Time to quit stealing from my future self!

WinterWarrior

well done on cancelling the shop. Over buying and hoarding food is one of my habits!

cybertortoise

Well done @no1disneymum that's definitely some steps in the right direction.

Fingers crossed the person pays for the ebay item when they said they will.

Prices for fish and chips are astronomical, I suppose luckily all the ones near us are terrible so I'm not tempted. Unfortunately we live in a city so have all the delivery companies here and can get virtually anything delivered. I'm off to close all of those accounts and delete the apps so that ordering anything will become more of a hassle than just cooking something.

no1disneymum

Thank you @LittleMissDetermined & @WinterWarrior for popping in and for your words of encouragement. It feels great having people cheering me on

@cybertortoise good idea deleting the app. Maybe I should do that too!

no1disneymum

Now for my update. I know I want to keep my diary as positive as I can, but I realised I do need to post the good & bad, so I can look back on it when I'm having a wobble & see what progress has been made.

So good & bad from the last few days, here goes.

Good

I logged on to my TopCashback account because I have an insurance renewal due soon. When I logged in, I noticed that £36 has become payable! So I have transferred that to my account & when it goes in I will put that towards a debt.

All budgets are on track & I haven't got much planned for the rest of the month, so not many expenses. I have a birthday at the end of the month, but one gift already been paid for & I do have a little bit more in the budget.

I've got A LOT of food in my fridge, freezer & cupboards so I have made a meal plan for this week & tonight I am going to make a plan for next week too. I don't think I will need to do much grocery shopping at all & I do have some money left in the grocery budget, which will be there for bread & milk top up.

I put a few things on ebay yesterday & already have bids on some of them & quite a few watchers on everything. 

Did a few washing loads this weekend & put everything out on the washing line or clothes horse, didn't use the dryer at all!

Bad

My daughter's school has sent home 2 letters in the past week for school trips. Normally I budget for school expenses, but that pot is a little low at the moment because of all the back to school purchases. I have paid for the one trip now as it was only £10 & luckily the other trip doesn't need to be paid for until October, so at least I can wiggle some of the budget to pay for that.

The item on ebay that was awaiting payment, ebay cancelled the sale before I had chance to change the settings. I did message the buyer to say I can list it again as a buy it now, but they didn't reply so I will have to just relist it now & hope it sells at a similar price.

Plans for this week - meal plan for next week, put more things on ebay, post sold items, get out for a walk twice (trying to exercise more).

no1disneymum

Oh I completely forgot one other good thing that happened.

So I budget fun money every month. Before I had my lightbulb moment, I used to sometimes use £10 to play online bingo on Tombola. I didn't do it often, but was fun sometimes. Anyway, I haven't played for a few months & had an email from them this weekend offering me a free £5 without having to deposit anything. I played the £5 & ended up winning £10

So I withdrew the £10 & deleted the app from my phone so I wouldn't log back on. I know they do these freebies to try & entice you back, but I wasn't falling for that!

Makingabobor2

Good luck. Just found your diary and will be interested to see how it goes. I haven't set up a diary yet, not sure if I have time to keep one going, but I think it might be a good idea to help motivate me more. I'm sure you will do well. Having the lightbulb moment is the main thing. We had ours 7 years ago and it really is a long slog, but we're getting there. 

LittleMissDetermined

no1disneymum said:

Oh I completely forgot one other good thing that happened.

So I budget fun money every month. Before I had my lightbulb moment, I used to sometimes use £10 to play online bingo on Tombola. I didn't do it often, but was fun sometimes. Anyway, I haven't played for a few months & had an email from them this weekend offering me a free £5 without having to deposit anything. I played the £5 & ended up winning £10

So I withdrew the £10 & deleted the app from my phone so I wouldn't log back on. I know they do these freebies to try & entice you back, but I wasn't falling for that!

This is good willpower! Well done

All in all, it sounds like a positive few days
LMD x

no1disneymum

@Makingabobor2 thanks for popping in. I know from reading other diaries that these first few weeks will be 'fun' in a way, but at some point the novelty will wear off & it starts to get harder. I hope I can stick to it though, because I would love to not have to worry about debts. I have a pretty secure job, but you just never know what will happen. Well done with your debt busting, 7 years!! I bet that has been a rough journey, but I'm sure those shrinking balances will be making up for the hard times

Thanks LMD, I was pretty pleased with myself because I know a few months ago I probably would have just thought 'oh it's only £10, I might as well just keep playing'. But that £10 will be better off in my bank account & at the end of the month I will move it to wherever I think is best.

no1disneymum

Not much to update really. I tidied up my accounts today by rounding everything down & putting those rounded down pennies into a savings pot. I have a Monzo account & have set it up to round up any spends & move the pennies into the savings pot & it's surprising how quickly the pennies add up. So those round ups, along with the ones I did today have added up to a grand total of £14.52 I know it's not a huge amount, but at the end of the month I can put that towards a credit card. I have to wait until then, because some DD's aren't due until 26th of the month & any payment I make before that will just reduce the amount they take so defeats the point of me trying to make extra payments.

I've got a grocery delivery coming today. All within budget & part of the meal plan I have written up. I want to update my totals, but know there is no point doing that for now. I am looking forward to seeing the slightly smaller balances though, when I check them at the beginning of October.

Nothing else really going on with me. I'm continuing with ebaying, I have a few listings on now which will end this weekend. They don't seem to be attracting many bids at the moment though which is disappointing. But I suppose anything is better than nothing at all & at least I'm getting unwanted stuff out of my house. Hopefully some of the watchers will bid on the weekend before the listings end.

I had a terrible night sleep last night. I just could not get comfortable, so today I have woken up tired & with a stinking headache. Plenty of water, some paracetamol & an early night will hopefully put that right though so I can't complain too much.

Well that's it from me for now. I'm sure I will be back when I realise I forgot to mention something, but right now my brain isn't working properly lol.

Have a good day all & good luck with the debt busting.

Squirrelz92

Hello and congratulations on your shiny new diary   
You are already doing so well with resisting temptations and whacking those pennies into a pot. This is what I do and I am easily managing to pay off an extra £25-£35 a month off my CC doing this. Have you tried Prolific? It's great for earning extra money to throw at debt!

Do you have a budgeting method at the moment?
Have subscribed to your diary and look forward to cheering you on! x