So ever since 3 years ago, when I woke up and realised that I'd been a massive tool with my money, done some rather foolish things and spunked a lot of it on people and things that were worth it, embarrassing myself and getting booted off of my education course id worked so hard for. I realised that I needed to change my approach, racking up mountains of debt and leaving myself miles away from where I wanted to be. I realised there was only one way out of it, facing it knuckling down and working my butt off.
Overall, I am quite happy with where I am now, decent job, family debt coming down savings going up, things are definitely on the up. But it is straining, spending most of my spare time, trying to make money on the side or being frugal with the things I buy, it wears you down after some time. So, I have had to find a few ways to try and combat this.
First of all, what I do is make a plan I have a plan for how much debt I want to pay off how I am going to max out my LISA and most importantly how much time I am going to spend on it.
There were times that every evening I would spend 6 -7 hours beavering away, which yes was more fruitful, but it was not healthy in the slightest I was neglecting my partner, as well as neglecting myself. I’d wake up tired groggy, with everyone miserable, it just wasn’t good. So, had to restrict spend quality time with other half, have time for myself, reading playing Xbox watching a film.
This also had the added bonus of making sure that the time I spent was most fruitful, you can spend hours grinding away on survey sites or micro work sites but its really not worth, so as with all great tasks I made a list, a list of the best sites and that was my to do list so I knew I was only doing the most profitable ones, anything wasn’t worth my time went in the bin.
Spending
Spending is the next greatest problem there was no point me working extra to earn more money if I was just going to spend it all on crap again, so I became very frugal, eating out less, buying less luxury items etc, but again it takes its toll on you if you don’t treat yourself, grinds you down or at least it does me. So, id always make sure that I would treat my other half, treat the kids, and treat myself. In moderation yes, but it makes me feel good, realises why you’re doing all this in the first place. Ultimately any of our lives could get cut short at any moment so I don’t want to regret anything, obviously it’s the balance, I want us to be home earners one day have enough for the kids to have a good start and go on lovely holidays. But some of these things are long term goals, so it is all about balance for me, I think.
By no means am I making a fortune on these tasks, but it is enough that I have gone from never getting out of debt like ever, to 3 -4 years being free of debt and having hopefully enough saved up to buy our first home.
Now if only I could get the other half on board and stop her buying candles and wax melts galore, and we both would save wed get there a lot quicker, but i fear this is a lost cause.
If anyone wants to share in my progress check out my website www.themoneyearner.co.uk or subscribe here as well and keep posted for hopefully lots of ways to make money in the future
