Minky's stop messin about diary!

MinkyBoo

I thought I'd start afresh today with this lovely sparkly clean diary. Things have changed a lot for me in the last year but now I need to stop messing about and get on with things. I'm hoping that regular posting should keep me on the straight and narrow.

First step is to find out exactly how much me and my partners debt stands at and figure out a plan to kill it off asap at the same time as saving for our wedding next year, with a growing teenage boy at home.

I've taken the first step and started up a new diary.

Minky x

MinkyBoo

Trumpet fanfare - my total debt as of today is £4,563.28, need to look into interest rates too.

I don't think there are any other sneaky things to come out of the bank that I don't know about. It's a bit more than I anticipated but my other half has been spending quite abit on ebay recently, mainly garden stuff we need and he has told me some of the equipment he's going to sell on when he's finished with it in the next month or two.

So now it's just a case of chipping away at it, a bit at a time.

Minky x

MinkyBoo

I had an email from talk talk today with a link to my latest bill, I was not happy as we cancelled with them a few months ago and they kept billing us. So I signed into my account tonight to see we were finally in credit by £13.21. So have rung and asked for a refund, which should be with me in the next week or so.

Also resurected my paypal account which has £15 in with another £3 from a survey site to come, think I might just have a look at what the balance is on my lightspeed account, then when I've finished verifying my account I can withdraw it all.

My plan is to keep doing at least one money saving type thing a day even if it's only looking to see how we can cut down an expense.

Minky x

MinkyBoo

I have been a busy bee and I've sold a book on amazon making me £12.16, 29p from paypal, and my partner earned an extra £13 in overtime this last week. An extra £50 turned up in my bank account which has turned out to be cash back from our house insurance which I'd totally forgotten about, I withdrew £10 from the scratch cards last week and £30.05 tax credits and child benefit have also been paid into the bank giving me a grand total of £115.80 which I've paid towards the overdraft. Woo that was busy. :j

I know from the past that when I put my mind to this I can pay a chunck off the debt, just from easy things that just need a tidy up and that it's going to get harder once all the easy things have been done.

So far today I've listed 6 things on amazon and i've got a few ready for ebay and I won £5 on the scratch cards.

MinkyBoo

Yesterday the £15 that had been sat in paypal for an age was paid into the bank and today both me and OH were paid. OH gets paid weekly and we had £18.66 left over and I get paid monthly and there was £175.61 left over so it's all gone to the overdraft which stands at £428.63.

I listed quite a few items on amazon the other night but nothing on ebay as yet, so my plan is to try and list 20 things over the weekend as well as sort out all the cards and presents for the rest of the month. I have a budgeted amount for this so the sooner I start the less expensive panic last minute present buying I will do.

Minky x

Determined_2b_Debt_Free

Hey Minky!

Thought I'd pop in, I love reading through the diaries to get some inspiration. Sounds like you have a good plan. Do you have a DFD you're aiming for yet?

How easy is it to sell on Amazon? I've never tried it but have a few books that could go and might give it a whirl...

x

MinkyBoo

Hiya, thanks for reading,

I love looking through the diaries for inspiration and the old style board too for cheaper ways to do stuff. I've not worked out a debt free day mainly because I'm not sure how to figure that out and I've got a wedding to save for too, so I think once I've got my overdraft paid off and my creditcard to a round number (I'm so OCD about stuff sometimes) most of the debt will be 0% interest so I'll start saving, it'd be so nice to get married knowing we're not adding to the debt.

It's really easy to list on amazon you just have to type in the ISBN code off the back of the book and all the details automatically come up, then you just pick your price and its up for sale. The good thing is there are no fees if you don't sell your book, but the bad is you have no idea when someone might want to buy your book and I think the fees are more than ebay but it is sooooo easy to list and often you'll get a higher price than ebay and it's always a nice surprise bonus when one has sold.

Determined_2b_Debt_Free

Hi again,

I know what you mean about round figures! I'm just the same, it looks so much better with noughts on the end

Great idea saving for the wedding rather than adding it to the debt, we didn't have loads of ours going on debt and were reasonably sensible but nowhere near as sensible as I am now so I wish I'd had known a bit more about money management back then.

I love playing around with the snowball calculator to give me different debt free dates if I pay so much off etc - It's great fun... in a weird way!

Thanks for the Amazon advice, I think I might give it a go with a couple of books then.

Good luck with your journey, I'll keep popping in to see how you're going :beer:

MinkyBoo

Eeeek my laptop died, it's been sent off to be fixed but the lack of internet has meant I can't watch the pennies very well. So quick update to say I've sold two things on amazon, quidco is about to pay me £8ish and I've just this morning received the cheque from talk talk. No ebaying has been done cos the lack of laptop either can't wait to get it back and then I will feel on top of things again.

MinkyBoo

OK still on borowed laptop, but have joined £10 a day challenge but gonna try for £5 a day this month. Really need to pull my socks up and get at least some of this debt paid off so I can concentrate on paying for our wedding. I think I need a plan for the week, so I'm off to concoct a list.

Minky x

MinkyBoo

Today has been a low spend day, I went out and got the last few bits of shopping I needed for the grand total of £1.75, I was shocked it cost so little. I also picked up some really cute tall glasses/icecream sundae bowls and a mug from a charity shop. I didn't need them but it was £1.99 for the glasses and 49p for the mug, I'm planning to use the mug to grow some herbs in indoors and thought it would be a cute, super cheap plant pot. Also bought a first class stamp for my Mum's birthday card it's her birthday tomorrow, I hope it gets there on time :eek: although she does already have her gift.

I've paid the talk talk cheque into the bank today the scratchcards are done and I've got homemade pizza cooking for tea, now if only I could be this organised all the time I have a feeling I wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

Minky x