Gadget Crazy Abigail doesn't need a new iphone!

abby1234519 · 18 September 2016 at 12:38AM

On the path to being debt free I often find I am tempted (and often give in) to the latest new gadget. After watching the Apple thing on Sep 7th I really struggled not to go and buy the new iphone, I had to be talked down by members of the forum! Having the distraction of responding to posts really helped and so I've decided to start another diary. I started one a few years ago and did not stick to it.

So what is my situation?

I personally have £9828.69 debt to my name. Down from £13458 but I can't attribute that success all to myself as I've had help from family and also it has gone up and down. Really shouldn't be in this situation.

I live with my OH and our son. I work full time, OH is a student and is just about to start part time work - he will keep most of this to pay for his university costs and give me £200 a month to put into household budget.

We have two cars (unfortunately necessary) as OH's university is in a different town - he was getting the train but he can't manage that and work part time. Also, he often takes DS to his mums for the weekend and needs to drive the 2 hours there. Hopefully when he finishes university we can get rid of his car.

My debts are all on 0% deals at the moment (such a relief this year when the last one finally was balance transferred) and I am making minimum payments. The earliest one to run out will be June 2017 which stands at £684. I will be able to transfer this to my BCard as I've got room and they always are trying to get me to do a another BT. So I am confident that my debts will stay 0%

I am working at being frugal - it's not a skill that comes easily to me. I found myself ten minutes ago deciding what new clothes to buy. I had to close ASOS and tell myself I didn't deserve them yet!! Because I don't. Anyway, when I've lost some more weight, I can sell my nice dresses on ebay and use that money to buy ones in smaller sizes.

I finally am making that darn rhubarb jam.

Kilo of jam sugar + kilo of chopped rhubarb plus a splash or 4 of vanilla essence (homemade) and lemon juice into the slow cooker. It's on low and hopefully by morning it's not all fried to a crisp.

Also have whacked my 8 (£1.18) baking potatoes in the oven. They are cooling down to be frozen. Hopefully they aren't disgusting when defrosted but hopefully the homemade baked beans I've got in the freezer will perk them up for lunches at work. I made about 4 kilos of home made baked beans last month....4 kilos...

I've sold my battered ancient tumble dryer for £30 and used that money to buy a small dehumidifer from amazon. I've got a switch timer lying around so when the clothes are drying overnight, will have this running for 4 hours. Worked the cost vs tumble dryer out and its half the price.

My Very debt stands at £167.50 - this is BNPL which ends 07/07/17 (so yes I recently incurred this debt). My aim over the next few months is to chip money off it. I have things on ebay and amazon (books) and when pennies come in, I make a payment to it. I've also got a current snowball/surplus of £20 which is being diverted to the FD credit card that runs out in June. Min payments will pay £180 off it which means I have another £504 to find. After 3 years of using YNAB I've finally understood the "every penny has a job". I was overspending but taking it out of the buffer (because of the way our income works, ie student finance sporadic). This was detrimental and stopped me learning. I've not got OH student finance to go into a savings account and will withdraw 625 every month as if he was getting that as a wage. I've assigned all money left over to a a savings category to build up a small emergency fund. Once I've reached £1000 to £1500 I will then divert money to debt overpayments.

I can do this if I curb my spendings.

Also need to challenge myself to eat frugally and healthy.

louby40 · 18 September 2016 at 7:25PM

You can do it! Keep posting

pennystretcher · 18 September 2016 at 9:42PM

Subscribed

And I like the sound of the rhubarb jam! Yum.

abby1234519 · 20 September 2016 at 2:07PM

The rhubarb jam was awful

I had the right amount of jam sugar vs rhubarb but 8 hours in a slow cooker was too long and it turned into a black caramelised mush. I couldn't rescue it. It set though....so at least I know I got half of it right! I'm back at mums on Friday, it's getting near the end of the rhubarb season so I am going to take ALL the rhubarb I can get and try again. This time I won't be so lazy as to try to do it in the slow cooker, I'll stand at the hob and do it! Might make some mini rhubarb crumbles for DS to have after dinners, DH hates it unfortunately?

