Cloudy's 'bring me some sunshine' diary!

Herewego

They me be rubbish to you but I found the old ones sold the best when MM offered me 30p. I would put them all on and the if they dont sell then send them to MM. Let me know how you get on

Cloudy456

Ok - today I spent £2.30 on buying lunch at the baguette shop near work - oops. But I had nothing in the house and am only in the office for 2 days this week so it wasn't worth buying stuff for sandwiches....excuses excuses, I know! Anyway, I also have made some small progress on the making money mission:

I rang Npower to complain about their terrible service *long story* and they are sending me a goodwill cheque for £20 which should arrive in 2-3 weeks, an actual cheque not just a credit on the account!

I have got a bid and a watcher on the item I put on E Bay yesterday - only £4.99 but hopefully it will go up.

I've sold a few of the CDs that I mentioned on Music Magpie for £4.29 so as soon as the label arrives I will post those off.

I've listed about ten of the other CDs and DVDs on Amazon so hopefully will sell a few soon!

So from all of that I should make a few extra pounds. My plan is to stick to the budget I have for the month and put all the 'extra' money I make aside in a spare account I have. I will deduct any costs from this e.g. postage and E Bay fees so that will be pure profit. Then I will either use this to top up my monthly budget if it doesn't last the whole month (and lets be honest, its not looking good so far!) or if by some miracle my remaining £140 lasts me for the next 24 days, I will pay it to one of my cards. I would love to make £100 extra this month, its ambitious but not ridiculous, so any ideas for extra dosh are more than welcome!

Cloudy456

Time for a quick update - spent £2.30 on lunch again yesterday, as well as about £15 going to the cinema and having dinner out - not great!

I'm away for 2 days now with my BF but when I'm back at the weekend I'm going to sit down and sort out my budget for the rest of the month properly as I don't feel as in control as I did last month and can feel things starting to slip. So I will work out exactly what I have left after these 2 days away, then set to making extra bits where I can in the desperate hope of not having to resort to CCs by the end of the month! I'll be back on Saturday, hopefully not having spent a fortune!

Cloudy456

Oh dear. I'm feeling very sheepish having read my last thread - the last 4 days have been something of a disaster money wise and I'm kicking myself so hard, feel like I've really screwed up. We had a really nice couple of days away but just kept spending so much money, food and transport etc. in London don't come cheap! We met up with a couple of my friends, who are very successful and I just felt rubbish next to them, talking about buying a house etc and I just wanted to forget my woes and enjoy myself (=meal out, drinks a plenty etc etc...)

So now I feel awful and really silly! I'm trying to pluck up the courage to check my bank balance although I know it will take a day or two to show everything. The rest of the month is going to be a nightmare now and I'll never pay off the £500 I was hoping for this month :-(

So I am going to dedicate some serious energy to making back some cash, but first I need to take stock of exactly how much damage has been done....I'll be back!

Nichelette

I've just read your diary, it's scary how similar we are. I'm also 24, graduated in 2008, and have been with my boyfriend who doesn't technically live here for a year now. I'm trying to pay a loan off (not mine, long story) and the last £1000 of my student overdraft. I live in the South East with my dad so I don't have as many bills, but I do have to run a car to get to work. Anyway, good luck with paying the debt off .

Cloudy456

Ok I've checked my bank balance and basically its going to be empty - eeek! I don't get paid again until 25th so basically I have to go 19 days. I paid a lot to my debts a couple of weeks ago on my last payday so anything I put on the CC isn't adding to it as such, just means that I won't have paid off as much as I wanted to this month. I think if I'm careful I can maybe just add about £100 or so, and considering I paid off a lot more than this its not the end of the world. Guess I was over optimistic in what I paid off, but as long as I still pay off £300 or so this month I won't beat myself up too much. I will also work to make some extra. I should be able to get about £30 cash from work that I am owed, as well as hopefully a tenner from the item I have on E Bay. I also got my Music Magpie labels through and have sold a DVD on Amazon so thats another £7 or so. I got a few bits and pieces in Asda earlier so I have enough for breakfast and lunch all week as well as a couple of dinners. So hopefully I won't spend more than a fiver on groceries this week. My only plans that should cost me money is dinner out with a friend on Thursday but that will be using vouchers so it shouldn't be more than a tenner. So basically these next 2 and a half weeks will be all about damage limitation!

Cloudy456

Just checked E Bay and my item has gone up to over £18! Woohoo, a much needed boost tonight :-)

Also looked at my Valued Opinions surveys account and that is now over £14 - but I'm going to keep saving it up rather than cashing in the vouchers and maybe use it for Christmas presents or something if I get Amazon vouchers.

So in the next couple of weeks I am expecting:

Around £20 hopefully from E Bay
£20 from my goodwill Npower cheque
£30 from cash owed from work
£5 ish from Music Magpie

=about £75 to help cushion the blow of my last few days of overspending!

Over the next couple of days I'll update my excel spreadsheet that shows all my account balances and try and take stock of what I can expect to achieve this month. Determined that all is not lost, I am dead set on still paying off £300 ish so my signature figure goes down to more like £10,700 on 24th. Feeling a bit low really, like I'm not getting anywhere and I think I will continue to feel a bit like that until I can get under 10k then I'll really feel I'm making progress, so thats what I need to do - put everything into reaching that initial target. But I have such an expensive couple of months coming up with various things planned for weekends and a very close friend's wedding at which I'm bridesmaid. Just have to keep things to an absolute minimum, keep making these extra bits and keep my fingers crossed for a decent payrise!!

Here's hoping for a productive, happy, cheap and cheerful week coming up!

Nichelette

That's great with ebay. I LOVE survey vouchers, I've just paid £27 for a 22" Samsung TV from Amazon becuase the rest was paid for with vouchers .

Good luck with getting under 10k, I found it was a really good motivator when I got into single figures...if you can call thousands a single figure! I've got a wedding in a couple of weeks too, but I'm making the bride & bridesmaid earrings as my wedding present so I'll only really have to pay for the petrol which will probably be at least £30. Oh, and I need to find something to wear. I'm hoping I can find something in my wardrobe rather than buying new.

Cloudy456

Well my E Bay item went for £23 in the end and they have already paid me so the money is winging its way from PayPal to my bank account as I type :-)

Not such a good spending day though - 60p on sweets at lunchtime and £12 on dinner out with friends tonight *hangs head in shame* and I've just had to spend £35 on train tickets for the weekend trip to my friend's for my bridesmaid dress fitting agggh! There are no coaches so that was the only option, I guess at least I don't have to pay for the dress! Nichelette - you're lucky you have a skill that can be made into lovely presents, I still have that hurdle to negotiate out of next month's budget!!

Hopefully tomorrow will be a NSD, as well as Wednesday at a stretch - maybe I'll leave my money at home so I have no temptation!

Today I updated my excel spreadsheet that I use to keep track of everything and I reckon at a push I might just pay off £400 this month. That's pretty optimistic, I just need to get back the iron will that kept me going last month.

cloverfan

Hi just wanted to say I think your doing really well! Keep up the hard work.