Jwil's sorting the debt, the body, the house, the garden and everything else diary!

jwil

I've had some lovely messages from people I have sold stuff to recently on ebay, it makes a change from moaning ebayers! They've been thanking me for things they have bought and hoping to buy more.

I'm off out to meet a friend tonight for a drink. Should be nice as we haven't seen each other since February.

Have a good evening everyone!

jwil

Have sorted through another few boxes so that we are prepared for car booting at the weekend. We've bundled up some bits in the hope that we can clear more quickly.

There's another bag of stuff for the charity shop, a bag for some friends and a bag of rubbish, so that's good. :T

Finished another book today, so that will be gone for booting.

I got two amazon vouchers today - £5 from Bingoport and £10 from Valued Opinions, so they've been added to my account, and I look forward to spending them

NSD again for me today which makes number 8! Just got to see if I can fit another two in before the end of the month.

Got a free 3kg bag of dry dog food to test today, it looks like it's the same stuff we normally feed the dog, so that is quite a saving :j He's got to have it for the next 10 days, then we report back.

Tonight I think I am going to continue working through the pile of magazines so I can get rid of them. First I'm going to try and put the hoover back together though to see if it is fixed!

Have a good one everyone!

jwil

I haven't really been on here for a while, but have been keeping busy!

I managed to get through the huge pile of magazines and could barely lift the recycling box this morning! They've all gone now, so that is a load out of the way. Decluttered a few drawers before work the other morning, so they are looking better.

We did 2 boot sales at the weekend, and got rid of quite a lot of stuff so that's all good! I should really be listing stuff on ebay, but I'm struggling to find the energy. I have sold a book on amazon today though so will get that posted tomorrow.

I managed to fix the dyson, the new belt was so stiff to put on, but my word what a difference! I emptied the hoover before I put it back together, then quickly hoovered through the front room etc, and needed to empty the hoover again! Ewwwww! :eek:

The house was really dusty before we moved in, and obviously the hoover has not been working properly for months, so methinks a good clean is needed.

Chile and France are both out of the World Cup now, so that's me not going to win the sweepstakes. I'm not sure I'm bothered who will win now especially as England have also gone home.

Payday tomorrow, that has been a long time in coming this month, so should be able to get some more knocked off the debt.

Have a good evening everyone!

Mags30

I've just spotted your diary, really enjoyed reading through it. I think I have as many toiletries as you have books! Can't believe you got that casserole for £1, do the people selling these things have no idea what they cost in the shops.

I've signed up for loads of survey sites in the last month and a few mystery shopping ones too, hoping to have some vouchers by Christmas. Could you try that for extra money? I check the "Up Your Income" forum on here every day too, it's inspiring- has all sorts of random money making ideas!

jwil

Hi Mags! Thanks for popping in!

I was so surprised about the casserole too, I wonder why people give stuff away so cheaply, but then I guess sometimes they just want to get rid. We would have snapped it up if they'd asked £5 for it too though! Any more than that and the 'do we REALLY need it' would have kicked in, even though it would still have been a bargain.

I used to have loads of toiletries too, and have managed to work my way through that habit :rotfl: When we were clearing my MIL's house I inherited bag loads of them so I literally did not need to buy anything for probably a year or more! I've just got a stash of bath stuff which I am using as shower gel to clear now.

I see from your sig you are doing the toiletry challenge - how are you getting on with it?

I already belong to loads of survey sites and have done a few mystery shops - they seem to go really quickly around here though, so don't get the opportunity very often. I've done well out of the surveys though - have cashed in quite a bit in amazon vouchers and have even got things to test as well - I've recently had shampoo and conditioner (coincidentally, the one I use anyway!), 4 boxes of washing powder and a big bag of dog food. It's really great!

I should definitely check the up your income board more often than I do, I could do with a bit more cash!

jwil

Well it is payday today :j:j:j:j

Unfortunately it's all gone now though

Have paid today:
£250 to DH
£50 to CC1
£200 to CC2
£115 to CC3
£67 to catalogue (cleared) :T

Money for other bills is set aside for the month, and I have filled the car, withdrawn cash to hopefully last me the month, all of which means there is nothing left to PAD. So the aim for this month is to try and earn some extra money to allow for any extras. It is my niece's birthday this month, but I have already bought her present, so just a card needed there, and to post it up to her.

I am going to try and be more frugal with food this month and will try and follow the tips from the website that Weezl et al produced - http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/ even if I don't follow the plan, there's a lot I can take from it.

Got to go, tea is ready, curry - yum!

jwil

Ooh, I've just found 9p to go in the coke bottle too, off to update my sig now!

jwil

I read on here the other day that Lloyds TSB are going to start charging £5 per month for their overdraft. :eek: I already (stupidly) pay £9 per month for the account which is really idiotic of me because it is not even my main account, I just keep it so that I can pay money in branch when I need to (my main account is internet only). Anyway, reading this article has finally kicked me up the !!!! to get rid of the account. So yesterday, I opened up a basic account with Natwest, no frills, just a debit card, and a savings account with them too which I might try and use to put money away for annual things like car insurance and car tax etc. Once this account is up and running, I need to pay off the overdraft with Lloyds which is £140 and close the account. That will save me £10 a month, and even the odd charge if I haven't made sure the £10 is there on time!

I also opened a savings account for DH strictly for me to pay the money I owe him into, this means that he will have a nice cushion to use whenever he wants and it won't get frittered away like it might if it goes into his current account.

Not sure if we are car booting this weekend, possibly tomorrow, but we get the van back finally if all goes well, so we might be busy crying over the bill . Sunday is not looking good weather-wise so doesn't look like we'll be doing one then.

In that case I shall have a relaxed weekend just pottering around the house and reading, sorting things and maybe listing some on ebay.

Have a good weekend everyone!:)

jwil

Well we got the van back this weekend, the total bill came to around £3000 :eek::eek:. We had expected this but DH has paid it and my half is included in the total I owe him. Just glad it wasn't any more. We have to run in the new engine for 500 miles, and it is not running brilliantly yet, so trying to keep DH's patience is quite difficult. It's getting better, so hopefully we'll get there!

Other than that we did 2 car boot sales over the weekend, and got rid of a fair bit of stuff. I 'only' bought 4 books too, so kind of behaved myself . After the boot sale on Sunday, we decided that we had been carrying some stuff for far too long and it wasn't selling so it was time to have a cull. We have now gotten rid of 22 bags of books, a large box of bric a brac, and a load of other bits to the local charity shop. We called them up before we took it, and they were quite happy to accept it, and any of the books they cannot sell, they can recycle and get paid for it, so they didn't mind at all what we gave them :T:T:T

It feels so good to have got rid of a lot of stuff, even though we've still got so much more to get rid of, but we can start carrying new stuff now, and are going to give everything a strict number of times we will carry it before it goes off to charity.

Just chuckling at DH, the dog has deposited a huge number of toys at his feet in the hope that he will throw one of them for him :rotfl::rotfl:

jwil

I picked up a piece of graph paper last night and counted (!) all the squares on there. I then divided that number by the value of the house when we moved in in Feb, and it worked out that each square was worth approx £15. I've shaded all of the squares which equal the amount of equity in the house, so we can see at a glance how much of the house we own. Each time we make a payment, I shall colour the equivalent value in squares so we can see how much we've paid off. I hope that once my debts are gone to start overpaying the mortgage so this should be a nice visual motivator.

I probably haven't explained it very well, but it looks pretty good!