So...plans plans plans

My total debt is £9,799.69. I am not including DH’s payplan debt as I view that as a "bill" and will focus on getting myself DF and then pay off his. I am responsible for both really anyway. All my debt is 0% and this is reducing monthly by about £230. I have £18 to snowball a month. Yes it’s a small amount but significant enough to clear the Very debt of £163.50 before BNPL period runs out.
I was doing this by ebaying however have diverted ebay funds for a month.
Two days ago I used £200 of my own money to start Matched Betting. I have to be careful with exposing myself to gambling as I’ve cocked up before. Luckily now the thought of gambling makes me feel sick so I don’t risk it. I made thorough investigations in to MBing before starting, by Thursday the £200 will have been fully returned and I will have £60 profit. I also am getting a buzz out of knowing that I’m making money without losing anything (apart from the first qualifying bet). I’ve got a spreadsheet going, and I’m triple checking the system etc. The only way you could lose money is to make a mistake. I will do this until I get gubbed. Once the £200 is returned back into the budget then I will just build a float from that £60 profit so I don’t use any more of my own. It’s going into a separate account as well. I’m not going to draw from this until I have enough that I can bankroll it without touching our household budget. I won’t count on this money but I make it then it can pay off the First Direct card as the 0% period runs out in March I think. So that’s £684 at the moment but is reducing by £23ish a month.

Our landlord is replacing our kitchen in 10 days time which will include an integrated oven.
Someone is collecting our oven when kitchen is ripped out (£20) and they are also taking the ancient tumble dryer (£20). It does work BUT the run of the worktop is being slightly shortened so won't have space. OH is devastated because he uses the tumble dryer a lot. I am nervous about getting rid of it....but I have spent £30 on a small dehumidifer which will go under the drying rack in the spare room. I have a timer plug so that can operate for 4 hours overnight and switch off. Will have to do washing every day rather than leaving it all for the weekend! I've got the dishwasher on ebay but I only expect £20 for it as it’s got a dodgy handle. The profit from selling these will be £25 (due to buying dehumidifier) which will go into a money pot as I’m going to need to pay for new blinds to be put up in the kitchen. Oh and new shelves. I haven’t budgeted for these, it is coming out of the savings pot (my small £700 savings pot). I have already purchased a full size dishwasher for new kitchen – second hand the exact model I want for £40. Looks to barely have been used.
I’ve also just paid £40 to have my sofas cleaned. I haven’t cleaned them in 3 years and I tried to do it with my own steam cleaner and failed. Now I just need to protect them. Not sure whether to cover them with a throw or if there is a spray to protect them? We’ve had them 3 years and I really want them to last a bit longer! I wouldn’t usually pay £40 but I’d tried cleaning the 3 years of toddler grease off and failed.
September hasn’t been an expensive month but it has been littered with things here and there i.e. the sofa cleaning. All of these things are things I’d never usually pay for!
My plan for the rest of September – stick to remaining budget.
£10 for Sisters birthday
£50 to repair the car
Continue to make food to put in freezer for when kitchen is out of use in October
October
Continue with MBing. Hopefully this will be bankrolled with profits
Continue with selling things on ebay. I have enough to make a £100 payment to Very (excluding MBin profits)
If I manage to pay off Very in October start saving to pay off £68 on First Direct using above techniques
Two weeks without a kitchen so need to live off freezer stores.
June 2017 – First Direct to be paid off

January 2020 – Estimated DFD for myself if no overpayments are made to debt. Will update this as progress is made

DO NOT ACCRUE MORE DEBT, DO NOT BUY A NEW IPHONE!

Next post will be less rambly!

abby1234519 · 22 September 2016 at 10:17AM

Today is stressful

Life –
DH starts a new job at a Supermarket on Sunday. Working 3 nights a week to fit around his two days at university. Problem is 3 days before he starts his new job, a week before university starts – well university have just changed his timetable. Can they do this? Not only does it mean I have to change childcare AGAIN it means he is going to have to change the days he works. At a job he hasn’t even started! He’s phoned the supermarket this morning who have said he can’t change his first week as it’s already locked in and they will look at it when he’s in for training. He is very stressed and he does NOT do well with stress.
He has been really anxious about working nights whilst at university and this is a hurdle that he’s struggling with. I don’t want us to have a bad family life. At the end of the day, if I hadn’t got us into debt we would be able to afford for him not to work.

Hopefully this will resolve itself, it’s going to be hard though if he starts working a Friday night and a Saturday night as it means he will have to sleep all weekend. And that leaves me to look after DS and I struggle with doing that. I’ve still got temper issues and I’m not active (which affects moods etc) so looking after a small child can really push me to my limit. That isn’t me complaining – he’s my son after all! I think it’s just that I am aware that I have had it easy for the last couple of years, i.e me working full time and DH and DS entertaining themselves. For example, DH looked after DS all summer, he loves being a dad and I love being at work! I don’t view this change as a bad thing, my relationship with DS is good but he “prefers” daddy over me. So now’s the time to get off my !!!! and do stuff. If we can spend Saturdays out of the house then I should lose weight. My mum lives in the Lakes so I could easily take DS up there every two weeks (£25 in fuel) and he can go to his other grandmas every two weeks. If I can manage to cycle to work on the days that DH can take DS to school then I can save fuel to use for the trip to mums.
I’m going to have to work on my patience though. I’m reading the MarieKon method in an attempt to clear my house out as I think having a tidy house might help my patience!

