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Progress not Perfection
Happy New Year! I thought it was about time I started a new diary. I've been on these diaries since 2008. My last diary is here Things
can only get better My first diary is here Champagne Lifestyle Lemonade Budget and the one after that here Looking for the Silver Lining. That's a hell of a lot of waffle over the years 😆…
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Struggling along as best I can
Hi everyone, I have just been catching up on my banking and budgets and I am really fed up of getting to the same point of having very little for the last 6-10 days before I get my pension. Don't get me wrong my bills are all paid and I have no debt and I only need to buy just a couple of bits of food (coffee!) But I'm…
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Resourcefulness: The budgeter's friend
Happy New Year to readers old & new! Well, it's time for a new chapter. My old diary ("Put away your purse & become debt averse") achieved pretty much what I intended. I shared the story of how I got into debt at the age of 19 & stayed that way until a pretty enormous lightbulb pinged on during my early 40s, I've shared…
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Must try harder!
To echo the words of many a school report, I must try harder! My dad often quoted ‘a fool and his money are soon parted’ and it’s taken many years and losing my dear dad before I really took it to heart that I am that fool. My position isn’t terrible, but I’m terrible with money. I often get to the middle of the month with…
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Moving on
Welcome to my new thread: my old one is here: Cherry takes the reins — MoneySavingExpert Forum and my very old one is here: Coffee and chocolate — MoneySavingExpert Forum Quite a lot changed in 2023, and now it's time to move on. I left the job and career path I'd followed for many years and don't feel I can or should go…
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My long overdue journey to becoming debt free!!
Hello, I've been lurking on here for a good few years now, and I have decided its time to finally, and for once and for all, to sort my sorry financial mess out! I wont bore you with all the gory details of how I got here, it would just be a list of excuses and justifications, when the hard reality is I spend more than I…
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A Better Life.
I want a better life. I know with the crisis in the cost of living, the war in Ukraine, my mum's illness, the state of the government and the fact that it is winter it is probably the wrong time to start trying! but I am so tired of my life, I feel put upon and trapped but if we are being totally honest I do this to…
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Champagne supernova’s debt free to savaholic diary
Hi all , Im going to start documenting my journey to financial stability and security. I have a post about my DMP here : https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6509459/at-the-end-of-my-2nd-dmp#latest My story is as follows: Debts at their highest - £11, 274.34 Debt-Free Date (projected) - July 2024 Debts March…
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Small steps lead to big changes...
I thought I'd start a new diary for the new year. It always feels like time for a nice fresh start, and whilst I don't really make resolutions, it's always nice to have a plan of things I'd like to achieve. After many, many years of struggling, it feels like my finances are finally on a more even keel, and I have for the…
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One final push BPD vs DFW
Good Afternoon all, I have been debt free before and even had a good little pot of savings. But in 2022 I suffered from a BPD spiral so big it landed myself (35f) and my husband (35m) into £32k worth of debt in a mere 6 months with nothing to show for it. Since then I have been signed up to Stepchange and am down to £23k…
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Flying solo
I previously had a diary (well actually I've a few) but in June I had a big life shift which meant I disappeared for a while! I've had a few attempts at trying to pay off debt, made great progress and then progress stopped and the debt increased again. But this time I seriously mean business and I am determined to get this…
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Redemption - The journey of a recovering gambling addict.
Ok. Here goes. This is my journal on my journey to redemption. First post is to outline my current situation. Salary- £75k + Married Two Children Personal Debts Bank Loan 1 CAR - £20433 - £352 4.3% Debt Consolidation Loan £10,344 £153 5.2% MBMA - £4300 - 0% 14 months NatWest £3000 - 0% 12 months I have told my wife…
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15months to debt free - I hope
Well I thought it was time I started a diary having put my two pennorth into several others. Brief bit about me. I am a retired careworker having done other things as well. I have a husband who has mental health issues and 3 old dogs. A 15 year oldJack Russell X who has heart and kidney failure so I am not sure how long we…
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Milann’s mutterings through retirement
I thought it was about time for a new diary. Ive been a member of MSE many years now and got my debt down from £20,000’s to a big fat ZERO. I kept the debts to myself as I was the one who built them up. Dh would have been ok and we’d have worked through them together…..but it was my mess that I wanted to clear myself and…
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Giving Up/Cutting Down Alcohol Thread part 18
Welcome!! Here we are again, time for a new thread, new starts and new challenges. Let's take a trip down memory lane and remind ourselves of In Search Of Me's original post on February 24th 2008 in Part 1: And here's what she started!!! Part 17 is HERE Part 16 is HERE Part 14 and 15 is HERE Part 13 is HERE Part 12 is HERE…
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2020++ - smiling and waving and looking so fine
Hello welcome to my shiny new 5 years (I hope) diary. The title is based on my favourite lyric from the Bowie song 5 years - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bcnO3VQ_fc - I commend you to go and have a listen - its the live Old Grey Whistle Test version and is hauntingly beautiful. Why a 5 year diary - well its is…
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Find the SecondStar and soar, and then straight on till the morning…
This feels like an appropriate time for a finance thread. I’m in County Down, Northern Ireland. Story time: My ex partner and I broke up 2 weeks ago. We had been together for 4.5 years, we bought a house together as joint tenants 2 years ago, and had been combining incomes and savings for 2 years. We have separated our…
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In the Meantime
The meantime is the time between two events. The two events that bookend my meantime are a death and moving into my long term home. In the meantime I will rest, practise self care and kindness. I will be planning and plotting for the next phase of my life. My beautiful relative died and was buried the week before…
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An in-between phase
I am largely starting this thread so as to not rudely put a long whinge on the lovely @foxgloves and @EssexHebridean threads! I will talk a little more about my slightly unsettled life situation in due course, but for now, just whinging 😂 Today I have been trying to switch to a more money saving phone contract. It has been…
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Weight loss and healthy eating for a debt free life
I've been thinking about this for a while and I've seen a few other people mention weight loss so I wondered if we should have a thread. There's a giving up alcohol one but obviously we can't give up food. I also realise that not everyone with a food buying problem is overweight. I overbuy and some of the overbuying was…