Mrs Sparkle's sparkly debt diary

kathfisch

Ooh... well done you with the change of attitude to the meal out! :T Nothing wrong with the occasional treat if you'll really enjoy it... but not getting more into debt is a treat too!

Its good to hear that the challenges are keeping you occupied, its great to have something to focus on isn't it?! We'll have to devise a new challenge when the money for nothing one is finished... I've got into this buy-at-car-boot-sale-then-put-it-on-ebay lark... made me quite a bit so far! :T

Take care

Kath x

Mrs_Sparkle

Haven't quite managed to get to a boot sale yet Kath and I'm worried that the ones around my way will be overpriced but I may try my dad's trick and go with a handful of coins and a good haggling technique!

Treats are good but at the moment it's more of a treat for me to sit and watch my eBay watchers going up... how sad am I!!!!

lynsayjane

Mrs_Sparkle wrote:

Haven't quite managed to get to a boot sale yet Kath and I'm worried that the ones around my way will be overpriced but I may try my dad's trick and go with a handful of coins and a good haggling technique!

Treats are good but at the moment it's more of a treat for me to sit and watch my eBay watchers going up... how sad am I!!!!

thats not sad, thats fun! i've done that before it's terrible for the first couple of days when noone looks at stuff! sounds like your doing much better than last week hunny :T

Mrs_Sparkle

Another week and I've just committed to the following challenges for this week:

List a further 10 items on eBay and Amazon- I still have time to make my £200 target for October
-Count my change whisky tin contents and bank it
-Keep top-up shopping to £10 or less
-Find another 0% deal to BT my Mint card as 0% has run out on that one
-Put my expenses claim in (£500ish

My eBay sales are going well- 16 items listed at the moment, 5 of these ending in the next 2 days and 3 of them have bids. I'm hoping for a last-minute bidding war to bump up my monthly total.

Amazon has been slow this month- I sold more in the last week of September than I have all month so far in October. People must be saving their pennies for Christmas shopping... oh well, I'll keep it all listed and there might be surge of sales in the last 9 days of the month- here's hoping!

I have big hopes for November as it's a cheaper month than September (weekend away with the girls) and October (week away with hubby). We now have all the big stuff that we need for the baby and I have almost enough clothes for him too. I need some more nappies- only got 6 clothies at the moment and he'll need a lot more than that! But that can wait so November should be a big no-spending debt-overpaying month. That massive total of mine will finally start showing some progress!

Hope everyone else is doing well x

Mrs_Sparkle

Woohoo! Something I'd only just listed on Amazon this afternoon just sold... Sundays are definitely a good day for internet purchases. Will update my signature and then hopefully I'll get to update it again on Tuesday when 5 eBay listings end. Finally I seem to be getting somewhere with my October challenge :j

kathfisch

Well done on all those challenges for the coming week! :T I'll keep my fingers crossed for your ebay and amazon sales... mine have been slow in the last few weeks too but I think you might be right about them picking up as we get closer to Christmas!

I'm sure you'll have a fab November and be able to update that total very impressively!!

Kath x

Edit: that's great about the amazon sale! Sundays are good, aren't they, especially rainy wet ones like we've had today (well, here anyway!).

angelite_2

Hi, I've just read your thread and think you're doing great. I think its the change in thinking that is hard, but you certainly seem to be getting there. I'm doing the money for nothing challenge too, but haven't made any money yet, hopefully will this week with ebay sales. Keep going x

Verbatim

Well done Mrs Sparkle. you're doing sooo well.

Could you remind me when your baby is due?

Mrs_Sparkle

Hi Verbatim, baby is due 8th Feb. You're doing so well too- what a huge amount you've cleared this year- well done!

Mrs_Sparkle

I love this time of the month... only 3 sleeps till pay day and my expenses will be coming through so I'll make some headway on paying off my CCs.

It's not been a bad week actually- most of my eBay items have sold and Amazon is slow but steady. I finally got around to counting and banking the contents of my change whisky tin and there was £66 in there! The cashier told me off for carrying it all "in my condition" but it was worth it.

I've had mixed success with eBay- I thought it might be useful to give details in case it helps anyone else:

- L'Occitane gift set, cost £2 from Cancer Research: currently on £6.50 with 3 days to go
- Salt + pepper shakers, cost £1.50 from Cancer Research: currently no bids with 3 days to go (that's ok, I'll use them myself if they don't sell)
- Set of alphabet cookie cutters, cost 50p from Tesco (£1 on BOGOF): currently on £1.70 with 3 days to go
- Eyelash curlers, gift with purchase therefore free, currently going for 99p which I'll be happy with

And yet a beautiful set of cream enamel hooks from the Cotswold Company went for only 99p! It's so hard to predict what will sell.

I raided Tesco again today- the alphabet cookie cutters are still there but not on BOGOF anymore so they're £1 each. Lots of people on eBay are selling them for £3.99 BIN though so might be worth doing still. I decided to invest in toys instead- I picked up 3 sets of Bratz dolls clothes kits for £1.24 each (reduced from £4.99) and will list these later today.

Meanwhile the decluttering of the Sparkle household continues and my bookshelves are looking pretty neat and tidy after my Amazon blitz. Going to use my Paypal balance to have my first go at matched betting today so I'll report back on how that goes.

Fingers crossed for a rainy Sunday tomorrow so that everyone sits at home buying stuff from eBay and Amazon in their boredom :-)