Money –
Monday I will be able to transfer the £100 I made from Ebay to the Very account. That would leave £63.50 (exciiitttting)
MBing currently on £80ish profit. On Saturday I need to withdraw all the money that I “invested” to start up and put that back into my account. Then will use that £80 as my float. Aiming for £500 by the end of October.
Will use this to pay for Christmas (I need about £200 for Christmas). I have quite a lot of presents already but haven’t got DS he things yet. Apparently Ninjago is very expensive. But that’s all he wants. Mum is sorting all the lego out at her house that my sister has grown out of. So I want to get him enough lego that he can build with it and then probably about £100 worth of Ninjago. Yes that’s a lot but it’s about £25 a set. Will look on ebay first though. Rest of family has a £10 budget each.

To do this week
My lunch today is HM butternut squash soupTonight’s dinner will be Pork chops from aldi + freezer sweet potato fries + freezer green beans. DS will be having last night’s pasta and a chocolate mousse.
Tomorrow I’ll be having soup again before going to my mums to help take my brother to university so DH and DS will need to feed themselves. DS is then going to DHs mums for weekend. I come back Sunday so need to pick him up from a midway point (they live 2 hours away). Will need to feed us all Sunday night from the freezer. Sunday afternoon will be a struggle as DH will be trying to nap in prep for night shift and I will need to entertain DS and cook for the week. Kitchen starts being ripped out Friday so I have so much to organise, so much food to pack away! Must not buy any more food as I need to try to live off the stores for a week. Think I might need to go through freezer and chuck stuff away that I don’t plan on using, got lots of flour in the freezer.

Urgh I am stressed

abby1234519 · 23 September 2016 at 9:58AM

So last night I brought my total MBing profit up to £130. Currently waiting for the money I started up with to go back into my account. Instead of budgeting for it, I just created a category on YNAB and then deposited money into the appropriate bookie accounts so that the category had a minus figure. I find it easier to track that way, as any transaction that goes BACK into that account will bring it up to 0. When it goes into the positive figures then I know thats profit. I'm going to use a redundant bank account for money to go in and out of once I'm back to 0 so that it can stay off budget. I'll transfer money into my main account from that account if I want to put some of it towards debt etc. If I work hard at this maybe I can pay the first direct debt off by the end of the year!

Monday is pay day - will put the £100 I have saved for extra debt payment on to the Very account. This will leave £63.50. I have just asked them to reduce the credit limit from £1300 to £500 which partially solves my iphone problem. Can't order one on the Very account if I don't have a big enough credit limit!!! Should have some ebay profit to disperse next week as well.

Managed not to buy food last night - ate freezer food as planned. Spending weekend taking brother to uni so need to try to not eat crap. Buuuut I'll be away from home so probably will. I think once I've driven to mums I'm going to Asda to buy nibbles to resist the urge to buy lots of food on a whim.

I'm at mums tonight (I hate being away from home) so plenty of time to read my MariKon book and think about how I should clear my entire house out!!

abby1234519 · 26 September 2016 at 9:36PM

MB profit stands at £291.

Not going to spend any of it till I get to £1000 and even then I will need to keep most of it as a bankroll. But looking forward to using it to chip bits off debt.

Paid the £100 to Very so have £63.50 left. I've just sold the massive dresser from the living room on ebay however the £70 will need to go towards buying a new dresser. It's going because it dwarfs the room and as there is a table in front of it we never use the cupboards. So its a waste of space. However I think that I will have to spend more than I've sold the dresser for to replace it.

Still putting things on ebay, have a lot to go so I might have to spend money before I have it and put it back into the fund. Don't really want to do that but no idea where I can store all of the stuff I have on the dresser.

Have an antique I've sent off for valuation which will hopefully get me £100+. So at the moment - debt has to tick along on its usual payments whilst I scrape money together to replace the unit.

Time to list everything on ebay!

abby1234519 · 28 September 2016 at 4:08PM

MB profit stands at £315.
I'm taking a two day break whilst I wait for the money to flood back into the accounts. Then going to move the profit to another account I rarely use and work from that.

Paid another £18 off Very (ebay) which brings it to £45.50. I know I said I'd save it but I get a buzz from paying off debt. As I also get a buzz from spending money, I'm trying to replace spend-buzz with debt-buzz

Furniture fund from selling

Dresser £70
Dining table and chairs £40
Tumble Dryer £20
Cooker £20
= £150

Buying 2nd hand table and chairs - £50 and dishwasher already bought - £40

leaves £60 to buy a new unit to replace the dresser. If I manage to sell the old dishwasher for £20 then I have £80 to a buy a new unit. Then I won't have spent any money...in a sense

It's two days till the kitchen gets ripped out, I've been busy cooking bologneses and mac and cheeses to freeze. I get so worried that we don't have enough freezer food! Ordered an electric hot plate from amazon for £15 so can cook pasta. Figured this will pay for itself because then I won't buy microwave rice etc. Also means if I do run out of food it will be relatively easy to make a spag bol on it. Going to be weird cooking at the dining table though! A jar of curry sauce + meat + rice will work out far cheaper than a takeway.

