DFSD's motivational ramblings...

Chocforever

I'm home at a reasonable time tonight so I have chance to catch up with some internet surfing. A long weekend and change of scene sounds lovely - hope that plan works out for you.

Would it be feasible to find £55 this month to get your CC bill down to £300? Or perhaps there are some offers on Quidco etc which you could do now and get the cash back later. I got £35 cashback on a casino thing this month and only lost £5 to meet the wagering requirement. Keep chipping away at that debt - you are making very good progress and have almost got rid of those CCs.

Best wishes x

yukkibear

Hope you're feeling a bit better today.

Chocforever

When I suggested finding another £3 a day, a lot of people would admit that they easily fritter this away on drinks, snacks, magazines, an items of clothing they don't need etc. Or they could get listing a box of things on Ebay etc.

But I suspect you may have wondered if I had lost my sanity. So if your reaction was, Chocs you have got to be joking, I am already putting all our spare cash towards the credit cards and keeping us out of overdraft. I have sold anything we don't need or use, then you should be pleased you are doing everything you can and have maintained this discipline for so long. You have the situation under control and it will unwind over time, if a little slower than you would wish.

Be kind to yourself. And I hope you got that nice long weekend away.

Best wishes x

debtfreesomeday

Long time, no post...
Have been busy having a lovely weekend with my parents this weekend so no chance to post until now. They actually came to stay with us, as Mum has been put on a different course of medication and, although it is no cure, she is starting to feel like her illness is a little more under control, so they had a well needed and well deserved weekend away with us. I hope and pray the drugs continue to help so that she can have some sort of life back.

They bought lots of goodies with them, bless them. They also kindly bought with them a new outside light for our house that they knew we needed to replace, they would accept no money for it despite trying to pay them for it, so that's one thing we can cross off our list 'to buy' thanks to my folks. :A Dad also did some jobs for us that needed doing which we would've struggled with, so we are feeling very spoilt and very lucky to have such wonderful parents. They have gone home now, so this afternoon has been somewhat glum, but I'm glad they're back safe.

I did pick up a few more birthday and Christmas presents over the weekend whilst out with Mum - some real bargain basement clearance things that were £5 or £10, reduced to 99p. I also picked up a couple of items from a charity shop that I know would sell well on ebay. I have listed those and 4 other items today (so 6 in total) and the charity shop items already have bids on which cover the amount I paid for them.

I have one item ending tonight that I relisted last week. It currently as bids of £16 on, so I'm happy with that.

I received a great freebie on Friday - 4 jars of marmite from the vegetarian society. :T Thankfully I'm a Marmite lover! I gave 2 jars to my Mum, so we have two left in our cupboard which is great as that stuff is stupidly pricey.

I also received my order from Lloyds pharmacy - lots of cheap toiletries and a few gifts for £18. I gave my Mum a few of the toiletry bits and bobs and we have plenty left in our store cupboard now, so no need to buy anything like that for a while.

I really need to not spend any more money now until payday as the 'leftover' money has run out. We still have £70 left in the petrol budget, but the grocery budget is also over (or will be when we get a delivery on Tuesday) and is currently at around £170. I'm afraid I haven't been great at keeping track of things this month - AGAIN. I have to get on top of things soon, each month I seem to be losing track around mid month lately.

2 x 10p & 50p on scratchies today; no wins on JJoy this week.

guess that's the end of the long update for now!

Chocs - I like your idea of the £3 a day, and it does sound very achievable. I'm sure I've probably achieved that already via the last round of ebaying. I guess I should really try and keep track of what I have earned a month and it might make me feel a little more positive. I may start that from next month once the credit cards are gone. :j:D It will give me something else to focus on.

Off to peruse the boards a little and see what's been going on in DFW land. Enjoy the remains of your Sunday everyone X

DFSD
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brizzledfw

Thanks for the long newsy post DFSD. Good news about your mum.

Expensive weekend this one - all on practical stuff eg. a new 3 season sleeping bag to replace the one that my sister got (and I was using!) when she was 16 (she is now 35!) - now I am getting old and we often stay in the UK I seem to get really really cold otherwise. We also got some outdoor stuff/clothes for us all. But we did go to some big outdoor discount stores which meant quite a saving. Today was reasonably cheap - we did cycle down to a big attraction but then used some vouchers so it worked out as £23 for us all. Skipped coffee/lunch out (we are getting better on this angle I have to say, it used to be one of our worst ways of wasting money) and came back instead to a lovely mutton (sorry know you're veggie DFSD) tagine (made by my equally lovely OH) and then I made a lemon surprise pudding. Yum. And the best news..the chickens have started laying again..yippee. After all we do really keep them for their eggs so although they are cute when its the depths of winter and they are off lay we do feel rather cheated!

Have fun folks. Have been talking to a mate re FlyLady which sounds like it could be very useful for a messy busy person such as myself so off to put 27 items in a bin bag for Freecycle/Ebay or worst case..land fill..

Chocforever

I am so pleased to hear that your Mum has got some quality of life back. I hope this will last; I know how precarious these things can be with drugs fixing one thing and then causing another. And how nice that you got to spend the weekend with your parents when she was feeling up to going out and shopping.

After spending most of last week at work and working stupid hours, I have spent this weekend, err, working. But different work. Charity work that really needed doing as I have got quite behind with things.

Good for you finding some things to Ebay at a profit. When things quieten down a bit, I really need to get a few more things on there. I spent some of last time's money on a new top when I was supposed to be buying a new coat because my waterproof one isn't waterproof anymore. I discovered this on a very rainy week in the Lake District! Anyway, I have now ordered a coat which was at a very good price and could still cover it out of my Ebay money so I think I have done OK. I guess we will see when the thing arrives whether there was a reason for the low price!

Back to my work.....

debtfreesomeday

Thanks for your swift replies to my post Brizzle & Chocs!

Nope, I'm definitely not a veggie, so your meal sounded lovely Brizzle! It was probably the Quorn reference recently that gave that impression - I actually don't mind the stuff and tend to eat it when hubby has a full fat version of some other dish, just to try and be healthy. Love my meat though (without sounding dodgy! ).

Great news about the chickens too, there's nothing better than a freshly laid egg, boiled and dipped with white bread soldiers... mmm...

Well done on avoiding the lunch out too, that was once how we frittered money away. It was so easy to spend £30 on a nice lunch out. :eek: And I think the sleeping bag spend was justified after 19 years!



Chocs: Hope the coat proves to be a bargain for all the right reasons! I had a similar incident with a once-waterproof coat at a very wet, very cold 4 day event a few years back - found out my coat was definitely past its waterproof stage, unfortunately my phone was in my pocket at the time and I could probably have used it to keep fish in at the end of the event, there was that much water in it.:( That was when I had an expensive mobile phone and insurance to cover it though so worked out ok in the end. No such luxuries now though!

Good luck with the charity work, hope you get it all done.

DFSD
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yukkibear

Glad you've had a nice weekend with your parents. Funnily enough I was thinking of trying out flylady this week, just to see if it makes a difference. In fact I am going there now to see what's on tomorrows list!

debtfreesomeday

We've hit a bit of a problem in the form of a miscalculation somewhere along the line... I'm not quite sure where or how, but I think we may be short on the car insurance and servicing money by about £50. It's no big deal, but just means we will need to put about £50 extra towards it next month on top of the £100 we usually save toward the car and insurance fund. As we don't pay council tax next month, we will be £110 better off though, plus we will only be paying £355 off of the credit card instead of the usual £400, so we should be ok as long as we keep any possible overdraft to a bare minimum.

I just discovered this as I've renewed our car insurance. Believe it or not, it has proved cheaper for us to stay with our present insurer this year - something I've never done before. It's cost us £257 (was £220 last year :mad:). I did a bit of searching round a few weeks back and Aviva were coming up as cheapest with £45 back through Quidco, but when I go through Quidco they are charging me £55 more! :mad::mad::mad:

Grrr.

Chocforever

The car insurance quote is not good. I find mine never seems to go down despite the fact that the car has depreciated in value by about 2/3rds since I got it.

Had an idea over the weekend - sent you a PM.