My new debt free diary :)

londoner2019

Just dipping in to wish you luck on your journey! I do the same thing with budget v actual - that will help gain a clear picture of whether you're under or overbudgeting in certain areas.

Love how positive you have been throughout the month! I recall always having a bit of a dip by this stage of the month.

GolfR

Thank you very much Londoner! I guess because it’s all new to me now it’s a bit novelty but it feels great at the moment and my kids understand as well too which is marvellous. Seeing the interest on that loan go down is keeping me so motivated. 

Re: the actual vs spent budget, I learned this from one of my favourite budget youtuber’s, don’t be a lemon. Her channel is what got me into all this and I’m so thankful to her even though she has no idea who I am

I made an amazing chicken dish last night with leftover cooked chicken leg from the freezer, passata, coconut milk, orzo and different seasonings and it was absolutely amazing! Even my son was like ‘NICE!!’ It made five portions so my son and I are having a second portion for tea tonight and if he wants he can have the last portion tomorrow night and I’ll find something from the freezer. Apologies if anyone reading doesn’t like food talk because I know I do mention it a lot but I love my food and making recipes from leftovers

No spend days today and yesterday; it’ll be another no spend day tomorrow and I’m getting paid £2317 on Wednesday so I’ve done an Asda click & collect order for approx £34 for mainly salad stuff - oh how I’ve missed fresh veg in the fridge! £11.49 of it is dog food which comes from another budget so only £22 of it is actual food. On the Asda rewards app at the moment if you spend over £10 for a click and collect or home delivery order they’ll give you £10 in your cash pot so I’m definitely going to make the most of that this month.

Walked to the library earlier to take some books back but nothing took my fancy so I didn’t take any out. I have loads of books here on my TBR so I should really get to them, I just haven’t been into reading the last few weeks. Fuel wise, I still have 26 miles or so in my tank. I’m going to meet my friend tomorrow locally as I’m looking after her dog for 2 or 3 days in a few weeks time while she goes away and my dog is a git with dogs he doesn’t know so we’re going to do a doggy meet up a few times beforehand and hope he’s ok with it. My friends dog is a girl so I’m hoping he’ll be fine once he knows her. My daughter is having a sleepover at her friends tomorrow too so I’ll definitely have enough in the tank for both of those trips then I’ll fill up on Wednesday after I’ve been paid.

stymied

It’s worth complaining to Amazon about that second £11.99 music subscription - they may well refund it x

GolfR

Stymied - thank you so much for suggesting this, I contacted them on live chat as soon as I read your message and they’re going to give me a refund!! I’m so pleased, it was such a waste of £11.

No spend day today, I get paid at midnight and I’ve had fun making meals from what I’ve had here with no money to spend. I’ve not long had the last of the chicken orzo thing I made night before last and dinner today was a lemon sole goujon wrap with sweetcorn. I found some edamame pods in the freezer that I forgot about and they were so good with the wrap.

Finished the day off with about 20 miles left in the tank! I will fill up tomorrow when I go to get my Asda click & collect as I’ve heard it’s not good for the car to run on low fuel, not sure how true this is?

I’ll leave it there for today as there’s not much to report. I shall check in again tomorrow

GolfR

Evening all.

My pay of £2317 came in and it’s been shared between my main current account for my bills and monthly debt repayments and my Monzo pots for my monthly spending. I looked at my Virgin BT earlier and my promotional rate of 0% is ongoing until 22nd October. Instead of putting the £610 towards it from the new BT I did the other day which would have paid it off, I’ve put it towards my loan and the £210 a month extra I was going to put towards the loan I will now put in a savings account and pay the minimum on Virgin until then and pay the remainder off a few days before it’s due. This should save me over £80 in loan interest and will knock over two months of payments off the end of my loan.

I collected my Asda order this morning, it was £28.50 for groceries and £11.50 for dog food so that’s come out of my pots. And I’ve got the £10 reward in my Asda rewards cashpot so I’ll use that if things are feeling a bit tight towards the end of the month. I’ve put aside the £240 I went over in my personal care budget last month. I’ve started using my credit card to get the cashback on my purchases and as soon as I make the purchase I’m putting the money from my pots into a savings account that I’ve specifically named ‘credit card fund’ and then I will pay off when it’s due.

I did buy a top for £5.19 on Vinted last night in the next size down so that’s £25 left in that pot, not that I plan to spend any more.

I’ve put a throw it all in corn chowder recipe in the slow cooker so I’m looking forward to that tonight. It was so lovely having a salad for dinner finally today after over a week without it. I’ll definitely be spreading out my groceries budget from now on!

GolfR

Afternoon all.

Didn’t get chance to post yesterday. We had a McDonald’s breakfast yesterday which cost £18.44 and that is our eating out budget for the month. Also filled up the car yesterday which was just over £80 and that should last a good while. Bills and debt repayments have mostly gone out as normal and there is just over £200 left in the bills account to pay the smaller ones that come out at different times of the month.

I paid that £610 as mentioned in my last post off the loan and I’m still waiting for that to clear. I paid it on the 23rd and I’ve just looked and it’s not going to clear until the 29th which is really frustrating as interest is accumulating daily but I suppose there’s not much I can do apart from grin and bear it. I did get the £10.99 back into my account today from Apple. I’m so thankful to Stymied for suggesting I try it!

