What I spent in 2009

bigcheese2001

Intrigued by the ebay & amazon selling - any advice you can pass on on that one!?

I would personally cringe at paying that much on loan/credit card & overdraft charges in a year,
I know they are there for a reason and it's probably stating the obvious but getting rid of any
of those would help a lot??

Noselfdiscipline

On Amazon I mainly sell books/DVD's that I dont want. I did have some books that were out of print and fetched a decent sum. I also just sold a game for £22 that I bought for £10 only 2 months ago in Gamestation pre-owned! I think if you were dedicated enough, you could hunt round second hand shops and charity shops and find some stuff that would turn a profit. I read in the paper that someone was running an Ebay business with a million pound turnover selling stuff they bought in pound shops etc.

On Ebay, I sold some more valuable items, including a figurine that went for £700! However, you have to deduct the amount I spent in postage and Ebay fees from the overall figures.

Unfortunately, any extra money I raised just got absorbed into my monthly spending. This year, I'm going to try and put anything extra straight to my debts.

The overdraft figure is mainly money allocated to reduce my overdraft, rather than overdraft charges themselves, if that makes sense. Im not over my overdraft limit. As for getting rid of credit cards etc, thats why I'm on here!

dprovan

hi

like others have said I admire your discipline in keeping such a record....

Do you have a blank spreadsheet that you used that you would be happy to share, I need to look at my spending...

Noselfdiscipline

I could put together a blank one, PM me your email address.

c00kie82

Here are a few ideas that helped me save money last year:-

If there is a cineworld near you register for the unlimited card at £13.50 a month (£162py) it works out alot cheaper than what your spending on renting DVD's/BluRays, also you can use the card for orange wednesdays so take a mate for free

Read the books you have and then rather than buy more swap the on readitswapit.co.uk... or if you do find the need to buy check out bananas.co.uk or the book people (i just bought the 8 tru blood books for £9).

Also with books use the local library...if yours is fairly decent like mine they will have comics in there as well.

Get your mobile phone contract changed...I swapped from a £35 a month down to £20 and still kept my free internet...so i don't need to buy magazines, as i have all the info i could ever need to hand.

Also rather than get unwanted presents I asked for vouchers for shops i use...get a couple of £20 vouchers for b/day etc and you can buy yourself an xbox game.

And my final one, which has saved me a fortune is using cokezone..ask mates. collegues etc if they drink coke to give you the codes off their bottles, I did and I have had a couple of xbox games and won a few xbox points (about a 1000), and you can get vouchers from there for 50% off vouchers or free delivery for 5 points (which is only 2 bottles)

Hope these help.

twirly09

This has encouraged me to start a spending diary for 2010. I have no idea where my money goes!!!!

gtothec

Noselfdiscipline wrote: »

I could put together a blank one, PM me your email address.

I'd be interested in this too Noselfdiscipline, if you wouldn't mind.

Can't believe how honest you've been - not sure if I can be. When I think of the amount of money I've wasted on taxis, meals out and absolute rubbish recently I am ashamed!

New year, New Start????

G>C

sjd069

Well done for posting this, glad I never kept a diary last year, I think hubby would actually kill me if there was real evidence...instead we have just under 50K of debt plus a 180k mortgage & now I am going to do something about it!!!! I will also keep a diary, what a fab but scary idea!!

trying_hard

Well done for a great thread, made me laugh too.

You are very brave writing everything down and seeing where your money goes. I will do a spending diary too so that next Jan I can look back and see where we can save money.

Good luck on budgeting & getting your debt down.

Takingcontrol_2

What a great thread!! Think I may keep a spending diary for 2010 too! Will be interesting to add it all up at the end of the year!