Time to quit stealing from my future self!

no1disneymum

Hi all,

First time here. I have read some diaries & posts over the years but never signed up until today.

My reason for signing up. Well, I have had what you all call 'my lightbulb moment'. I've finally realised that with all the debt I'm repaying, I am stealing from my future self because I am going to be paying interest on some of the debt for a while. So although my past self might have enjoyed what I had spent the money on, it's my future self that is actually paying over the odds for something that in most cases is now gone. For example, clothes that I just HAD TO HAVE but are now either in a bag ready for charity or sold on ebay for a few pounds.

I don't want to make this a negative diary though. I know I've made mistakes & am paying for them (literally), so it's now time to put the past behind me & start looking to the future. I am using you need a budget to keep track of everything so I already know where my money goes & where it should be going.

Today marks the start of my journey to money freedom. I'm sure it won't all be plain sailing, but I am going to give it my all using the tips and advice I find on these forums and maybe along the way I will be able to share some of my own tips.

Onwards & upwards.

'All of our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.'

no1disneymum

Putting it in black & white now to give myself a kick up the butt. I know that if this is there for me to read every time I come on here, it will keep pushing me to stick to this.

So here goes.

CC1 - 8140.40
CC2 - 1536.53
CC3 - 10603.09
CC4 - 298.57
CC5 - 6865.26
Total - 27443.85

Makes me feel sick seeing that written down.

But as I said in my intro, I want to keep a positive outlook here (I know that won't always be possible).

So on a positive note, CC1, 2 & 3 are all 0% for 12 months. I have just transferred the balance from CC5 on to CC1 so that will all be 0% once the transfer has gone through. My first plan of action is to pay CC4. It's a small balance & it will be the only one that is charging any interest once the above mentioned transfer goes through, so it makes sense.

I sold a few things on ebay this weekend & plan to put more on ebay this week. After postage is paid for the items sold yesterday, I should have around £50, so that will go straight on to CC4.

I have started doing surveys as well. I know they don't pay much but every penny counts now. I am using an app that pays on to Paypal, which I can then transfer in to my bank account.

foxgloves

Good luck @no1disneymum. Becoming debt-free is a long process, but well worth it. I've said many times that there's no bag of stuff I could come home with now which would make me feel as happy as debt-free does.
Survey income can be useful. I probably earn about £30 to £40 a month from them atm but I don't do them every day & could step it up if I wanted to. Even the ones which just pay out in vouchers are useful as you can swap these into parts of your budget. E.g a £10 M&S voucher could be a present for somebody, allowing you to via £10 of presents money into another part of your budget. I do this a lot. £20 of vouchers used recently on clothes, so that was £20 of Clothes Pot money liberated to become nephew's birthday money. All these little things add up. The most important thing to remember is that if it has to go on a credit card, you need to extend a loan or put it on overdraft, then you can't afford it because that's somebody else's money, not yours. I think this mantra was the single most helpful one in us both becoming & staying debt-free.
F

no1disneymum

foxgloves said:

Good luck @no1disneymum. Becoming debt-free is a long process, but well worth it. I've said many times that there's no bag of stuff I could come home with now which would make me feel as happy as debt-free does.
Survey income can be useful. I probably earn about £30 to £40 a month from them atm but I don't do them every day & could step it up if I wanted to. Even the ones which just pay out in vouchers are useful as you can swap these into parts of your budget. E.g a £10 M&S voucher could be a present for somebody, allowing you to via £10 of presents money into another part of your budget. I do this a lot. £20 of vouchers used recently on clothes, so that was £20 of Clothes Pot money liberated to become nephew's birthday money. All these little things add up. The most important thing to remember is that if it has to go on a credit card, you need to extend a loan or put it on overdraft, then you can't afford it because that's somebody else's money, not yours. I think this mantra was the single most helpful one in us both becoming & staying debt-free.
F

Thank you @foxgloves

I wrote a long post but it apparently got flagged as suspicious by MSE filters, so I don't know how to retrieve it now.

I can't write it all out again now because I start work soon, so I'll do a little update later instead.

cybertortoise

Hi @no1disneymum I'm subscribing to your diary as I've just started my own today and I think it will be handy to see if I can get any hints or tips from someone at the same sort of stage as me. Some of these diaries are treasure troves of info and I plan on trying to read through more than a few to get ideas. Good luck with your journey to being debt free!

no1disneymum

cybertortoise said:

Hi @no1disneymum I'm subscribing to your diary as I've just started my own today and I think it will be handy to see if I can get any hints or tips from someone at the same sort of stage as me. Some of these diaries are treasure troves of info and I plan on trying to read through more than a few to get ideas. Good luck with your journey to being debt free!

