard have forced me to pay extra anyway because they recognised I'm in perpetual debt), so if I continue just to pay £800 a month (which is not JUST anything of course!!, but I will be paid up by August 2024 anyway. If I continue to be able to find extra money to pay off extra, by some miracle I could be free of this life sentance in 18 months.

Thank you for your continued words of wisdom and encouragement!!

CMD79

Good morning DFW and Friends,

I have enjoying support, encouragement and lots of advice for a week now. My mind is so much clearer, my mood is so much lighter and my outlook so much improved I can't even describe. Thanks for all the support!

This week I have made a few extra quid by doing surveys. When I say 'a few' I'm not meaning anything more than a 'a few'!! But it's a few quid closer to be being debt free. And some of them are quite interesting, so I am going to carry on. Some of you have suggested other/better sites for me to sign up to so will look at that today, but if I can make £25 a week whilst I'm sat there watching TV, that's an extra £100 a month shaved off, which is worth it to me. It feels like a bit of a slog sometimes when you realise you've made 68p an hour....but I'm going to keep going.

I've come close to running out of money during my fist month of Payment a Daying, so I need to calm down there, but I'm now paying that in my "Stop Being a Prat" account in the hope that I can pay it off of Very, but making sure I don't overstretch and have to bring the credit cards out! I've got 2.5 weeks until pay day, I have a very clear budget and some vouchers to cover groceries, so one day at a time....

I'm still giving myself a 3 year overall target of being Debt Free, December 2024. But as it stands, it could be as soon as April 2023. It's unlikely that is reality but it is fun to think about being that close to freedom.

Enjoy the weekend everyone! xxx