Taking Stock

I'm running it a bit tight with the budget this month, lulled into a false security waiting for the repayment from Abbey, and if I'm completely honest will struggle to pay one of my minimum balances on time. I'm going to phone them to advise. It's a bad thing and it's again just bad budgetting, a glance over previous posts on this blog and it's a recurring theme and situation.

I've been posting for over a year and to take stock of how far I've come, what improvements I've made to my life I've just had a reread of my first post.

My first target was to stop smoking - failed. I'm not going to justify it in any shape or form, I'm just going to try again.

Second and third targets were linked, it's about my diet, I still drink too much tea and alcohol, however my psoriasis is 95% clear, I'm pleased it's nearly gone. In May and August last year I was wittering on about my diet full of motivation to better things and still I see more procrastination and excuses later on in 2007. My target to mealplan has also been haphazard. When will it sink in a budget is a budget ?

One good thing to report - I have lost a few marbles in the last year, taken the balance down by £1, 598. That's good to see and something to build on.

I can see I'm rather fickle and live life on a rollercoaster of emotions due to my debt. I'm usually more inspired and motivated than down and feeling full of self pity. Time to regroup again .

Reflection and Regret

Balance transfers aka card tarting, stoozing. I've done it once, that's what gave birth to my Marbles card. I really don't think I understood what a silly girl I was. If I'd have been financially astute I'd have BT'd my way out of this debt years ago.

Instead I have a history of consolidation and re-spending. I haven't applied for any credit for over a year, last time I spent on my credit cards was Christmas.

All part of my financial retraining. There was a time I've paid for groceries on credit cards and even taken cash out on the horrendous things. Head in the sand.

Time is coming to detail this debt in excel and get myself some more progress bars come clean on my blog. Like so many others I find this therapeutic. I'm pants at budgeting and seeing it in B & W will help. No More Spending has some amazing self control and discipline, now if you could bottle that and sell it...

Anyway no point in wallowing in self pity, can't press the back button in this case (another thing I'd like to sell... ) 9 days til payday,£34.62, one late credit card payment due, a bathroom that looks like an unidentified lifeform has been raving in there for two days and a mountain of ironing.

On the plus side it's Saturday, don't have to be anywhere at anytime today, The Pursuit Of Happyness [2006]- courtesy of LoveFilm- to watch on DVD whilst ironing, kids are happy, hubby be home soon which all makes for a spend free day :)

The Cost of Driving

In the post yesterday I received my car insurance quote and was stunned. I got a good deal last year, £197 fully comp, no claims protected etc, etc. The same company cannot offer such a good deal this year, in fact the best the broker can find was £270 ! I don't think so. A lot of cash back sites offer amazing deals like £130 cash back with large household names such as the Pru. But whenever I've tried to buy insurance like this I've always had to revert to the phone to go through the quote, which means the cash back doesn't track.

Anyway on the positive side I tried a comparison site last week and ended up with a quote of £189.99, received it in the post days later, maybe a little more digging I can get it lower. Add the cost of car tax £97 ? And Breakdown cover £108 ! That's over £400 to spend in the next 6 weeks on driving alone.

Yesterday afternoon I spent blog reading, my hour of peace before the troops came home wanting food, water and attention. I know there are hundreds of UK Debt Free Wannabees, mostly hanging out on the Money Saving Expert Forum but not many UK blogs. Our American and Australian friends are quite open about Debt blogging. Is it a case of the stiff upper lip, feeling safe in the anonymity and numbers on the MSE forum ?