I took my broken tumble dryer to the tip today. It stopped working properly a few months ago and I looked into it recently and it appears the motor has gone; from my research it wouldn’t be cost effective to replace the motor. The benefits of not using a tumble dryer are so great (clothing longevity, cost) and I’ve managed fine without it with drying clothes on the line and the two horses I have so I’m going to try and live without one. It might be a different story come winter time but I’ll see how we go.

No spend day today, all budgets are on track

GolfR

Hi everyone

No spend day yesterday. I won the works lottery last night! £57 extra for me I needed floss so I bought that today, £8.86 for 150 which will last me 5 months. I use ribbon floss and they do tend to cost more but I find the thin ones get stuck in my teeth the rest will go to my loan once the £610 has finally cleared. No other spends today otherwise.

Need to go to Lidl tomorrow, out of milk as usual! Need some more fruit too, I like to pick my own fruit and veg and I haven’t been to a shop since over a week ago, I got some salad with my Asda click and collect but only things I know are likely to be alright like lettuce, sugar snap peas and cherry tomatoes. So I’ll be getting strawberries, bananas, kiwis and a few other bits tomorrow. Need some more eggs too, we’ve been eating them a lot the last few weeks.

I had a little declutter of my workout clothes drawer today and I’ve put three things on Vinted and two things sold within half an hour! So I’m hoping home bargains sell packing bags, I’ll have a look tomorrow and send them off while I’m up at the shops as that’s where the inpost lockers are. I’ll only be having £5 but I’m more glad to be getting them out of the house as I’ve not worn them in years.

GolfR

Evening all

I sold the other thing I put on Vinted last night; that’s £8 I’ll be having in a few days for the three. I managed to get a pack of 8 mailing bags from home bargains for 79p and I sent them all off in the inpost while we were there. My daughter has wanted to try Dubai chocolate for ages and we’ve not been able to find it but they had a big bag in home bargains for £5 so I agreed we could try it. They also had biscuits for £1.25 so we got them too, they were both very nice I must say! £7.03 spent in HB.

We went to Lidl after and spent £39.47. The majority was fruit and veg which should last me at least a week. Also got two 6 pinters of milk and I have said I’m not going shopping for another week! Let’s hope I can stick to it as that’s already £70 I’ve spent since the 23rd. £130 left in the groceries budget.

My daughter really likes the Uniqlo top I bought from Vinted the other day and I’ve managed to find one in her size for the same price as mine, £5.19 with fees and shipping. £20 left in the clothing budget. I don’t mind buying her good quality stuff at a reasonable price from Vinted, I much prefer that to Shein clothing.

I’ve just made baked oats which will last me and my son for a good few days (my daughter doesn’t like it) and I have enough frozen fruit to make a second batch in a couple of weeks; all the other ingredients are regular pantry ingredients. Yesterday I made Buddha bowls with millet for the carbs (I bought them amongst lots of other weird and wonderful things during a big spend at a health food shop a few months ago), sweet potato, tofu and kale. I also made an asian dressing with peanut butter, lime juice, soy sauce, rice vinegar and ponzu sauce. It’s really nice but quite dry so on my second serving today I added some Greek yoghurt and it was much better. I have another two servings left so it’s just one meal a day I need to figure out for the next two days.

We have plans to go to back to Iceland in August next year to see the total eclipse - my son and I are major geography and space nuts! We went in March 2023 and absolutely loved it. I’ve opened a travel pot and put the leftover £50 from my lottery money in there and need to move around my budgets so that I can add to this monthly as the flights will be out probably in September time and I want to be able to buy them as soon as they come out. I’ve not mentioned that I do have a long distance partner and he’ll be coming with us too and will pay half the holiday which is what we usually do when we go away. We’ve been together for six and a half years but live four hours apart.

I can’t wait to get past midnight tonight so that I can see that £610 finally go towards my loan this has been a long one so I’ll finish up now.

Middle_Aged_Guy

I really enjoy reading your posts. You seem extremely focused and very organised, which are fantastic traits to have when tackling debt! 
Thats inspirational to hear you and your long distance partner have managed to make that work for so many years. That in itself is no easy feat and says a lot about your characters

You are doing so good, please keep the updates coming!

GolfR

Thank you so much middle aged guy! This put such a smile on my face when I read it, what a massive compliment

As I’m writing this I’m making a curry (again!); butter chicken but with turkey it was the other half of the Christmas turkey I had in the freezer. I’ve added in all pantry ingredients that I already had here - coconut milk (my last tin), passata, chopped tomatoes, nutritional yeast, red split lentils, a jar of chickpeas, a tin of carrots and I’ve put the brown rice straight in to cook in the curry instead of cooking it separately. I marinated the turkey this afternoon with a recipe I found online with skyr yoghurt and spices that I also already had here so let’s hope it comes out good. It’s filled my big casserole dish so will probably last me (and hopefully the kids if they like it) the next five evening meals

I had a good study of Martin’s MSE email earlier. I had never heard of a help to save account but I qualified for it and it took minutes to open as I already have a government gateway ID. I put £50 in straight away after setting it up; luckily I knew I had some money leftover after filling my pots this month with money that’s due in the next few weeks. In two years as long as I save £50 a month I’ll have £600 extra! So darn happy I saw this!

No spend day today, I have a cold and feel like rubbish so I’ve been sat on the sofa most of the day but did enjoy a nice bath earlier. I did a beginners kettlebell workout on YouTube last night and my legs are rather sore so the bath was very needed