Gambling or happiness, because you can't have both

Monday Morning, I'd definately have a gamble on some random tennis today, not even the slightest bit tempted, that's another £10 saved.

Sorting out cupboards, holiday clothes, cathching up on TV abd relaxing from a long weekend at work.

I'm happy, first milestone tomorrow.

Thanks
Paul

Your defiantly doing well I've bet on random Monday tennis before and my gosh they are shockers

Use to do it every week, you see a name your vaguely familiar with at 1/3 or something, whack a tenner on. Win it and then can't find anything else to bet on so it just whittles away and it's another loss chalked up.

Week 1.

So week 1 is done, probably the easiest week of non gambling I've ever had in my life. It's already been 7 days since I decided to not gamble for good and my head is certainly a lot clearer than it was this time last week, sat on that coach thinking what have I done.

I've now had time to inspect the damage done (which is a lot) but also look at things logically in how I'm going to deal with it going forward. Most importantly I've put a plan in place to allow me to be able to repay the money as quickly as possible. I'm looking at 9-12 months at best which seems so far away.
But I keep telling myself that despite the pain of paying all this money back, by the time I've achieved it all the money I've saved by not gambling wouldn't be a million miles away from being equal to what I've paid back, especially once where into the thick end of the football/ NFL seasons.

I really hope I don't mess up this time around. 2018 can't come and go quick enough.

Thanks
Paul

Another day, another dollar they say. Well for me it's another day, another $7 or so. £5 added to my total saved from giving up gambling.

Thanks
Paul

I'm having a really bad day.

My cars in the garage and the cost of fixing it is around about £300. That's before I even put it through it's MOT later this month.

My car insurance has gone up by a fee hundred pounds just because of where we live depite my penalty points dropping off and me gaining another years no claims. Just crazy that location can make so much difference.
Deep down we've regretted moving away for a few months and when things like this happens it makes you regret it 10 times more.

With a holiday upcoming we can't afford either of those unexpected bills.

We could have of course, 4 times over with what I wasted. I was making progress but now scratching around to find these extra funds is making me really hate myself.

Today is easily the most depressed I've been in probably about 5 years. I don't know what to do.

I'm struggling.

No point seeing savings tick over by a fiver to suddenly have £600 worth of extra costs you weren't expecting to pay out.

I've gotta pick myself up to go and graft a shift at work later and I really don't want to. Actually feel like having a cry to be honest. My head is completely frazzled.

HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN SO STUPID.

I've asked myself that all morning.

I'm struggling

Man yesterday was tough. Hardest day I've had in a long while. I booked today off of work because of it so me and the wife now have 2 whole days together which has already cheered us both up so much. Clear my head over the next couple of days and bring back the positivety.

10 days down, into double figures now. Just gotta keep ticking off those little milestones

Thanks
Paul

Love how hard society makes quitting.

How can companies where you have self excluded yourself from still send you promotional e-mails and messages etc. Where are their morals as a company?

Anyway, I delete every single one right away and have zero temptation to act on them.

This time staying away from gambling feels different, I know I can do this.

Day 12, check!

I actually found some a challenge to self exclude to its a shambles

2 whole weeks down, a hell of a lot more weeks to go.

The early stages are just ticking off the small milestones, 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 10 days, 2 weeks. The next and final small milestone is 1 month. Get through to that and stage 1 is complete. Then the nitty gritty work begins.

I've never been so confident as u am this time around. Yes it will be extremely difficult come September when all the sports I love come thick and fast.

But I will beat this.

Thanks
Paul

Overcoming this addiction, has become my addiction. I check my progress every day, sometimes more than that. Just watching the seconds tick by since that stupid day. Watching the pennies that I'm saving slowly but surely mount up.

We've come home to see parents for the weekend and although money is tight it's nothing like it would be if I was still gambling.

I'm about 6 weeks away from being out of the woods in terms of a really sticky financial period. It Just seems everything needs to be paid at once at the moment. It doesn't help obviously that my credit card bill is a lot higher than it should have been as a result of my gambling. But I'm now on top of everything and when I get paid in mid September I will really begin to reap the rewards of linking this destructive habit and really being to claw back my losses.

