DFSD's motivational ramblings...

skysky69

Apologies DFS as I haven't been on for a while - I have been a busy bee. Not much happening on the DFW front apart from the fact that I am still broke , havent been able to pay any off the debts as am trying to save together all extra cash for our caravan holiday in 4 weeks time :j. We managed to get a super deal from the caravan club and grabbed return ferry crossing for the car and the caravan and 5 nights at a lovely site on the Isle of Wight for £130.00 :j so we just need a couple of nights either side at perhaps the new forest and we are sorted.

I managed to get to my goal weight on Monday night of 11st :T So I have now officially lost 2st 4lb and gone from a size 16 to a 12 (just about, whilst breathing in!!!). I now think that I will probably try and do an extra couple of pounds, maybe half a stone. I yesterday had my interview to become a weight watchers leader and after a 2 hour chat, grilling and even an aptitude test, I had a call last night to say that I have been accepted :j. Its quite scary as even though you are fully supported by weight watchers, you are self employed so I will have to look into what I need to do to set myself up. And I need to find someone to help me do my books as apparently I can claim for things like the fact that I need an office at home and the storage I would need for all the stock, the car etc. etc.

Anyways, hope you are well and are still cracking on well with your debt free journey!

debtfreesomeday

Thanks guys, and congratulations on reaching your goal weight and being accepted for leader SkySky! That must be a great feeling and quite an achievement, well done. I am a long way (probably about 3.5 stone ) off my goal weight and at this rate, think it's gonna take me a loooong while to get there, if I ever do. The leader thing sounds like a really good opportunity and, I guess, quite flexible. Hope it goes well for you. You don't want to come and start a course up near me do you - the leader near here is horrible!

The caravan club deal sounds like a good one too, have a wonderful time. When do you go?

debtfreesomeday

The DFW journey has had its ups and downs of late...

I've listed about 6 more items on Amazon and one sold yesterday, making me £7.17 which came straight off the credit card.

I've also got a huuuge pile of stuff for ebay - but I still don't have that battery for the camera yet, should have it by the weekend. We also have 2 or 3 big items to sell on work's notice board - again, when I can take pics they will be posted on there.

Car boot mountain is now also growing in our garage. My folks gave us a big box of stuff to sell as well as the stuff we'd already piled up! We're going to do a sale in the next couple of weeks, so wish us luck! I'm not looking forward to it but it will clear some stuff and hopefully make us some more ££££'s to use as extra credit card payments.

On the not-so-good side, the dryer part of our washer dryer packed up the other night. :mad: I'm just hoping the washing machine bit isn't going to follow its example anytime soon. At least we can hang the washing on the line to dry when the weather allows - I'm just glad it's not happened mid-winter! My Dad's gonna take a look for me, but if it can't be fixed we're going to buy a seperate dryer now we have the garage to put it in.

We also spent £140 on some new furniture for the house. It wasn't completely necessary, but it was half price plus an extra 30% off so we decided to go for it. We had £47 towards it from Quidco after paying £100 of the Quidco money on the credit card, so it cost us about £100. Frivolous of us I know with present money situations, but - heck - we just did it anyway!

The diet's not being going so great as I have been off poorly for a couple of days with a bad tummy and, when I have been hungry, have just been trying to eat things that will stay down! Meal planning starts again from today!

DFSD
x

debtfreesomeday

Just had a call to say I've won two tickets to a show on Friday. :j It's only about an hour away from us, so we'll see if we can go, if not, will see if one of our friends can go instead.

debtfreesomeday

ooh, another Amazon sale of £8.19 :j
Taken it straight off the credit card, so balance now at £2944.26.

debtfreesomeday

A further £7 sale on Amazon this morning, leaving credit card balance now at £2937.26 Am really pleased with the sales this week so far. I'm going to try and start the ebay pile tonight too... :eek:

Also have lots of surveys to do tonight and am back into entering comps again after a bit of a break.

wantabetterlife

Well done DFSD, you are trying really hard. I was sorting out stuff to ebay today but i always put off because it is so boring!

debtfreesomeday

Thanks for the encouragement wantabetterlife! I know what you mean - it's such a long, boring process to upload things on ebay, I hate doing it too. Unfortunately though, we've now found out that there is something else wrong with our camera besides the battery. I think it may be fit only for the bin now, which is even more annoying becuase it's only one month out of the year's guarantee! :mad:
Until I can get the use of another camera, we're stuck with a pile of ebay / notice board stuff to sell which is cluttering up our house. Not happy.

debtfreesomeday

As a little motivator, I've just revisited the snowball calculator and punched our credit card balance and the loan we can overpay on in there and was really pleased with the results... if we continue to repay £400 on the credit card a month (and can get another 0% deal), it will be clear by January. :j

So, I am planning to clear this, and then start overpaying our loan in January by at least £300 a month, on top of the £168.50 a month we pay already. If I've snowballed correctly it will take us 21 months to pay the loan off early - that's less than 2 years! :j I'm gonna set myself a challenge though and aim to do it within 18 months by trying to make a little extra money as we have been doing through Amazon, ebay, boot sales etc.

Wow - we could cut 3 years off our loan by doing this. :eek:

Our other loan, the one we can't overpay on, finishes in 2013, so in 3.5 years we could be debt free. That's a lot more positive than when I first started out on this DFW journey.

debtfreesomeday

In anticipation of our 0% ending on the virgin card in August and seemingly being unable to get another 0% card, I called egg to ask them if they could offer any balance transfers. Their response was, there's no offers on at the moment, but there may be a 0% deal offered in August, but it's not guaranteed.

I have a horrible sinking feeling I'm gonna be stuck with this virgin card and they're gonna hike the APR up extortionately as soon as this offer runs out... :sad:

On a more positive note, I may have sold £100 worth of items on the notice board at work - just need to measure one piece of furniture for someone. If that sells next week, not sure whether to leave it in the bank account as we'll be a little bit overdrawn this month - (it will be £3 if I don't spend any more money other than budgeted for this month!) - or to whack it on the credit card to reduce it further. Thinking, after the balance transfer news, it'll go on the credit card..!