Still eating freezer stores, only got two more days to go ARGH

My debt stands at £9,636.69. I've given myself a goal of paying a certain amount off by December next year. My set payments for the next 15 months equal £3750. I'd like to be able to pay off an extra £1250 from this to make a total of £5000. That's about £83 a month extra which I think is feasible? I'm not banking on MBing as it's not guaranteed if I found myself making a regular income I would consider adding that in.

Actually I've changed my mind. I think £850 of that extra £1250 will be easy to make (work bonus) so maybe I should set my target as £6000 to pay off. Yes lets do that.

OK! Starting from now. I want to pay off £6000 before December 2017.

I will NOT accrue anymore debt

abby1234519 · 2 October 2016 at 9:46PM

Furniture fund from selling

Dresser £70
Dining table and chairs £40
Tumble Dryer £20
Cooker £20
Dishwasher £20
= £170

Buying 2nd hand table and chairs - £50 and dishwasher already bought - £40 display cabinet £35

Leaves £45 in jar. £16.50 coming in this week as sold some DVDs, a book and some pudding basins. That will go into the jar as well.

The display cabinet I wanted went to £192 and I had bid to a max of £180 as it was a sturdy oak unit. HOWEVER...I wanted to be outbid reason being, day before I had seen someone list a similar unit (just not solid wood) for £35 an hour away (so around £10 in fuel). I collected it yesterday and its currently got all the food we intend to use over the next two weeks. Living room is cramped but we're making do. I've spent more than I'd like on food, probably only got about £50 left but thats because I've bought lots of microwave rice etc. Spent £20 today but got a ton of YS yoghurt, some mince and some herby chicken. Yoghurt should be ok for a few days even out of date, and the mince is frozen. Will cook herby chicken tomorrow on the table hob and have cous cous with it. We're skimping on vegetables for the next two weeks, just trying to stick to microwaveable stuff. Also don't want to use hob when DS is up because its on the table and worried about him getting burnt. So tonight I've taken bolognese out of the freezer and cooked spaghetti. Tomorrow I can just microwave the two together. We ended up having thai curry on Saturday as we had a £10 voucher and I'm having leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I warned my husband that if we had the takeaway so early in the two weeks then there wouldn't be another!
Coop had chicago town pizza (micro) on offer for £1.14 for two so we can have those when we can't be bothered to cook.

Not paid anymore debt off. Am working on building a MBing bankroll then plan to shave money off the top to pay off debt whilst maintaining the bankroll. I'd love to make £300 pm on MBing, it would half my debt pay off time!

abby1234519 · 3 October 2016 at 3:18PM

Seeing as my diary is all over the place I'm going to try to take a more structured approach. I do like to ramble.

Weekly Very: £0/£10.60 (£63.50 to pay in total)

Weekly grocery spend £20/£30

Weekly ebay listing 0/10

Saving for Car Repairs: £111.35/£250

N/B My week ends on a Sunday

abby1234519 · 4 October 2016 at 10:07AM

Last night we ate freezer bolognese and spaghetti that I had cooked the day before once DS was asleep. Reheated it in the microwave. Nothing special but did the job!

Breakfast today is some pistachios and a 10p greek yoghurt.
Snacks for me are fruit that work pays for.
Lunch is a freezer baked potato and HM baked beans.

DS breakfast usual cereal, free school lunch and for tea he will be having tinned spaghetti on toast.

OH will be sleeping through the day and he will make a sandwich. He's not had a good night, his shift manager said that the store manager had got the wrong impression and thought OH had started the job and just willy nilly changed his shifts. He didn't! He phoned them before he accepted the job to say he had to change one of the nights (he had no choice) so clearly someone has had a miscommunication. So now...I'm worried for his job security, he's only been there for two weeks.

For dinner tonight I plan to cook two out of date chicken herby steaks. Think they are two days out of date but if they don't smell off they will be fine. Will have cous cous with this.

Weekly Very: £0/£7.6
(forgot I had made a payment at the weekend that brought balance to £45.50 )

Weekly grocery spend £29/£30 :eek:

Weekly ebay listing 0/10

Saving for Car Repairs: £140.01/£250

(Thank you amazon book sales)

Gadget Crazy Abigail doesn't need a new iphone!

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