Thank you @cybertortoise, I will subscribe to you also so we can go through this together

I've been putting all my payments in my diary today. I use budgeting software, but for some reason I always prefer to write things down on paper. I'm not sure if it makes it feel more real or something. Who knows how the mind works hey!!

Anyway, I've written them all down & figured out how much we need in our accounts at various intervals throughout the month. I get paid monthly but my husband gets paid weekly so I just need to make sure there is money in the joint account when something is due & money in my own account when something is coming out of that one.

Money from ebay has gone in to my bank account now. I sold 3 things but one of the buyers hasn't paid yet. It's frustrating because that one was the highest value too & it's been 3 days now so looks like they have changed their mind. The item did have a lot of watchers & other bidders so I'm hoping if I do have to relist it I will still get it sold, but it is annoying when people bid on something & then change their mind.

I had £55 from my work health insurance scheme today. It's a benefit so we do get taxed on that annually, but it is such a minimal amount & just from this one claim I have made back a lot more than I will pay for it. The £55 was for my new glasses. The only problem is that is the annual limit for optical claims, so I have to make sure I don't break or lose my glasses because I won't be able to claim again for them until the renewal date in June.

I've got a few things ready to list on ebay this week. I am hoping that because we are fast approaching Christmas I will do quite well on ebay, because people will be looking for some decent items at good prices.

Not much going on today. I had to pop to the shop for a few small bits, but all within my grocery budget so I'm happy with that.

Time for me to log on for work now, so off I go for a busy afternoon. 

cybertortoise

@no1disneymum I'm using YNAB but do tend to write things down to work out my budget, I feel like it's clearer that way to me too.

RWMJPMC86

hi @no1disneymum and also @cybertortoise I've looked through both of your diaries and you're absolute inspirations, we too are at the beginning of our journey - with a "£36k DMP, a 200k mortgage and £1k a month in childcare fees which have seen us slowly drowning over the last 12 months. Now is the time to tackle it head on and lets see where we will be 12 months from now.

DrCarrie

Welcome to your debt-free destiny! I hope you learn lots along the way and discover new delights in life. 

Good luck and stay focused and kind to yourself. 

no1disneymum

Hi @RWMJPMC86, thanks for checking my diary out. Good luck on your journey! Do you have a diary? I will subscribe & we can all hopefully cheer each other on.

Thank you @DrCarrie. I am looking forward to learning so much from these forums.

So some little updates today. The person who bought the 3rd item on ebay has messaged to say they do still want the item, but they don't get paid until 20th so I've decided to wait until then & see if they pay. If they don't then I will just relist it. Luckily it was an item that had lots of watchers & bidders so I don't think I will struggle to sell it again.

I was very proud of myself yesterday. I had been busy in work & as it was getting closer to dinner time, I was feeling a bit lazy & was tempted to go to the chip shop for dinner. But I talked myself out of it because I knew we had plenty of food in the fridge, so I just pulled myself together & made a curry for dinner. I'm glad I did because the chip shop has gotten so expensive now, so I probably would have ended up spending almost £30! Ridiculous for one meal isn't it.

I also did well last night. While we were watching TV I was a bit bored & started doing an asda shop for delivery today out of habit. I was adding stuff to my basket & went to checkout at around £40, but just took one last look at what was in my basket & realised none of it was actually needed, it was just me stuck in a habit of always having shopping delivered on a Friday. So I emptied the basket, put my phone away & read my book. I do need to go shopping but only for milk, so nowhere near the £40 I almost spent.

I have to transfer some money around today to make sure both accounts have enough in to pay any DD's that are due, but not much else to do money wise today. It will be a NSD because I don't need anything & apart from the school run, I won't be going anywhere.

I hope everyone has a great Friday & weekend

LittleMissDetermined

Hello, and congratulations on being brave and starting your diary. It truly does help keep yourself accountable and I always try and post on mine every day (except for my latest holiday).  There are lots of challenge threads you could consider to keep yourself motivated too, such as the NSD challenge and one of my favourites - Payment a Day thread. 

The best thing about the forum as you've probably already come to realise is that there's support without judgement. We don't judge on how anyone got into the debt, the past is just something we learn from. 

You're already showing great habit-breaking by stopping yourself from the usual take outs or unnecessary top up shops so that's something to be proud of. 

I will subscribe to cheer you along your journey - lots of luck!
LMD x