Cloudy's 'bring me some sunshine' diary!

Cloudy456

Hi beccie, thanks for the message! My base salary is £20,500 so I feel your pain. Trying all the extra bits and pieces I can but its depressing to think how much difference even a small increase in my salary would make for no more effort!

So my balance transfer came through to my bank account, which now has a positive balance for the first time in about 5 years! I feel great about that, but the debt isn't gone, just shifted! I really think it will help though, working backwards from a credit balance in my head, so that spending money is actually less being there, rather than just being more or less overdrawn which doesn't feel quite as different....if that makes any sense at all! Anyway, I called the bank and reduced my overdraft limit from £2000 to £100 (to avoid charges in emergencies, I didn't want to have no buffer at all) so I can avoid running it back up again, not that I would now. I will be paying about £80 per month to the 0% egg card which is good as my virgin card only wants £25 per month so by the time the 0% deal ends I will barely have made a dent! I actually quite like the higher minimum repayments in a weird way.

Anyway, my birthday was at the weekend and I got £70 so I will be paying that into my bank account for this month's overpayment on the Barclaycard. I know some people would say I should spend it on a treat but its what I genuinely want to do - I get no enjoyment of spending money any more in comparison to the feeling of seeing my total (very slowly!) go down! I also got some vouchers for a beauty salon and music vouchers plus some good pressies, so I don't feel hard done by at all.

Bit of a long ramble tonight, but anyway I'm still doing alright for this month's budget although I need to keep a close eye on things. Still got loads of food in the house so that's not a problem but I have a few birthdays in the next couple of weeks so I need to buy some cards and a couple of presents. Apart from that, it should be a quiet week spending-wise, fingers crossed!

DebtFreeDan

Hi Cloudy, a very interesting read and some similarities in your diary I can relate to (the flat mate sharing, similar income, no car - which is actually a bonus as it means that you can stay in shape by walking/running and cycling everywhere! )

Well done so far - I like your '% cleared idea', infact so much so I'm about to do the same on my signature now - good luck towards getting to that nice 10% figure next month!!

I'm also very impressed that you banked the £70 birthday money for clearing debts rather than treating yourself!! :T
Happy birthday for last weekend and keep up the good work!

Dan

Cloudy456

Hi Dan, thanks for the message! And your percentage figure is a lot higher than mine, you've done amazingly well!

Today I closed a credit card (woohoo) but it was a bit of a cheat really as it was from the balance transfer rather than from paying it off :-)
But feels good all the same, I'm down to my three credit card debts now. Hoping to make a decent sized overpayment on the Barclaycard this month but I'm waiting until 24th when I get paid just in case my budgeting is way out (as it so often is!)

I bought the birthday cards and presents that I needed to get today, which came to about £30 but I couldn't do anything about that one. People bought me presents last week so I couldn't not buy them anything in return! Anyway I worked out that if I want to pay £110 extra to my Barclaycard at the end of the month (£70 b'day money plus £40 I already put aside) I will have about £77 to last me until 24th which is 17 days away...not great sounding, but I have pretty much all the food I need for all my meals until then, will just need some milk and veg at some point, so in the week I can get away with spending very little. That sum basically needs to cover me for entertainment which seems reasonably do-able. Hoping not to spend anything now until the weekend...watch this space :-)

Cloudy456

Not much to report today, ended up spending about £6 on toiletries as I needed a few bits from Boots but I managed to use points and a voucher for some of it, so I got about £13 worth for that....leaving me about £63 to spend between now and 24th....not looking good!

Cloudy456

I've done loads of thinking and playing with my spreadsheet today and have decided to change tactics a bit. I am still going to concentrate hard on reducing my Barclaycard balance as my main priority, but I think that in order to keep up my motivation and feelings of progress I am going to make more payments of smaller amounts through the month, namely everything I manage to bring in on top of my main salary will go straight to the Barclaycard as well as lump sums from my salary. I think this will help me feel like its coming down all through the month rather than only on one day when I make each month's payment. So I am really going to increase my efforts on bringing in the extra cash. To this end, today I have:

Listed an item on eBay which I hope to get at least £20 for
Made up a parcel of CDs and DVDs which I never listen to/watch to go to Music Magpie for a grand total of £5.47 - I'll post this tomorrow
Received £20 unexpectedly as a gift from lovely Mother
Tried to take up two mystery shopping assignments but was unable to get either for some unknown reason :-(
Completed 40p worth of surveys on Onepoll
Completed a £2 survey on Valued Opinions
Looked out some jewellery which I hope to sell
and....had a NSD!!

