My new debt free diary :)

GolfR

Oh yes there’s always an unexpected school expense that pops up!

No spend day today. Had no money in from Vinted either but hopefully it shouldn’t be long. Ended up going to Lidl last night, spent £13.70 on milk, strawberries and a few other bits and £8.99 on a big bag of dog food which should last close to two months. I had a good sort out of the kitchen today (I absolutely love organising and declutterring!) and got rid of some out of date stuff and tidied up the back window that I use for storage; my kitchen isn’t that big so I need to use it to store my soup maker and excess food that I’ve bought like seeds, grains and nuts. 

Also had a good rummage though the chest freezer. Some things went into the fridge freezer where I keep the bread items on the top shelf, kids’ food in the middle and veg on the bottom; got rid of a few things and I’ve put fish into a bag at the bottom, a bag towards the top with stuff that needs to be eaten soon and a container with cooked frozen leftover chicken and turkey. The kids are marvelled at how empty it looks now! I’ll be making up a list tomorrow of stuff to eat so I can pick from it when I do my meal plan/calorie app. My daughter is having a sleepover tonight with her two friends who are sisters so doing all the sorting kept me out of their way for a while

I found tapioca flour, red bean paste and pizza flour earlier in the depths of the kitchen so I’ve put them on the worktop with plans to make tapioca cheesy wraps, puff pastry (which I found in the freezer) red bean paste dessert bake this weekend and hopefully make some pizza with the kids over the next couple of weeks. Just need to buy some more cheese for the wraps and pizza toppings next time we go shopping.

I had leftover turkey from Christmas and roasted pumpkin from Halloween in the freezer with plans to make a curry from them when I got round to it so I’ve put them in the fridge to also make this weekend. It’ll use up some coconut milk and mild curry powder that I need to make use of and I won’t need to buy anything extra.

GolfR

I really look forward to writing this diary at the end of the day! It’s like my accountability for my spending, I absolutely love it.

There were some necessary spends today. £17.50 approx in Asda on stuff for my sons school lunchbox for this week as well as milk - we’ve used almost the whole 6pt I bought two days ago! Thankfully this is the last week for 6 weeks I’ll need to buy these things. I needed diesel as well so I put £20 in and that should hopefully last me a week or so. The last £20 lasted 9 days! Had £8 in from Vinted so that went straight to my loan. My daughter and her two friends who had the sleepover wanted to go swimming this afternoon and luckily it’s free for under 16’s in the leisure centre on Saturdays so I took them to that and picked them back up.

I had a voucher for a free dominos so me and the kids just had that. My daughter and I had 2 1/2 slices each and my son ate 5! He’s a hungry, tall and very slim almost 15 year old. That was a lovely free treat tonight aside from having to do a 15 mile round trip to get it. It’s been so warm today it’s been difficult to get anything done besides be in front of the fan. I even fell asleep for an hour earlier on 🤣

GolfR

No spend day today, £30 in from Vinted.

I did spend £6.34 on a pair of Joules cropped chino trousers on Vinted last night, as I’m losing weight my size 16’s are getting looser so these will be my ‘can’t wait until I can fit into these’ bottoms.

After a lot of thinking the last week or so, I’ve decided to switch my Virgin £610 and NatWest £2445 BT’s onto a new BT with Santander. My current ones are running out and the new one is 12 months at 0% interest. I’m going to pay the minimum on this and throw what I was already paying each month to those at my car loan. If my workings out are correct I should be rid of the loan in 15/16 months at the most. I’m going to aim for 12 months as I’ll put any extras and leftover money at the end of each month towards it. Then I can take out a short BT at the end with as little fee as possible and aggressively pay that down.

I made the cheesy tapioca wraps today and the sweet red bean puff pastry things. I almost threw the wraps in the bin as they kept falling apart when I would roll them out but I persevered and managed to make 8 mini wraps by using my hand to press them out and a dough cutter to flip them every few presses. They were alright but not amazing but I will eat them. The red bean paste things were yummy! Also put the turkey pumpkin curry into the slow cooker and cooked some brown rice for the next few days to go with it. It was alright but nothing exciting but again, I will eat it to get rid of it.

I’ve enjoyed this warmer weather but today felt more humid than ever so I’m pleased it’s going to be cooler tomorrow. The dogs will much prefer it too!

