Can Edinburgher be debt free and a mortgage holder by 30?

edinburgher

Mhh.. You know you're not making much progress on the DFW front when you update your signature to show a change of 2p! I will need to get my head together over the weekend and figure out 'what's next' for me.

For the rest of the year I still have:

A trip to Germany (~£300?/budgeted for bar £50)
A meal with family (~£40?/foolishly offered to pay for this one, can't really back out of it)
Trip to Birmingham (~£70-100? free train ticket and accommodation, expecting entertainment costs to be highish as GF's relatives are affluent )
GF and little brother's birthdays (~£80?)
Business trip to Edinburgh (oddly enough) (~£70/will get ~£50 of this back, hotel etc. booked and paid for by work)
Christmas (~£250)
Course fees (~£655/£55 paid)

So, £1140 of costs before Christmas, which is going to pound my DFW efforts.

Including my gifts budget I will only have £1000 'free' by the end of the year, which assumes no costs for entertainment with GF etc. Really feeling like I've bitten off more than I can chew :eek:

Suggestions are welcome! I currently earn maybe £5 a week from Dooyoo, do a couple of free scratchies daily and complete surveys for Valued Opinions. I'm hopeful of perhaps £165 towards Christmas from these 'free' sources, which will only just cover my currently planned expenses. Things never run smoothly, so I need to up my income.

Would consider matched betting, as I'm quite good with figures and am also looking for part time work in a kitchen as I'm hopefully going back to Uni to train as a chef. Will take any suitable jobs in this area, but am not willing to get a random part time job as my CV already looks like a patchwork quilt and I really need to be free to search for kitchen jobs if I'm going to take my intended new career seriously.

Anyone?

doodledo_2

Morning Ed.

Upping your income is difficult isn't it. A part time job would be the obvious solution as instant/guaranteed cash and obviously if in a kitchen its good experience for your future too. Obviously the downside to that is losing time with your GF too.

Match betting, is a good way to earn cash so is definately worth a shot. I have thought about doing it so many times but even with all my qualifications in statistics I stil struggle to get my head round it

How about Ebay? Do you have any bits and bobs hanging around the house which you could sell?

edinburgher

A part time job would be good, but experience in a 'proper' kitchen is difficult to come by when you already have a full time job! I don't feel that working in fast food places etc. is an idea as they don't cook food, they 'assemble' it.

Nothing that I can really eBay - I am not one of these debtors with huge stashes of carp sitting around their house!

doodledo_2

Match betting it is then. You start then you can explain it to me :T

edinburgher

You start then you can explain it to me

Right - I've read through the guide, printed it off and intend to re-read it several times, as well as download the supporting spreadsheets etc. and 'case' some of the gambling sites through Quidco etc. to see whether or not they charge extra for using credit cards.

I will then be paying £100 onto either my prepaid credit card or my basic bank account avec Visa Electron (the one I use for cheap flights!) once I've figured out the lay of the land. There was a pun in there for all you MB fans...

I have to say that some of the MB figures look fairly horrendous (for example, bets where they stand to 'lose' ££££ (even if they're making it back from the other side of the bet/lay equation). It seems to be a case of double check the bets, then triple check them, then cross your fingers...

doodledo_2

Maybe now I have a little free cash I should re-read it too, surely I must be able to get the hang of it

edinburgher

Right!

Got up bright an early and have very much managed to regain some perspective and get my head around the challenges I'm facing 'til year end.

• Germany holiday is now all sorted (GF is very kindly using £150 she received as a gift for the trip from her Gran towards our shared costs, meaning our budget should more than adequately cover everything).
• Have also decided to be strict with myself with the business trip and not buy cack just because I'm travelling!
• Took a look at my Christmas spend from last year and tbh, I was spending considerably more on gifts than siblings etc. I know that we don't give to receive, but there's no need for me to be quite so flash with the Christmas cash This should take £50 off the spend..

So, that's £120 off the list, meaning that I'm only £20 'short' for the year at current standings, minus £165 from freebies etc. So I have positive £145 now.

That's not nearly enough to throw at my debts/savings as far as I'm concerned, but at least it's positive... On with the money making ploys!

edinburgher

Lol.

Just realised that someone is bidding £3.70 for the £4 House of Fraser voucher that I'm selling on eBay. Is using eBay to save £0.30 taking it too far?

hypno06

My main tips for matched betting are never do it when rushed or tired -that is when you make mistakes that will either make you a lot, or lose you a lot.....and s*ds law says they will lose you a lot. Always check what you are doing before you press "submit".......

Some betting sites will create hassle if you use an electron card and may demand extra ID before allowing you to withdraw funds - this is because under 18s can have an electron card, and they need to make sure you are over 18 and therefore are allowed to gamble...

edinburgher

Some betting sites will create hassle if you use an electron card and may demand extra ID before allowing you to withdraw funds - this is because under 18s can have an electron card, and they need to make sure you are over 18 and therefore are allowed to gamble...

Thanks for the tips hypno - will make sure that I have a suitable copy of passport etc. when registering.