My Debt-Free-Wannabe Diary

DontDoDebtKids

Finally closed all of our First Direct accounts just now - the last one was the Joint Account (which had lots of direct debits to sort out).

Now all done.

Still have to write another letter (or two) to First Direct to claim back another £30 worth of charges.

coxj2901

DontDoDebtKids wrote:

Finally closed all of our First Direct accounts just now - the last one was the Joint Account (which had lots of direct debits to sort out).

Now all done.

Still have to write another letter (or two) to First Direct to claim back another £30 worth of charges.

Hi DDDK,

Your making great progress mate and it's inspiring to follow your thread. Keep up the good work.

Rgds, John

DontDoDebtKids

Hi all,

For a while I've been running two mobiles! Yes, that's right TWO mobiles.

You might think this was a waste of money (you'd probably be right) but actually one was a Blackberry which I used only for email so only cost me £17 a month and the other was on Orange which cost me £20 a month.

I have used my Orange mobile less and less since getting the Blackberry and finally Orange have given me an excuse to dump them before the contract runs out!!!

They introduced this itemised billing charge, which I was charged for my last bill in December. Now I looked at this and thought "Yippee. Change of contract so I can cancel early" and phoned them up. They were extremely grumpy about it - not exactly a good start - but I quoted contract terms at them c/o Google:

http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:agTOP_i2R0QJ:www1.orange.co.uk/mobileterms/+change+of+contract+terms+orange&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=4

See item 15 if you're interested.

Sure enough, without any further argument, they caved in. I asked for a PAC number. Done.

I'll move my number to my Blackberry so people can still phone me on the same number and suddenly I save £20 a month.

Result!

DontDoDebtKids

May have made a mistook with my bank charges!!!

Claimed back £30 from my First Direct current account when I closed it but have just found (was doing some filing) that I was charged £25 way back when that I had either not noticed or had forgotten about!!!!

I'll try to get it back but I'm not sure I haven't scuppered my chances by already having got back the other £30.

DDDK

Mirtos

DDDK. Hello! I'm so jealous of your new total for the 18k challenge - you still in that by the way??? (hint) Has spurred me on to get back in to it.
xxx

DontDoDebtKids

Hello everyone,

I'm now back from my holiday and came home to a big pile of credit card statements so I can update my totals in a bit...

I'll also post my spending diary updates shortly!

Bank accounts appear damaged but stable - phew!

DDDK

DontDoDebtKids

OK, here's an update from my recent statements and my recent Amex DD:

Debt Totals

M&S: £6,628.89 (next payment £198.86 on 29/1)
Lloyds: £1,822.52 (next payment £37 on 29/1)
Amex: £4,360.74 (next payment £?? on 13/2)

Total: £12,812.15

But this doesn't take into account the £371.56 (£362.50 +2.5% fee) I used to bail out my bank account using a cheque on my Lloyds CC so actually the debt totals are:

Debt Totals

M&S: £6,628.89 (next payment £198.86 on 29/1)
Lloyds: £2194.08 (next payment £37 on 29/1)
Amex: £4,360.74 (next payment £?? on 13/2)

Total: £13,183.71

DontDoDebtKids

Hi all,

Just wondering what you all think?

As I now have a PAC code from Orange, I can move to any other network and grab whatever freebies are going.

I see that t-mobile are doing £15 a month Flext contracts so perhaps I could get whatever phone they are offering and sell it on ebay?

Any ideas what phones would be good to sell? I want to keep my number but either on a PAYG sim or on a v cheap contract.

DDDK

DontDoDebtKids

Hi all,

I just ordered a Nokia E61 for £15.98 including delivery from T-Mobile on a £15 a month contract.

This means I can keep my mobile number and the phone is worth anything from £100 to £175 on ebay. Yippee!

Take that Orange.

DDDK

DontDoDebtKids

Spending Diary 1/1 - 7/1

8.44 2 DVDs in sale
8.80 contribution for work christmas lunch
435.00 club membership
20.40 airport parking (pre-book)
0.46 milk for work
2.71 lunch at work
37.85 petrol
9.06 fee for credit card cheque
69.00 foreign currency for holiday
188.89 2x ski pass (£94.45 expected back from gf)

Total: £686.17:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :mad:

Spending Diary 7/1 - 14/1

26.18 petrol
55.00 birthday present for my brother (nice shirt)
19.00 new trousers
1.00 present for gf mum

Total: £101.18