So quite a good day all round really! Tomorrow I am out for drinks after work but will aim to keep the spend down to a few pounds. As for the rest of the weekend, its a friend's birthday on Saturday but I've already bought card and present so just need to pay for the night out. I'll aim to have a few drinkies at home first then keep the spend to less than a tenner - we'll see! I also have a job application to complete (don't hold out much hope but may as well try, think I'm underqualified!) so that should keep me out of trouble on Sunday. Hopefully keeping nicely to budget for the next few days but need to not get carried away on the vino over the weekend - its drinks out which always seem a great idea at the time but the biggest waste of money in the cold light of day!!

Cloudy456

Today has got even better - my Ebay item sold for £22.99 on buy it now price and has already been paid into my paypal account! So I'll send that tomorrow along with my Music Magpie parcel if I can find some wrapping materials....oh and I did another £1 survey on Valued opinions and signed up to a second mystery shopping agency. So a very productive day all round!

Cloudy456

Hmm well after last week's successes the weekend got a bit more expensive than I planned (two nights out, bought some toiletries and went climbing, whoops!) so I now have nothing really to spend for the rest of the month (when I get paid a week on Friday) unless I dip into the £150 odd pounds I've put aside for saving/overpaying Barclaycard this month :-(

Anyway I've got a couple more things up my sleeve to bring in a bit more income, e.g. selling some silver earrings an old BF gave me that I don't like) so I'm hopeful of scraping by without doing too much damage. I managed a NSD today and am hoping for another tomorrow...maybe even nothing for the next few days as I have food in and no particular plans until the weekend. Also I did a £1 survey and a couple more little ones on Onepoll. I'm up to £29.40 now so slowly creeping my way up to that £40 pay out!

Cloudy456

Not much to report really - Monday and Tuesday were both NSDs but I was a bit annoyed today to spend £10 in Tesco - I got a £10 voucher from Valued Opinions for doing surveys, so I went in to get a few bits and included some treats like handcream and expensive juice...anyway I got to the til and they couldn't process the giftcard because of a computer problem on their tills so I had to pay *grrr*
Anyway I'll just use the voucher on my next big online shop for next month's groceries which I would have paid for normally so the end result is the same, its just another £10 off this month's debt-busting total which is annoying. Managed not to spend anything else though, and I did a few surveys (over the £30 mark on Onepoll now, woo!)

I've worked out that if I want to be under the 10k mark by 24th October (next payday but one) which is my target, I need to make about £400 of payments to my Barclaycard on top of next month's min payment which just covers interest plus a tiny bit. So I have £109 in my 'savings' account now plus I'm planning to put £200 aside from my salary when I'm paid at the end of next week. So I need to make about another £100 on top of that over the next 6 weeks or so, which doesn't sound so hard....I have my first mystery shop lined up which hopefully will lead to lots more, I have some earrings I'm planning on selling at the weekend, plus I should get about £30 from extra cleaning I'm doing at work while our cleaner is away. So I think £100 (plus more hopefully!) will add up quite soon. I just also need to make my very tight budget last to allow me to a) not dip into the £109 I have now before payday next week and b) last next month without needing to claw back some of the £200!

Right - I'm off to try and change our energy supplier and get some cashback!

Herewego

Seems like your making good progress i'm sure you will reach your target. I'm only at £9.15 on onepoll not very dedicated but i must do more although I have had about £80 in M&S vouchers from valued opinions this year which will cover a few xmas presents and a few nice bits.
Keep up the good work

Cloudy456

Its taken me a few months to get that far, I think once I've reached the £40 I won't bother again. Its a lot of effort to log on several times a day and check for surveys, and that's for about 50p a day on a good day! I've had £20 from Tesco now on Valued Opinions and I'm on my way to a third voucher. Maybe I should save them up for Christmas too!