After some excellent advice from fellow 43Ters and reading some tips about debt management on various blogs, I’ve decided to budget for a small weekly allowance. This is money I can do whatever I like with and I’ve decided I can afford to give myself £10 per week. This means that if I want to splash out on a real coffee on my way to work or I’m too lazy to make a packed lunch and have to buy it, then these things have to come out of my £10 allowance (currently they come out of my grocery budget). I love this idea as it helps with so many of my current goals – it will encourage me to make that healthy packed lunch, it will encourage me to drink less coffee and best of all it will encourage me to save.

There is not much you can do with £10 these days so the obvious thing to do would be to save it for several weeks until I have enough money to either do something fun, by a little something or (if I’m really sensible) plough it back into debt payments. It is like going right back to basics and learning about money-management from the tiny amounts up. This HAS to be a good thing. 15 months ago

...I get paid tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it even more than usual as this is the first wage that will be used to start to pay off my debts!

I can’t wait to get started on this and get rid of this bloody great big millstone I’ve made for my own neck. I have created an accounts book for myself and for the next few months I’m going to record (in mind-numbingly boring detail) every penny I spend and see where I can cut back.

I know it’s going to be a long road, but tomorrow I can take that first step. 18 months ago

I have been living under the cloud of an overdraft and multiple credit accounts with various online shops for the last year. By most peoples standards, from what I hear from my friends, my debts are small and manageable, but the other day I came accross an article online about how women are enslaving themselves with debt at a point in history when they are (in theory at least) free and financially independent (in Britain at least). This really struck a chord with me.

I consider myself to be a very independent woman but here I am basically spending someone else’s money (the bank’s) and paying interest on it – wasting money each month. So the rest of this year and 2012 will be spent freeing myself from this burden and securing my financial future. I’ve only just begun but I feel lighter already. 18 months ago

Working and been putting little by little away and saving and when I hit 1,000 dollars I take it and put it against my credit card. So far, I am down to owing only 6k now! wooohooo!!!

As a treat hubbie and I are going on vacation in September. I am hoping to clear all of this away by the end of the year and this year is looking very promising that I can finally complete this goal. THanks for the cheers and the comments!! 21 months ago