GolfR

Another day another update! Had to buy my Mounjaro today at £144 but that’s a budgeted monthly item so technically it was a no spend day. Still waiting for a Vinted item to be picked up from the buyers local Tesco and four others still yet to be delivered so no money from there today. Also waiting for my shein return to come in, turns out it’s £17 not £11 so even better! Need to buy the kids packed lunch stuff for Alton Towers so I’ll use that money for it.

Child benefit and tax credits of £341 came in today so I’ve paid off my Lloyds card of £230! Left enough in my NatWest account to pay the two more bills due before the 23rd, put £20 each into the fuel and groceries pots and put the rest along with the £30 I had yesterday from Vinted into my debt repayments pot which will go onto my loan once the £8 I paid the other day has cleared tomorrow - it wouldn’t let me do it while that was still pending.

I did have to put the Mounjaro on my credit card but it will be paid with my July pay where it’s budgeted for anyway and next time I won’t need to buy it until after my August pay so it’ll all work out after that. A pretty quiet day otherwise, did three loads of washing, put them on the clothes horses, hoovered and mopped downstairs and enjoyed the cooler weather!

Blackcats

Well done for saying bye bye to Lloyds

GolfR

Thanks Blackcats! 

I was so annoyed today. I changed my pet insurance to John Lewis from manypets (my renewal was £215 pm!) for £80 pm and I asked for the DD to start on the 24th, the day after payday, and the first one came out today. If I would have known I would have kept the £60 I sent to my loan late last night to cover that. I checked the letter that came last week and it did say on there that the first one will come out today and then the next one will be the 24th. Totally my fault for not reading the letter when it came (I normally do so don’t know why I didn’t with this) but I didn’t expect anything to come out when I asked for it to come out on the 24th. Luckily I’m due £54 in from Vinted over the next few days and I’m into my overdraft by £57 because of it so that will cover most of that.

I’ve given the kids £10 each to spend at Alton Towers and the ex and his dad have given them money as well so they have £50 each to spend. I’m sure they won’t need it at all but I know the pictures are bloody expensive - I’ve not been for years so no idea what they’ll be. Went to Lidl earlier, I used the last of the milk in my coffee this afternoon. Got the kids some snacks for the bus ride and a few top up bits; I spent £20.80. I got the 600g strawberries free today with my Lidl free fruit or veg when you spend over x amount coupon thankfully.

I had some old bananas here so I made protein banana muffins earlier. I left the oven on 200 by mistake from when I’d turned it on so they’re a bit dark but hopefully they’ll be tasty.

GolfR

Evening all.

No spend day today. The kids went to Alton Towers and are back safe, they barely spent anything when they were there! I’ll be having some money in from Vinted tomorrow so that will clear my overdraft. Kids were gone for over 12 hours and I didn’t do much apart from some cleaning and watching youtube.

I had to move the last of the small amounts of money from my Monzo groceries and fuel pots to cover part of my overdraft and I think I might have £5 max in my purse so that is it until I get paid next Wednesday. This would have worried me before and I’d end up using my credit card to buy whatever I wanted but now I see it as a challenge to be able to last another week. All I’m willing to buy in this time is milk as that is a non negotiable. I need my bran flakes and coffee in the morning we have around 3/4 of a 6 pinter left so that should last until the weekend.

I’ve been having the turkey pumpkin curry for tea the last four nights and salad for dinner each day. One more curry left for tomorrow night and I’ll do some meal plans tomorrow for the next few days with what’s in the freezer. It’s so nice to see the chest freezer going down as time is going on!

GolfR

Morning all.

Didn't get chance to post last night. No spend day yesterday. I’ve had all my payments in from Vinted now and I’m finishing the month off on £6.14 into my overdraft so not terrible. I was so relieved I had some ways to pay off the £80 that went out for my dog insurance. I went to Lidl this morning after the school run and I bought a 6 pinter of milk, I didn’t need to buy it today but there’s only about a quarter left and I didn’t fancy going up on the weekend. I didn’t realise until today when I actually checked that it’s 10p cheaper in Lidl as opposed to Asda for a 6 pinter! I assumed milk was the same everywhere. That came out of the cash in my purse and I have £2.10 left, I’m sure I’ll be able to find 20p around the house somewhere for our next milk  

I've taken home made spag bol out of the freezer for us all to have for tea tonight, it’s one of the only meals we all like. My dinner this afternoon will be home made carrot and parsnip fishcakes also from the freezer with cous cous and some broccoli on the side.

