Amatheya's £4,000 in 2011 Diary

Amatheya81

First let me say sorry for this mamoth starting post!

Ok, so a little bit of backgroung. At the begining of 2009 I decided it was time to sort out my life. I'd just kicked my waste of space boyfriend out of my appartment, I wanted to lose weight and I was starting to realise that I needed to do something about my debt.

So I spent 2009 for want of a better phrase "finding myself". I joined a gym, lost 3 stone, redecorated my appartment, started up as a freelance artist/illustrator and pretty much cleaned and spruced up my life, I even had a couple of trapeze lessons... Trust me if you ever get the chace to have a go, do! It's the most liberating, self confidence boosting thing in the world!... And it's very good for toning your bottom too!!! lol

When 2010 rolled in I decided to do something about my debt. This unfortunately meant leaving the gym and giving up my plans to have another go at trapeze The year started out well but as it went on I found myself slipping back into old habbits, partually spured on by the bordome of not being able to go to the gym etc. As a result I'm finishing the year with most of my debt still hanging about and having put on 9lb Not good!!!

So onward and upward! 2011 is just round the corner and as I'm a big fan of both blogging and new years resolutions I will be using this diary to keep track of my goals and keep myself motivated!

So, my goals for this year are...

Save £4,000 so that I can pay off my personal loan 1 year early.
Lose 2 stone
Start earning profit from my art business... I don't care how much, it could be 10p for all I care as long as it's something.

To give you an idea of where I am in relation to these goals, I started recording how much debt I had 3 years ago when I bought my appartment. At my worst point I had £25k of debt including 3 loans, 2 credit cards and a overdraft. I now have £17,700 of debt including 1 loan, 2 credit cards and a overdraft. So I have paid £7,300 in the past couple of years and got rid of two smaller loans in the process.

This year I really want to clear my last loan which is about £8,200. If I do nothing but make my payments (which I always do) I'll have it down to just over £4k by the end of the year and cleared by the end of 2012 but as the payments on this loan make my life really hard I want to get it all out of the way during 2011 so that I can start 2012 with books that are easier to ballance!!

Origionally I was going to be putting any money I saved into a seperate bank account and then pay off a lump sum at the end of the year (as all over payments have to be made by cheque in no less than £100 incraments) however having chatted to people on the Debt-Free Wannabe board I've decided to put any money I havent spent each month onto my nasty high interest Egg card, which is currently just over £4k... The money I save on interest will be far more than anything I could have earned and at the end of the year I can do a low interest ballance transfer to clear the rest of my loan and reduce my crippling payments to something that is more managable and will atleast allow me to go back to the gym!!!

As for how I'm going to find this magic £4k, I have to admit that at the moment I'm at a bit of a loss I have very little I can eBay (although I will have another scout around for likely items after Christmas) so that idea's out the window. But I have joined lots of servey sites, I also write a lot of DooYoo reviews and there's always the chance I will be able to sell some of my artwork. I had conssidered getting a second job but to be honest I really do have too many work/personal commitments already so I think if I got a second job I might die of exhaustion!! I have already reduced my outgoings by dropping all non essentials... no more Sky+! I don't drink often (maybe once every couple of months), I don't smoke. I do have a soft spot for books and DVD's but I never buy new unless I have a gift voucher and I always review new stuff on Doo Yoo so I can earn more gift vouchers I also always buy second hand/sale clothing and I'm not fussed about brand name foods (appart from tea bags... must have a good cuppa)

So that's me and my little debt problem all layed out. To reach my goal I have 12 months to find £4k... Wish me luck!!!

CommitedToChange

Good luck :beer:

Seven_Summers

I wish you all the very best in 2011...:beer:..you will get there!

SS x

amber03

We're with you all the way, GOOD LUCK

Amatheya81

Thanks Guys :beer:

Just sold a old rat cage for £25 on ebay (did I mention I keep rattys) Another little bit for the pot :jI also sold another one earlier this week for £37... Unfortunately I also got a letter to say I have to renew the photo on my drivers licence which will cost me £30 :undecided

I spent the past couple of hours kicking my but off the sofa and making myself do some painting... If you want to see what I'm working on you can search for Amatheya's Studio on Blogger

Amatheya81

Good Morning .... Hang on it's afternoon... Bother!

