My Debt-Free-Wannabe Diary

DontDoDebtKids

Ordered some PAYG SIMs when Martin mentioned them in his tip email to see if I can sell them on ebay but it seems that every man and his dog are doing exactly the same...

Oh well..

Will hold my breath and see if they will sell better in a few weeks.

DDDK

DontDoDebtKids

Right, I'm going to have to give up on this E61. It can't do emails nearly as well as the blackberry and it's awfully complicated to set up.

It has lots of "potential" for moneysaving - it can connect to wireless networks/hotspots so you can send emails and make calls using VOIP (specifically SIP and I think Skype as well) for free once you've connected to a wireless network/hotspot.

It is, however, a pig to set up properly so I think I'll have to give it up as immature technology.

Maybe when the next model comes out I'll have another go!

Back to my Blackberry and the £17/month contact.

Will ring t-mobile either today or on monday to ask for how to send it back!

DDDK

PS Good toy though!

EDIT: I don't think it's worth selling on ebay as I can just send it back, transfer my number over to my Blackberry and be done with it all!

DontDoDebtKids

Done!

Phoned them - they were very helpful - and asked to return my new phone and to port my Orange number over to my Blackberry.

Saving: £21.50 a month!

Bye bye Orange! I still have a PAYG SIM card from Orange so I might keep it to do Martin's trick with the two for one cinema tickets thing.

DDDK

DontDoDebtKids

Hi all,

I've decided that I need a proper budget. I have been taken aback by all the big expenses of the past few weeks and need to finally get a grip on actually putting a proper budget together and then doing something with it, like setting up a savings account into which I can save towards big expenses like car repairs and suchlike.

Any tips? I'll post back my findings over the next week and then hopefully I will be able to make myself a budget!

So, next week the DDDK challenge is: research and draw up a :eek: budget:eek: !!!

That's all folks...

DDDK

DontDoDebtKids

Also,

I want to learn double entry book keeping - it looks useful.

But hard.

DDDK

DontDoDebtKids

OK, here goes:

Spending Diary (15/1 - 21/1)

347.41 car insurance
8.10 lunches at work
15.98 new phone (to be refunded as sending back)
28.06 contribution to christmas presents
1123.80 japan plane tickets (holiday in march) (561.90 to be refunded by gf)
256.26 car service
19.00 new trousers
58.74 laser printer
50.00 birthday dinner

Total: £1329.47

gallygirl

DontDoDebtKids wrote:

OK, here goes:

Spending Diary (15/1 - 21/1)

347.41 car insurance Ouch, this hurts!!!!!! Hope you shopped around and went through quidco etc!
8.10 lunches at work
15.98 new phone (to be refunded as sending back)
28.06 contribution to christmas presents
1123.80 japan plane tickets (holiday in march) (561.90 to be refunded by gf) Skiing, Japan....hmmmmm, methinks you should be ordered to have a weekend in Skeggy instead!!!!!!
256.26 car service Ouch!!!!!! Just had mine done, refused to pay 3% surcharge to pay by CC so now panicking about bank balance for rest of month......
19.00 new trousers
58.74 laser printer
50.00 birthday dinner For you????? Happy birthday if it was!!!!!!

Total: £1329.47

Hmmmmmm, as I've said before the whole point of debt diary is to loom at what you've spent & learn lessons, not just put it on here for me to shout at you However, as you're doing all that and still paying off debts you may be excused!!!!

coxj2901

DontDoDebtKids wrote:

OK, here goes:

Spending Diary (15/1 - 21/1)

347.41 car insurance
8.10 lunches at work
15.98 new phone (to be refunded as sending back)
28.06 contribution to christmas presents
1123.80 japan plane tickets (holiday in march) (561.90 to be refunded by gf)
256.26 car service
19.00 new trousers
58.74 laser printer
50.00 birthday dinner

Total: £1329.47

Oh my God :eek: This has made me feel so much better about posting my spending for last week :rotfl:

Did you pay cash for the big expenses or have they been loaded onto the credit card?

For big expenses What I'm trying to do is calculate how much the annual cost of each one is, add them up and then divide by 12. I then transfer this total amount to a seperate savings account. The only problem I find is that having easy access to the funds you need to be very strong willed not to transfer the odd £50 back to your current account every now and then.

As for the double entry bookkeeping it's not too difficult if you can spare a few hours picking up the basics. For my sins I'm an accountant so if you want any help then PM me.

DontDoDebtKids

Ali: I usually need shouting at! I could be paying off my debts faster...

Cox: Thanks for the offer - I'll try to get my head around it but so far it's not sinking in!

I pay for everything I can (that doesn't attract a fee for paying by credit card) on my Morgan Stanley cashback card and then transfer the same amount into my A&L savings account out of my A&L current account. This way I will always have the money I have spent on my credit card visibly seperate from my actual available cash, which is in my current account. At the moment there is a large discrepancy because my gf owes me the money for her flight to Japan and for her ski pass but she'll transfer it to my bank account by BACS on the 1st Feb.

It seems you need a strong will for all of this money rubbish.

I got into debt in the first place because I didn't save the amount needed to fully pay off my credit cards then, one day, didn't have enough to pay one back and changed the direct debit to minimum payments and never looked back....

Now I pay it off by direct debit every month or have cheap life-of-balance debt.

DontDoDebtKids

Hi all,

Sent a letter yesterday to First Direct asking for another £50 back in bank charges on my now closed current account. Sent it in one of their pre-pay envelopes that I had from when I opened the account - not sure if this was a good idea now but it's done.

I'll keep updating as to my progress - if I have to send the next letter it will be by registered post (but this costs £1 a pop so last time I had to spend £2 to get back £30 - grrr).

DDDK