At some point I’ll write up my month to date. It won’t be indicative of a normal month for me from now on as I didn’t start this until 1st July and I get paid on the 23rd of each month so there was some unnecessary spending in the week prior to the 1st.

GolfR

Rather a late update tonight!

Not done a huge amount today. I did my own gel nails with stuff my daughter and I already have here so saved around £40 there. I’ve only ever had them done once and they’re so expensive it’s not something I would ever have done apart from a very special occasion. I’m also a b*gger for picking at them so it’s not worth me paying to have them done my daughters friends came up the house and I dropped them off up the local town for a couple of hours.

I found an amazing deal on Reddit today for my 3rd pen of Mounjaro, £94 instead of £170 so I’ve bought that and worked it into next months’ budget. This means I won’t need to buy any for two months so I’m very pleased I’ve found this as it’ll save me so much. Nothing else bought today. 

I have 26 or so miles left in the tank which needs to last me until Wednesday. I don’t have the school run to do so I think I’ll be ok. I’ve been enjoying watching geography and extreme weather documentaries on YouTube the last couple of days. I’ve also been thinking of looking at something I could do as a side hustle from home to earn some more to put toward my loan but I’ve got no idea I could do. Maybe I’ll come across something soon!

GolfR

I’ve spent everything for this month so here is my budget breakdown for June - July 2025. As mentioned above it’s not indicative of what will be coming from now on as I started this budgeting on 1st July. I’m going to go in order of how it’s listed on my Moneyhub app to make life easier

Income
Work pay - £2254
Child support - £234
Child benefit - £173
Tax credits - £168
Vinted - approx £120
= £2949

Every penny spent, I am at £0.00 in all my accounts

Eating out
Budget - £20
Spent - £101.20 (all prior to 1st July, nothing since)

Personal care
Budget - £200
Spent - £429 (bought three lots of Mounjaro in here as mentioned prior so won’t need to buy any for a while now and this has been budgeted into next month)

Clothing
Budget - £30
Spent - £52.81 (bought prior to 1st July bar a pair of joules chinos on Vinted for £6)

Kids
Budget - £30
Spent - £42.80 (£20 in Alton Towers spending money bumped this up)

Home & Garden
Budget - £10
Spent - £13.49 (my smol order mainly which comes every few months)

Vape
Budget - £20
Spent - £25 (needed to buy pods as well as juice, pods are £10 but last a few months so will stay under this next month)

Groceries
Budget - £200
Spent - £222.77 (I would have stayed under this but I spent £70 in Waitrose on completely unnecessary stuff prior to 1st July)

Mortgage - £469.84

Savings - £100

Monthly debt repayments
Car loan - £291.82
Virgin BT - £210
Overdraft interest - £1.33
NatWest BT - £24.73
iPhone Barclays partner finance - £37.45
= £565

Extra car loan repayments - £101.24
Paid off NatWest overdraft - £250
Paid off Lloyds credit card - £230

Dog food
Budget - £20
Spent - £20.48

General
Budget - £30
Spent - £13.20

Fuel
Budget - £150
Spent - £40

Bills - £467 as follows (will normally be more but I switched some DD’s around to be closer to pay day)
Lebara - £8.95 x 3
RAC breakdown - £12.99
John Lewis dog insurance - £79.90
Apple iCloud - £8.99 2TB family plan (I hate paying this but I don’t think I have a way around it)
Car tax - £16.62
Plusnet - £26.18
RCN (nurse union) - £16.82
Apple Music £11.99 x 2 (my son took out a free trial and forgot to cancel so I had to pay it twice this month. I’ve cancelled both and I’m going to see how I get on without it)
Welsh water - £46
Octopus (both gas & electric) £174.38
Life insurance & critical illness cover - £8.77 & £21.02
D&G washing machine cover - £6.56 (I’m thinking of getting rid of this)
I’ll normally have council tax and car insurance in here as well but these are the ones I’ve moved around.

From the budgets where I underspent nothing is left as I put everything towards my debt but they will all be filled from this coming pay onwards and the majority will be rolling budgets. I have pots for car maintenance which will be £60 pm, car and house insurance and car tax of £100 pm, gifts £40 pm, uniform for £10 pm and school dinners of £20 which I won’t be putting into until August’s pay.

This took a while to write but it was very cathartic! Thank you for reading if you got this far