9 Things I Did to Pay Down Debt

If you have been following along, I started with almost $60,000 worth of debt, month 1 I cleared over $10,000 and month 2 I failed a little, now we are at month 3.

$9,032.54 is so close to $10,000. I wish I had paid closer attention to it and pushed myself a bit more to hit that but I am still ecstatic with this result.

The main things that moved my debt this month are below.

$816.54 From Lower Bills

I had set aside specific amounts for my water and electricity but both were less than anticpated so I put over $800 to my debt from that.

Making sure I had the best electricity plan for me, utilising the best times to use it, getting draught stoppers etc. Read 17 ways to reduce the cost of electricity for some ideas.

$420 Fuel

Less driving and being conscious of all the little errands/quick trip to the shops type things I was doing saved me $320 in fuel.

I saved time and money with this one even though I was walking which takes longer.

Now, I am reconsidering my need for a car at all. I know I can live without one.

WA has $100 for fuel you can claim too, which I forgot about and did this month.

$897 Refunds and Offers

This one surprised me. Marley Spoon made a big error with my order, I let them know and the message said they credited $15 which was not good enough but I let it go.

Then when I logged back in I had a bigger discount offer.

In fact, I got 7 meals + a few things from the marketplace worth $500!

You can get discounted Marley Spoon here.

We tried Delidoor this month and got a $50 discount with them.

Meal kit options are not generally cheaper than doing it all yourself but they saved me so much time this month. That was time I could make more money than meal planning and prepping would have saved me. So it was worth it.

Along with the $100 fuel I already counted, there are $150 kids vouchers and a few other things WA has on offer. See what your state offers here.

$372 Sorted Gifts

I know the gifts I need to get for the rest of this year and have started planning, shopping and making them.

Beauty items, stationery and a few other pieces were $150 less than budgeted.

Wine is one of the gifts I was asked about so I tested Dozen Deals where I got 12 bottles of wine worth $750 for $138. This covers a few gifts that I planned to spend $30ea on so I saved $222.

$445 Surveys and Market Research

Octopus Group was again my best but I also had a few surveys with PureProfile, market research with Octopus Group and one with Farron Research.

All up, I got $445 from surveys and market research.

$679 Used up and Stretched EVERYTHING!

From food to clothes, I made it work this month and it was surprisingly easy.

All leftovers were turned into something new, bananas were made into banana cupcakes, sad veggies into bolognese.

I had some random sauces in the fridge that were turned into marinades.

Laksa used up some cabbage, bok choy, carrot and coconut cream I had.

We won a meat raffle which helped this month.

Read how to reduce food waste for ideas on leftovers and scraps becoming delicious.

All the pants my son ripped through the knees were turned into shorts. Dresses and other clothes were repaired e.g. ripped seams sewn.

Everything was reduced, reused, recycled and nothing was replaced.

The value of the meat, not replacing clothes and being able to stretch the meals, saved a lot.

Delivery Instead of Instore

There is no dollar amount on this one because I combine it with the fact I used my car less and the above methods of reducing, reusing, recycling everything. It helped me do those things though.

Instead of going to the shops when we ran out of something, I made do with what I had or waited until I had enough things to order what I needed.

Doing this drastically reduced little things we picked up when we went in store.

It also saved me at least a few hours a week of driving to the shop, going in store with my kids and the chaos of that, driving home, unpacking etc. My stress levels were much lower too.

That time saved = time I could make extra money or spend with my kids.