Sass' 2008 DFW ramble thread

Sassamac

EARNING MISSION

Im going to update my C.V. I have already sought professional advice on this last week. Then apply for a few things and take it from there. Its not going to be easy finding something flexible enough but we live in hope and I have spotted one job already that Im interested in.

Im also going to sign up for every table top / nearly new sale I can find to sell all the kids clobber, then do some car boot sales in the summer to flog the remainder, as well as mine and DH's stuff.

MaggieBear

That all sounds great Sass - meeting the debt advisor regularly is a cracking idea, too .

(for pizza sauce, incidentally, one onion chopped and softened to a can of tomatoes blitzed and a tablespoonish of ketchup is really, really good and with the right tomatoes costs about 30p. You can add a bit of basil if you fancy splashing out...)

I look forward to your SOA

SarahNeedle1872

Hi Sass, just found this thread! Ur plans above look absolutely great! Why not join Moozies/Paps weekly spend thread/daily threads (PostingAlwaysPosting usually puts this up either on a Sat night/Sun morning....) its a good motivational tool to stop u spending as u have to confess ur spends!

TC

Sarah

Sassamac

thanks for your input guys, I will bear all these points in mind. Its a lot to take in at once, and we're only about 5 weeks into the debt-busting journey so theres lots of new tips to try.

Sassamac

oops forgot the whole reason I came back to this thread.

I have just busted a debt!
Paid the remaining £68.98 off my barclaycard, then 5 mins later filled it back up again lol! I got sent a 6.9% LOB offer in the post with no BT fee so have just transferred DH's HSBC card onto mine.
So we can kiss goodbye to the 9.9% he was paying on BT's not to mention the extortionate rate on the purchases and cash :eek:

going to give it a week to clear then bust some real debts (mortgage arrears and loan) with it.

SarahNeedle1872

That's great news Sass, u've really got the whole credit card shuffle going on!

Sassamac

yep, im so pleased to be finally sorting the CC's. trouble is we have been shuffling them for the last two years without significantly reducing them. This time Im determined it will be different.

BTW Sarah, thanks, I have confessed my spends for the day now! Think I need a NS w/e to make up for it.

Sassamac

excuse while I ramble on about my little DFW efforts today (mostly grocery related);
- topped our own pizzas (last time I tried years ago it was gross!) and it tasted fab! Im a convert so Im going to add a rule into my Groceries mission. (sorry Maggie I cheated with passata as I was in a rush - will try your version when the jar runs out).
- where before I have avoided value products that I have tried and not liked, I have bought one value product and its standard sister, then mixed them.
Im also using value products in cooking where I wouldn't use them on their own (e.g. value baked beans to go in shepherds pie but standard beans to go on toast).
- Bought my first ever bottle of stardrops! an incentive to actually clean perhaps!

Sassamac

ok confession time. every time I buy something unnecessary or waste something I am going to declare it here.

Today I bought 6 mini pancakes which a) are not exactly a staple part of the diet, and b) I could have made myself. But hey, cant argue with 16p (value range and reduced).

I spent 50p on car parking because I was too late to park further and walk DS to school.

Thats all so pretty good overall.

I just chucked out my caesar salad dressing and mayo which have loitered in the fridge since last summer. Also some oranges got chucked yesterday which cost 3p (again value and reduced).

Sassamac

Just been chatting to my Dad about money and he was saying that he wanted to help us out as young people these days just dont have a hope when the cost of living is so high. He said that when he bought his first house 30 years ago (which incidently is the same size as ours, which we bought 18 months ago) it cost about twice his annual salary, and he had managed to save up enough for almost a 25% deposit, meaning the mortgage was about 1 1/2 times his salary.

Compare to us, we put down a 36% deposit on this house (thanks to a well-timed inheritance - the benefits of having a small family meant that it didnt get divvied up too many ways), and we borrowed just over 4 times my DH's salary (the only income as I was 7 months pg when we bought). Which means our house is worth over 7 times the annual salary.
Then DH got made redundant and now earns about two thirds of what he did (less if you factor in the time he spent out of work / temping for minimum wage) which means the house is now worth 11 times the annual salary and the remainder of the mortgage is 7 times the annual salary.
It makes our situation sound hopeless!

Rather than depress myself any more Im off to bake some hobnobs - I need some baking therapy.