Extra Money Earned: April 2009

So how did I do this month?

• Cashback: £0.44
• Amazon: £18.68
• Interest: £20.63
• EBay: £51.00

Total: £90.75

My total for the year is now £609.56, which is still an average of £150+ per month so far. It's a little behind my target for this stage of the year, but I'm still hopeful of making £2,009 in extra income for 2009.

Further Reading:

Extra Income Earned: March 2009

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Debt Total Update: April 2009 Part 2

The direct payment to my loan left my bank account, so my debt total is now £8,812.

Over 80% of the way there!

Debt Free and Fat Free?

First off I'd like to thank everyone for all your encouragement this week. I've had a tough time and knowing that I have people rooting for me to get debt free really, really helps. Thank you again. Anyway, I'm going to take your advice and focus on the little things; small challenges that make the week more fun.

My first challenge will not be directly money related, but to do with my health. I'm taking part in a '10 day healthy eating and fitness challenge' started by Frugal Trenches; it might be just what I need to kick start the battle with my weight. Part of me knows that come the end of the year, when I'm debt free, I'll still have that to deal with. Why not start dealing with it now?

Follow my progress at Move To Portugal

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Spending demons, Part 45!

I've been a little absent from this blog and a little absent from my focus. I nearly, and I say nearly, spent a lot of money today. Now I can probably put this down to tiredness, work stress and hormones, but still, my old spending tendencies raised their ugly head and I nearly succumbed. I actually found myself thinking that I'm nearly debt free, so it won't matter if I blow a bit of money. What!

I still have such a long way to go and I really don't want to blow it in the final months, so I need to regroup. I need to set myself some new goals; some really stretching goals, because this works best for me.

Are you on a long term debt free journey? What do you do for motivation when the going gets tough?

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Thinking Out Loud

One thing I'm finding really hard at the moment is keeping my debt a priority. I'm so focused on other things in my life right now, and I know that my brain is thinking, '£9k is so much less than £45k'.

I have to keep telling myself £9k is still a lot of debt. I just have to keep focused for 8 more months, make a little extra money on the side and get it all paid off. Then I can think about something else. I truly believe that once all this debt is gone the world is my oyster.

Carnival of Debt Reduction:

The 'Honey, I Shrunk The Debt' (great theme) Carnival is up at I Pick Up Pennies this week. The Carnival includes my post What Have You (Totally) Eliminated from your Spending.

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Using a Spending Diary to get out of debt

If your joining me here from the article Money with Emotions in The National newspaper, welcome.

The links to my posts on keeping a spending diary are below; I found keeping a spending diary an eye opening tool to find out where my money was going every month.

• Using a Spending Diary
• The Spending Diary

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Debt Total Update: April 2009

I got paid so time for an update on my debt total.

I've sent Aprils snowball payment of £586 to my loan account, however the direct payment of £194 doesn't come out of my checking account until later in the month. So with the monthly interest also added and the direct payment not coming off yet the balance today is £9,006. Nearly sub £9k. Yay!

79.99% of the way there.

Payday Budget: April 2009

£2,150 in, £2,148 out.

• £800 Bills account
• £780 Loan payment and snowball.
• £18 Sponsor
• £200 Daughter
• £200 Grocery
• £100 Petrol
• £50 Gifts

A few changes to the budget this month;
- The extra for my daughter is to pay for football camp
- Gifts is for 3 family birthdays
- Snowball and loan set payment is reduced to allow for all extra costs

I'm not happy about reducing my snowball this month, but I wanted my daughter to go to football camp and it just means I have to work harder to earm a little extra money.

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What no debt reduction?!

I have a major issue with the one debt I have left; I can only make over payments once a month by debit card or cheque payment. There is no online access to this loan.

Before, with my other debts, making over payments throughout the month and reducing the balance, even a little, was my main motivation. Now I can't do it. Any snowflakes I get now have to be saved in the deposit account linked to my checking account and then sent all together once a month.

Not seeing my debt reduce between paydays is hard for me. It's making the wait for payday seem even longer and I'm worried that I'll lose motivation.

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What Have You (Totally) Eliminated From Your Spending?

If you're really serious about getting debt free, one of the first things you'll do is look at areas of spending that you can eliminate from your budget.

Here is a list of things, that has built up over time, that I no longer spend money on; All these things I've eliminated from my spending and don't miss.

• Beauty Treatments
• Wash, cut and blow dry; now just dry cut
• Paper towels
• Fabric softener
• Ready meals
• Magazines
• Cd's/Music
• DVD's
• Buying lunch
• Afternoon sugar fix
• Fizzy pop
• Credit card interest
• Newspapers
• Cell phone
• Gift wrap
• Jiffy bags
• Bottled water
• Cleaning items; use vinegar
• Handbags

That's it so far, but I'm sure that there will be more to add.

What have you eliminated from your budget, that's not on this list?

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Weekly Round Up: Learning to Live Simply

As part of my five year plan I'm trying to simplify every area of my life. This is not always easy, it's a very gradual process.

This week, for my round up, I thought I'd highlight some of the wonderful blogs and bloggers I visit daily, who are all helping me to get where I want to be.

• Remodeling This Life
• Down To Earth
• Notes From The Frugal Trenches
• Small Notebook

Carnivals:

There was a wonderful new Carnival in town this week:

• The Carnival of Pecuniary Delights at Pecuniarities.

''The Carnival of Pecuniary Delights is to showcase content of lasting value from the personal finance and frugality blogosphere'' Thank you to Penelope Pince for holding such a great Carnival and including my post from August last year: Cold Turkey On Magazines and Confessions

That's it for this week.

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April Net Worth Update

So how are we doing now that the first quarter of the year is completed?

Our total net worth went up 4.03% from last month and is now £62,069. This is 31% of our target Net Worth for 2012.

Highlights:

• Mortgage reduced by £412
• Debt reduced by £1,200
• Cash savings increased by £870

Further reading:
November Net Worth
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April Mini Goals and March Progress

So how did I do in March:

Reduce my debt by £900 - Done, £1,200. I'm so please with my debt payoff last month, I'm below £10k now and it feels really great

Earn £200 in extra income - Earned £103.81. I'm more hopeful of generating some extra income in April as I have some eBay listings with bids on, finally, some old records to sell and some cashback due

Lose 5lbs - No loss. !

Finish the downstairs purge - Done

Back up pc and work laptop - Done work laptop only

Respond to all blog comments - Unfortunately not all. I've turned the email notification on now so that I don't miss anything. I really appreciate any comments I get, it keeps me going, so I'm going to try harder at this.

April Mini Goals:

• Reduce debt by £900
• Earn £250 extra income
• Do a car boot sale

Not too many as I really want to concentrate on making some extra money; I'm determined to be debt free by December 31st.

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