The Journey to being debt free, hopefully

ryandotdee

in_need_of_direction said:

With the reduced Christmas veg prices, would homemade soup for the freezer be an option?

Its definitely an option.  Being honest, soup is not something which particularly excites me, but, I also realize that a big part of the reason I have these debts is because I am a sucker for convenience and living beyond my means.

So, in the spirit of throwing the kitchen sink at this thing, and wanting to take on any and all advice given, I will do some soup, and see what I can wrangle out of the supermarket on the cheap veg wise

joedenise

Use some of the cheap veg to make veg curry.

linz

Both Aldi & Lidl will be selling their Xmas veg for 8p a bag starting tomorrow - it's in the weekly email

ryandotdee

linz said:

Both Aldi & Lidl will be selling their Xmas veg for 8p a bag starting tomorrow - it's in the weekly email

8p??? might have to get down there, I am a bit stuck in my ways and always goto Tesco

ryandotdee

Today was a bit of a mixed bag, good and bad.

On the positive side, I managed another no-spend day, which I’m really happy about. Tracking things, gamifying it a bit, and setting myself a target number of no-spend days each month feels like it’s going to work well for me. It’s Wednesday now, payday is the day after tomorrow, and my aim is not to spend anything at all until then.

Work was tough today though. I’m having to manage performance issues with a couple of employees, and while I know I’m doing everything correctly, it still takes an emotional toll. It’s the part of management I really don’t enjoy. I love working with people, just not situations like this, but I know it’s about taking the rough with the smooth and keeping going.

I also had a bit of a near miss today. I almost missed my son’s Nativity play 😬. I’m terrible at keeping on top of school emails. There are so many of them, often with PDFs attached, and important stuff gets buried. So tonight I spent a couple of hours creating a little app that checks my emails daily, downloads school attachments, looks for anything related to my sons’ classes, and then creates calendar reminders and phone notifications. Hopefully that means I won’t miss anything again. It feels like a small life hack that should make things easier going forward.

Dinner tonight was another win. I put a beef and lentil stew in the pressure cooker and used up all the slightly questionable veg from the fridge, with a bit of strategic vegetable surgery. It’s smelling great, and I even tried adding a bit of Marmite after hearing it works well in stews. Fingers crossed!

So, lots of ups and downs today, but overall I’m ending it having spent nothing, used up food I already had, and hopefully made future life a bit less stressful.

Cara_

I'm sorry you've had a couple of difficult days and hope you are feeling positive today.

Good luck with the debt busting and well done on the no spend days

ryandotdee

I hadn’t been looking forward to today because it was my performance review at work, and I’ve been feeling quite undervalued recently. However, coming out of it, I’ve managed to negotiate a role change and a fairly substantial pay rise. It isn’t quite the role I wanted, and the pay rise isn’t as big as I’d hoped, but overall it’s still a positive outcome. I’m going to be in a better position than I have been this year, and with my renewed focus on getting my finances under control, having extra money each month will definitely help.

The key thing for me now is making sure I don’t repeat old habits. In the past, whenever my salary has increased, my lifestyle has increased alongside it, and that’s something I really want to stop. I’ve had a look at my budget and decided that while I do want a bit more money for myself and for doing nice things with the children, I’m going to divert 75% of the pay rise straight towards savings and debt. That should mean around £300 a month extra going to one or the other, or a combination of both, which feels like real progress.

On the money-saving front, I also took some advice from others on the thread and popped into Morrisons, who are currently selling veg for 5p. I picked up potatoes, carrots and parsnips, and I’m planning to make some soup. I’m not usually a big soup fan, but I work from home a lot, so it feels like a sensible and cheap option to have ready for lunches.

It wasn’t a no-spend day today. I did spend a few pence on the veg, and I also bought a couple of Christmas cards and small presents for some friends. I went to a wild sauna with them this evening, which was really lovely. I also treated myself to a bottle of Glühwein because, well, it’s Christmas.

RedLipstick

Well done on the new role and salary increase. I know it may not be what you wanted, but better than being stuck in same role and same salary if you don't enjoy it or feel undervalued, I absolutely get what you mean. Well done on the shopping front, sounds like I should check it out too, even to get some backup carrots for the freezer! Glühwein sounds lovely, anything specific you recommend? I used to buy a bottle in Ikea every year (it was surprisingly good!) but they've changed the recipe and it's no longer that nice.

ryandotdee

RedLipstick said:

Well done on the new role and salary increase. I know it may not be what you wanted, but better than being stuck in same role and same salary if you don't enjoy it or feel undervalued, I absolutely get what you mean. Well done on the shopping front, sounds like I should check it out too, even to get some backup carrots for the freezer! Glühwein sounds lovely, anything specific you recommend? I used to buy a bottle in Ikea every year (it was surprisingly good!) but they've changed the recipe and it's no longer that nice.

Absolutely, progress is better than none I got the Gluhwein from Morrisons, its was pretty good, although managed to boil the first batch as I got distracted

Did you end up buying some cheap veg?  I am hoping to make some soup today with some home made chicken stock.

ryandotdee

The last couple of days have been a bit tough for a few reasons. As this is a debt-free diary, it probably makes sense to start there. I think this is a fairly common experience. You have that lightbulb moment where you realise how much debt you’re in and decide you need a proper plan. You make the plan, start acting on it, and then the initial motivation fades and the reality hits. Yes, there is a plan and I know what I’m doing, but realistically this is going to take around two years at best.

That has hit me a bit this week. I’m quite an impatient and impulsive person if I’m honest, which is probably part of how I got into debt in the first place. So I’m having to sit with those feelings and not let them derail me.

Alongside that, I’ve been feeling low for other reasons too. I normally run a lot, but I broke my ankle about a month ago and that’s taking its toll. I had the biggest race of my life booked for January, which I now can’t do. Being less mobile, bored, and not training has meant I’ve found myself drinking more than I normally would, which I’m very aware of and not particularly happy about.

To top it all off, I went to the doctor last week for something completely unrelated and found out I’ve got skin cancer. That obviously wasn’t something I was expecting, and it’s added to the general sense of it being a tough week.

On the positive side, financially things are still moving in the right direction. Yesterday, Friday, was another no-spend day. I also did my monthly food shop, and because of batch cooking and what I already had in the freezer, I was able to restock the cupboards and still have a decent amount left over for some treats and Christmas bits for the kids. I’m really pleased with that.

There’s not a lot planned this weekend. I’ve got a friend coming over on Sunday, and I need to finish off the Christmas shopping, but that’s about it. Trying to take things one day at a time at the moment.