So today I've decided to join the 2011 virtual sealed pot challenge. What a fantastic idea it is! I'm going to put my "change" onto my credit card every Friday so I'm quite looking forward to seeing all those little amounts comming off my statment
I've also heard from the buyer for the cage I sold yesterday who will be collecting this week. Much better than the buyer of my last cage who took forever!!

Unfortunately I've had some bad new too. The lift in my appartment building has been out of order for nearly a year and now I've found out that there's a clause in the service contract that may mean that us tennants will have to pay for it to be fixed. It is likely to be around £300 each!! Not good!! That's the last time I buy a appartment, I will definately be looking at a house once my debt is gone.

Tonight I will hopefully have some surveys to do and I'm going to attempt to finish my latest painting.
I'm going to put the new painting aside to market to fine art card companies. I'll need another 5 before I can start writting eMails to publishers but if I work hard in Jan I should be able to start marketing in Feb... All the new work will look good on my website too.

So that's me for today. Hope everyone else is having a good day

Amatheya81

:mad: Stress, stress, stress!!! Amazon have got seriouse dispatch issues and anything that was ordered this month is unlikely to arrived before next week at the earliers... Problem! I've got two orders outstanding and I head off to Canada on Sunday!!! Looks like I'll have to go without my Christmas pressents as I was ordering stuff on behalf of my mom for me

On the bright side they've credited me £5 for the inconvienience... Apparently they normally wouldn't as it's not their fault RM is a mess but the woman felt bad because I was being so nice about it even though I'm obviously miffed... I guess sometimes it does pay not to rant and rave!!

Amatheya81

Another productive day.

This morning I went to the bank and deposited £65... I also managed to spill lots of pennies on the floor in the process which was very embarrising. I've got some money bags from the bank teller so that I can deposite all my pennies.

Unfortunately I ran out of sandwich filling this moring so I made a conciouse effort to take some change and buy some scotch pancakes which are 29p for lunch instead of shelling out on a sandwich. It's shopping day tomorrow!

Yesterdays surveys resulted in £1.50 for the pot. So I've now earned £3.48 in a week and been entered into lots of prize draws. I couldn't believe that last time I did them I didn't qualify for any... then I realised I've entered a new age bracket since then, I'm obviously now old enough to have an oppinion lol!

I'm trying really hard to concentrate on the little amounts as I have a tendancy to look at the bigger picture and feel completely overwhelmed... If I look at my target of £4k I just see a big flashing sign saying IMPOSSIBLE but if I look at the little bit's, the odd £ here and there I feel like I really might manage it.
I'm one for speadsheets and last night I spent some time working through a prediction of what money I will be able to put aside reasonable and figgured that withought any super human effort I should make just under the £2,000 (all going well) so if I really, really try to make some extra dosh surely I'll be able to double that.

I also joined the virtual sealed pot challenge

Jubilee76

Hi Amatheya :j

Good luck in 2011. You come across as so positive in your posts, I've no doubt you'll do well.

I'll subscribe and pop in to chat as I'd like to try to increase my payments this year by doing various ebay etc and could do with someone to motivate me if you don't mind

Jubilee x

Amatheya81

Hi Jubilee :beer:

Great to see you here, maybe we can keep eachother motivated :T

Amatheya81

And another thing!!! lol

So I decided to check out my Equifax report online this afternoon for two reasons, firstly £5 cashback on Quidco and secondly I've been rejected for credit cards (to move to 0% ballances) several times over the past year dispite the fact that I should have perfect credit... I'm a home owner on a good wage who hasn't missed a payment in over a year and I've absolutely always had fantastic credit.

So I looked on Equifax and what should I see but a default!!! :mad: Turns out a month or two after I left o2 they tried to debit my account £7 however the direct debit had been cancelled by that point and they didn't bother calling, sending me a bill or a demand!! I'm a bit miffed as it's not as if I've moved or changed my phone number.

All credit to o2 customer service the woman I called about it was very appologetic and sorted out the account immediately and gave me the details of thair credit file department so that I can send them the details and with a little luck get the default removed.

So now my only problem is figguring our how to cancel my blinking Equifax account before the free 30 days!!!

Hope everyone else is having a better day :beer: