DFSD's motivational ramblings...

debtfreesomeday

Thanks for the PM Chocs, have replied this morning. X

Urgh, Monday morning again and I struggled to leave my bed this morning. More the thought of spending another week in this office making me want to stay there, rather than actual tiredness but 'needs must' as they say.

I had a nice surprise with the ebay item that finished last night - it sold for £28! It sold for £17.50 last time and then the lady wanted a refund, so that transaction was a bit of a disaster, but it seems something positive has come out of it after all. The winning bidder has already paid too, so I'll wrap it tonight to send off tomorrow.
Three of my other items have bids on already, too. :cool:

I need to email one survey site today as I have lost my log in details and am pretty sure I have enough points to claim a voucher.

I also need to take a couple of photos of some furniture that we have in the garage that I need to get rid of - one item I'm just going to give away for free if anyone wants to take it, the other I'll list for £10 - £15 or so on the notice board at work.

I took another look at our shopping order for Tuesday last night, and, with the present shape of our budget in mind, deleted a few items which I was going to order to stock the freezer. There were joints of meat on offer - 3 for £10 - but they're not a necessity, so they've been deleted from the list. Together with a couple of other items, I've got the shopping down to £43.58 with delivery, instead of just over £55 as it was before. Again, needs must! (Think that's now phrase of the week ).

Have a good Monday everyone,
DFSD
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debtfreesomeday

:mad: Looks like most of the £28 made on ebay this morning will get swallowed up by ebay and paypal fees. Just got an invoice from them for nearly £20 for the bits I sold last month - sure that can't be right!

debtfreesomeday

Have just caught up with lots of surveys, need another 200 points, or about 3-4 surveys, for a £5 payout, I still need to email the other survey company to retrieve my login details.

I've addressed the ebay item sold yesterday, so that's all ready to be posted tomorrow. A couple of other items listed yesterday now have 99p bids on too.

I've had to add a few more things back to the shopping order as we'd run out of fruit and veg and other bits. We've been letting the diet slip a bit this week as we haven't been planning ahead very well and also ran out of fruit and fresh items so it's important we buy these this week. Shopping is back up to £52!

10p & 25p on scratchies.

DFSD
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brizzledfw

Hello

You should check those EBay fees DFSD as that sounds a lot although that disgruntled customer would have taken a cut of your earnings..real pain that they don't reimburse you for failed transactions!

Well Yukkibear Flylady was pretty useful and I did collect 27 items..thought I'd share it with you all!!

Jamie Oliver Chocolate dusting (BBD 2008!) - bin
Cooling foot lotion (half bottle), 2x old suntan lotions - bin
Veggie recipe and foodie books - all bagged and ready for the charity bookshop down the road (real question is whether books count as decluttering? I think not in our house as we are overrun with them!)
Wicker basket - Freecycle
Hair thickening spray - Freecycle
Incense sticks - charity shop
Coffee canister - charity shop
Rucksack - Freecycle
Cheese Board - ditto
Book end - charity shop
Ballet clothes, shoes and a cloak - for my little niece
Everlasting bags x 2 (broken and stained - yuck) - bin
Souvenir tile - don't ask! - bin
Roses tin (empty of course) - bin
Aprons x 2 - bin
Boots and shoes x 3 pairs - our recycling bin
Picture frame - bin
Saltdough models x2 - bin

My OH tried to grab something back. I said he had to swop it for something else. It worked! He did!

I don't think we'll miss any of this stuff...would you?? BUT this was done in 15 minutes of roaming the house AND without even going into the kids' rooms..worth another try before too long methinks

Thanks for staying with me folks..you have sure seen my dirty washing now..

DedicatedDFW

Hi DFSD,

Am glad to hear your mother is feeling better and that you had such a nice weekend. Weekends always seem to end so quickly don't they and the working week just drags on ho hum! Well you're doing great with listing on e-bay - I have some things here but am struggling to get a guide price at the mo. so they'll have to wait for now.

Brizzled have you thought of selling any books? I use greenmetropolis or carboot for mine - I know alot of people use amazon as these can pay more but I've listed all mine and they're staying there now! I do sell some on occasion and as long as postage is calculated ok I'm happy for the bit I get Well Done on the decluttering though.

Take care everyone

brizzledfw

Hi there dedicated - no re books tbh. Always put off by postage costs. I could try. Agree re Amazon. OH has got quite a bit in the past for CDs. Thanks for the advice..I may grab the new books back from the charity shop pile..??!

debtfreesomeday

It's definitely worth checking on Amazon to see how much the books your throwing are currently selling for, and listing them for sale if it's a reasonable price. I don't bother if they are going for pennies, but it's surprising what sells well on there.

Well done on the flylady decluttering! That's one thing I'm quite good at as I hate clutter so there's not a lot of 'things' in our house - most things have a home and those that don't are found one quite quickly!

debtfreesomeday

Hubby and I both woke up feeling thoroughly miserable this morning, and both in grumpy moods. It's just the dullness of February which always gets us down, combined with us not loving work at the moment and having very little money to do anything with. I know the money situation will get better soon but it feels like a long slog at the moment.
It doesn't help that many of our friends are now at the stage of life where they've earned/are earning a lot of money and are buying/have bought stunning houses in the country which are very much 'the family home'. Facebook has been full of photos of beautiful houses and smiling happy perfect families at the moment that I rarely use it any more - it makes me miserable! Don't get me wrong, we have a lovely modern house and are very fortunate, and it's brilliant that our friends are happy, but we'd just like the freedom to be able to move and actually have some savings behind us so that we can enjoy our lives. It doesn't feel like life is enjoyable at the moment, in fact I can't remember when I was last happy with our life in general, (ie. rewarding home life, enjoyable work, family in good health, no money worries etc.) it's a constant 'slog'. (Slog is now word of the day!). Urgh, enough of my moaning.

I was up earlier again this morning, so did the free scratchies - 2 x 10p today - and checked ebay - no more bids yet. I shall email that other survey company this morning and request my login details too.

Have a good day everyone
DFSD
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debtfreesomeday

I've just paid the ebay fees :mad: using my paypal balance, so there's only £8.60 left in there now which I've transferred to my bank account. Have also emailed survey company, requesting my username, so that's two jobs ticked off the list!

debtfreesomeday

I have been doing some thinking about overpaying the loans this morning. Realistically, we will not be starting this in March as there's a few things we need to do to get the house ship shape which we've been putting off through lack of funds. So we're going to postpone it a month and start overpaying in April. However, I am wondering if it's a better idea to physically overpay by standing order every month, or whether to put the money into the ISA for a year (or just over) and then pay it off in a lump sum when we have enough to do so. I imagine that we will end up paying more the latter way though, because the interest is charged monthly - am I right? If this is the case then I guess it's better to overpay by standing order then.

Our pay, like many others, has been frozen this year, so I will not be getting a pay rise as such but I should be going up and 'increment' so theoretically should be getting another £700 or so a year, which I believe is about £50 a month take home pay. However, our jobs are currently under re-evaluation, :mad:which means we will find out in the next two months whether our salaries will be galtered for the better or worse. I have everything crossed that I will at least stay on what I am earning now, but if everything goes to plan and I do get the extra £50 a month it will help a little bit, especially with the loan overpayments.