debt free in 1200 months!?

Cleosmum

Good luck with it all!

Seaxwyn

It will be fine! Best of luck - will be thinking of you!

bountiful

I have just saved a copy of my Feb spending diary from spendingdiary.com and I have parted with £2739 this month! Half of that is the cost of moving house, a quarterly gas bill, and a water bill, but even so, for someone on £976 a month, that's a bit much!

Appalled to see I spent £58.67 on 'misc' - under which I chose to list all my chocolate, sweets, crisps and rice crackers! So next month's target will be £20 for that stuff - I could have so much more fun with £58 than eating chocolate!!!!

Food I think I did pretty well - £125 for two of us - which included a few small meals out.

I had a nice day at work despite not feeling great: we had a staff meeting in the morning, followed by a bit of a buffet lunch for two members of staff leaving. This afternoon I took 5 seats out of the people-carrier at work and moved a single bed (not mine) from one place to another - then put all the seats back in...... all in a day's work. Then I had the luxury of getting some paperwork done, and got myself signed up for some interesting training days in the coming months.

My headache has more or less gone (just the feint shadow there) but now I feel like I am in a diving bell - my right ear seems a bit blocked or something and I feel kind of detached from everything around me.

Finally - I went up to the new flat on my way home from work, intending to take the electricity key to top-up before the move. Guess what? I couldn't get in - the key (I'd had copied) didn't seem to work - felt like the latch was down or something. Went to agent (just over the road fortunately) and they couldn't help - so I will have another go tomorrow before work with the original key and hope that works. Things are sent to try us!!:rolleyes:

bountiful

Finally got our internet connection moved to the new flat.
Settled in OK.
Paid bills, racked up more debts - hey ho!
Will sit down and do a new SOA when I have time.
Working, studying, paying bills.
Praying I don't have to move again too soon - or that will be BUST - I don't feel I can perform any more miracles.
Going over to spendingdiary to enter my March spends.
Nice to be back.
Seaxwyn - I'm living in a big town now and almost spent £100 on a pair of trousers and a cardi in M&S (ooh they were lovely) - managed to restrain myself and next day found a lovely pair of M&S trousers in a charity shop for £2.45 and a really nice shirt (albeit George - nice anyway).

bountiful

Moving my overdraft etc from Halifax to A&L is taking forever - they opened the account quick enough, but I wish I hadn't taken up their offer of a switching service. It would have been a million times faster to go into the Halifax and stop all my regular payments, go into A&L and set them up again with new account. Plus, I am still not 100% certain where my salary is going to go - Halifax or A&L - nightmare - means I have had to keep two accounts afloat - and getting mini-statements every day (because I have been without internet) - when I first got the A&L account they gave me a £400 overdraft facility. A month later, when I needed to use it, it had 'disappeared' - asked at the counter and they said it had been temporary whilst the account was being set up. I resign myself and consider it probably a good thing I can't borrow another £400! A few days later, when I am topping up the A&L from the Halifax - I notice my balance has gone up by £400 again - ask at the counter - no idea - the overdraft seems to have been re-instated? How is anyone supposed to stay in control with these games going on?
I do not have the next month's rent in the bank - so am depending on spending my salary on rent as soon as it appears in my account. But my son is due to pay me a lump when he gets his student loan in April. Do I use it to pay off large chunk of credit card (as per my snowball goal) or stash it in A&L savings account for May's rent - to get a month in hand with rent and lose the worry. Decisions, decisions! My spending diary for March looks appalling because of the removal expenses - and miscellaneous small expenses like curtain hooks and bath plugs - oh yes, and a small fan heater and a small halogen heater for space heating as we have no heating and it has been very cold.
I am thinking of applying to do a social work degree and being a full-time student - I think with a bursary, student loan and about 20 hours a week support work I could be just as well off financially as I am now......

bountiful

the flat I am now living in is a basement and has foot-thick stone walls - so - the wireless modem in my laptop can't pick up a good enough signal from the lounge .....so I am sitting on the floor outside my son's bedroom - with a blanket round my knees because it's bloody freezing - how did it get to be this way?! :rolleyes: He says he will get a signal extender or something. It's a precarious power balance between us - I pay for the BT line - he pays for the broadband. I cook, he eats - I do the washing up.... Hmm .... but hey, he's a nice person.

Timmne

Just thought I'd post a quick message to say keep up the diary!

As a bloke it's not usual for me to read (and enjoy) things like this but it's brilliant to see someone take a daunting debt and convert it to something managable and a target rather than making it worse!

Keep typing, it seems 3,301 people have read this thread so you must be reaching some people....

Good luck with everything, I'll be lurking and watching what's going on!

Seaxwyn

Hi bountiful! Glad you're back online and hope you're comfortable in the new flat, even if the broadband is a headache.

I had the same problems with A&L's switching service. It was pants. I ended up just doing it myself as you say. But everything has gone smoothly since then, and the £3750 overdraft has never been withdrawn.
I had to laugh at the narrow escape in M&S. £100 :eek: I bought some lovely Top Shop trousers for £3 in Oxfam recently - and spotted a notice in the Oxfam shop saying if you donate M&S clothes they'll give you a £10 M&S voucher.

bountiful

Seaxwyn wrote: »

I had to laugh at the narrow escape in M&S. £100 :eek: I bought some lovely Top Shop trousers for £3 in Oxfam recently - and spotted a notice in the Oxfam shop saying if you donate M&S clothes they'll give you a £10 M&S voucher.

Hi! Thanks for your message. I have noticed 'offer' in Oxfam too - but can't see for the life of me how to make it profitable - unless..... buy M&S clothes from charity shops for less than £10 and take them into Oxfam? You have to have something worth less than £10 to give them to make any profit? I suppose you could buy a t-shirt for £5 and take that in - seems that if it's that easy to exploit the offer they will soon twig? Do you know anyone who's done it?

I have to confess......:o I spent £26.50 :o:o:o:o:o:o:o:o in M&S today on a funky top and a long-sleeve t-shirt. Am I stupid or what?! I think it is probably an aftershock of not spending £100 last week - must STOP it or will end up spending £100 to compensate for not spending £100!!!!

Does anyone else have a reckless urge when it is NEARLY payday??? even though the pay won't cover the bills etc, it's like being rich-for-a-moment!!!!! Dangerous!

I have suddenly - like instantly - whilst I was cooking the lentil bolognese last night - got a streaming cold ....sniff! Maybe my nose is my financial conscience crying over my stupidity?

bountiful

Timmne wrote: »

Just thought I'd post a quick message to say keep up the diary!

As a bloke it's not usual for me to read (and enjoy) things like this but it's brilliant to see someone take a daunting debt and convert it to something managable and a target rather than making it worse!

Keep typing, it seems 3,301 people have read this thread so you must be reaching some people....

Good luck with everything, I'll be lurking and watching what's going on!

Hey - lovely message, thanks. Maybe 3,301 is me checking my thread over and over again?:rotfl:Does it work like that?