Everyone knows any amount of loss on gambling is recoverable, it's the non money issues it creates. As my missus still doesn't know about this I don't have any of them at the minute. So I'm working so hard to recover the money side of things (which is atleast 12-15 months away) so that when the day comes I tell her she will see how serious I am that that was the last gamble she will ever have to put up with

Thanks
Paul

Monday again. But I'm upbeat today, I get paid on Thursday and unlike every other month this year I haven't had the dreaded text from the bank, which means I'm not overdrawn and I'll have no charges to pay next month. Normally I pay anywhere between ВЈ20 and ВЈ50 a month in £5 daily charges where I just keep spending money I don't have.

This month being different is no coincidence. My app tells me I reached a milestone of £100 saved from gambling. That figure is much higher when you think about not paying any charges and I haven't borrowed much (and the little I have is only because I forgot my wallet once so had to pay petrol in cash rather than my credit card). So now that I will start the pay day off even for once I can start hammering away at my short term debt and will have a large chunk cleared by September and hopefully (this timescale also includes my huge credit card bill) will be down to a few grand of total debt come the end of the year before which I will finally start repaying the money I lost that dreadful night.

It's a long long road as I've stressed before but what I've managed this pay day and in just 3 weeks of non gambling has completely opened my eyes as to how much I must have been gambling and losing and it gives me such confidence to beat this addiction and be completely in the black before Christmas 2019.

A big middle finger to gambling today, I'm winning.

Paul

I've been on a rollercoaster in my head. One minute I'm so happy with the decision I made and happy holiday thoughts and everything will be okay from now, to how could I have been that stupid you've thrown every bit of money you had away and my h more the next minute.

After the repairs on my car last week I had the MOT today. I was so nervous thinking how will I pay if there's a lot to be done to it as holiday is taking up all of our cash. And then I get back to thinking how many times over I could have paid for this MOT. A hundred if it passed is the figure. I could have paid for my MOT one hundreds times over.

But I know I'm on the right track now and I am already seeing the benefit in my lack of spending, it just outlines quite how much I was gambling with ВЈ5 here and £10 there.

I don't want to wish my life away, and certainly don't want to wish my holiday away but I can't wait to get to 2018, my finances would be well on the way to being cleared and so long as I haven't gambled I'll really begin to see the benefit.

Fantastically, my car passed it's MOT so no extra costs there. Sort out my insurance and that's the car dealt with for another. The next time I put my car in for an MOT I think (really hoping) that I'll be in a fantastic position and happy as Larry. But that's a whole year away so I'm still taking baby steps. August will be the first full month of non gambling and I can't wait to begin to reap the rewards and recover my losses.

Paul

Got paid today, but by the time I go to bed tonight I will be penniless once again, but I will sleep well. I've gone through my finances with a fine tooth comb and this is the next big step to repaying my debt.

With us going on holiday I've pumped whatever I had left after buying euros and everything else for holiday and sorting the car out onto repaying the debt. So non of it will be wasted, just going to be a tough 10 days surviving on virtually nothing.

But I've worked it out and if I don't gamble I can be completely (that's every penny owed to anything) 1 year from now if I save £750 a month. That's obviously not realistic but if I can get as close to as possible then my ambition of being completely debt free and 1 million times happy by next Christmas than fantastic. I plan to do everything in my power to make that happen, and the biggest contributor is not gambling.

23 days down and going strong, zero urges, even if the start of the season is just around the corner

Paul

Day 26

Football season started yesterday, wasn't even the slightest bit tempted to put a bet on. Mainly because we were out shopping all day for holiday gear which got us really excited but normally that wouldn't have stopped me. I'd have placed an acca before we went out.

My missus treat me to a rather expensive pair of trainers which as great as I felt at the time and still do, I obviously kept thinking about what could have been. It could have been me treating her a hundred times over.

But I think that burden of thinking is slowly ebbing away and I'm starting to deal with life normally again.

Well over £100 saved since I quit and it's only going to go up and up and up.

Paul