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Debt free and staying that way while I re-evaluate life and keep blood sugar levels down
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🌊 A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor 🌊
2023 challenges - (1) £8k savings challenge = £3k (2) 2 stone 6lb weight reduction = 1 stone & 5 lbs
My WW and friends diary is here 😁 …
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6259606/must-try-harder/p1
I'm 59 and came from a family with not a lot of money that morphed into one that was comfortable enough not to have to worry about paying for things. I was brought up to save and I absolutely loved saving. I saved and bought myself my first pony along with my half sister and we paid for his keep ourselves at 12 years old.
Fast forward to 18 when I met my ex and my world changed again. He worked away on oil tankers for three months paying no tax because he was working in the UAE. He would come home for six weeks and we would blow the lot on partying and just gadding about on his very expensive Harley Davidson Motorbike.
We moved in together about 3 months after we met and it was downhill all the way. I got pregnant and we bumbled along until he lost his job and things got even worse. We were then on benefits for a long time and got to the point of selling belongings to buy food🙀 he had a drug habit so the money never went far. Fast forward several years after he persuaded me to give up my council house to buy a house together ( finished with drugs now and had a good job) bought this house and he then left me to emigrate with another women. I got into debt trying to give my daughters the life I thought we should have had if he was still here.
Four years ago I realised I was in real trouble and came here. I'm still in trouble from a sense of I will never pay off my debt but it's slowly being paid back and I'm able to live carefully on what I earn
Foxgloves theory is spot on I think 😊
We had a conversation with friends yesterday over a glass of wine when they shared that they still have a mortgage, a loan and some credit card debt but that their retirement lump sum will pay some of this off. OH announced that MrsBlackcats is really good with money - I nearly spluttered my Pinot all over the table. He said that I had a monthly budget, had reduced grocery spends, had got savings and always got cash back etc if I could. All of which is actually true but is so new to me and so different to former me that it came as a pleasant surprise.
I genuinely attribute my ongoing reformation to this site and the wisdom gleaned from the diaries I read.
Me too! (5 stone in my case) It was a complete revelation, having been told my entire adult life to eat low fat to be healthy 🙄 (I eat meat, cream, greek yogurt, butter and cheese every day and still lost 5 stone, reduced my blood pressure and cholesterol…)
The goal was to get my HbA1c below diabetic levels but the weight loss was a happy side effect, although it cost me a small fortune in clothes last year (even though I mainly buy from charity shops) - I now own clothes in every size from 20 - 10 (and bras from 36H to 34D 😁).