Back filling the big hole I dug with my credit card

AllThatStuffIsJustStuff

I think it is harsh to say our last few days haven't been very MSE. OK, we haven't been making money through eBay or anything, but we have been doing only MSE activities. We've been making more jam with foraged fruit and I've been starting to build the playhouse with only scrap and spare wood. We haven't spent any money we didn't absolutely have to - we put £10 of diesel in the car yesterday and did food shopping on friday. That was it. Not bad going I would say. Especially given our wedding anniversary was in that time and we didn't evn contemplate treating ourselves to even a take out. We just had a normal dinner - the only change was that PBS made us a lovely foraged dessert.

Good news in terms of the MSE/OS lifestyle is that everyone is loving the jam and DD has hardly missed the telly at all. Really enjoying not having it around.

The metal gathering is going a pace too. I've been stripping out the house and garage of metal junk - even taking unused bits off the walls. I've also been picking bits up while we've been out on our walks. Found half a dozen solid iron bars in some bonfire remains a couple of days ago. Heavy to carry but well worth having. Or at least I hope so. We still have no idea what we will be paid for this haul. It must be worth a good few quid though given the amount of scrap collectors we hear round the houses atm. Not to mention the less enterprising b*******s thieving stuff. A couple of weeks ago I fell down a drain that someone had robbed the cover off. luckily i wasn't majorly injured. People have been telling me to sue but the only person i think it would be ethically right to sue would be the little git who nicked it, but I have no idea who that is. Anyway, i digress.

[Deleted User]

Hi there both,
Sounds like you've had a busy few days- you've both stayed very focused, I am still not doing so well, not using credit cards but not paying much more than the minimum off either. I really need to get my spending diary going again, been bit down again recently so have tried not to put too much pressure on myself, and realise that only a few months ago I would have been out spending on the credit card. So not spending is an improvement.

How long til the stove fitting? Bet you cant wait now!!

Look forward to reading about your progress- you inspire me!


PS- I'm enjoying the book x

Aesop

free listings on ebay this weekend pbs and alts

AllThatStuffIsJustStuff

Grrrr. Most annoying financial news of recent times. A few weeks ago our phone line was broken and as per usual the company said they would charge us if the fault was in the house. It was and took less than a half hour to fix. all the engineer did was reconnect two wire - no parts required. yet they have charged us the maximum £130 call out charge. very disappointing

Will post a full update later but just needed to get that off my chest.

AllThatStuffIsJustStuff

Thanks, Aesop. Will have another deserate rumage around but I think we are finally running out of junk that we can persaude anyone to part with 99p of their money for. That said, had an Ebay classic the other day. An item listed at £2 didn't sell so elisted at 99p and it went for £5.50. Go figure :S

Anyway, other than the annoying phone set back things have been going well. I'm really pleased with how the playfort/castle is coming along for the kids. i better make it great though since DD is quite happily going round telling everyone "My daddy buildin me a castle" Progress has been halted this morning by the rain though. The forecast is to clear this afternoon though so hopefully i'll be able to make some progress on it then. Have made an apple cake this morning which is in the oven and making the kitchen smell lovely. We have nowhere we need to be and nothing we need to do and we're just listening to music and doing little jobs while DD plays around. None of this is strictly financial but it does show how much happier and relaxed we are now we aren't trying to just spend our way through everything. And without the telly to go on automatically first thing it's so much more sociable.

Anyway, back to the money side of stuff and it isn't great. The phone shambles has left us flat skint till payday (next friday) but with my bread baking back in full flow and a well stocked store cupboard we should be able to get through the week without needing to spend - hopefully anyway Stove fund is grinding slowly to a halt with still about £300 to go. Cashflow wise this will be managable if we dont make it by the deadline, but i don't want to be in that position if we can help it. Trouble is that we're really starting to scrape the barrel in terms of stuff to sell. At least we got the roof fund out of the shares linked savings account before the recent slumps. Still waiting for the roofer to catch up on his schedule - it's not just my buildin project suffering from the rain lol.

Anyway, think i should get tidying in the living room.

PiggyBankShaker

Been a rubbish few day eBay wise. Didn't manage to get much listed on the free listing weekend. ATS relisted out Wii after we had a non-payer, and he also listed about 10 99p items. Most won't sell though I think Then, we realised that we had put my email address wrong for some items and the PayPal checkout process was bouncing, its rectifiable, but very very annoying. THEN, we underestinated the postage on two items so made an overall loss of £3.50 - not much but still we could do without it to be honest. Most annoying because the last two things are entirely our own fault and entirely avoidable.

We are now about £60 away from having made a total of £2000 since April and £300 short of the stove money.

In contrast I'm optimistic about a new cleaning rota that ATS and I are rolling out (yes, I am aware this the the very height of glamour and excitemet) as previously posted teh general state of our house gets me down, sometimes to teh point where I'm so depressed I can't atually do anything about it ad it spirals worse and worse from there. We're doing an adapted version of teh FlyLady cleaning rota from this very forum (!) and seeing how it works out for us over the next few weeks.

Also, I have found another job that I am going to tender for - in conjuction with ATS! We stand a good enough chance as anyone of getting it and the work itself is straightforward and pays well. Fingers crossed!

What else to say? Pay day Friday (woop woop) I will be in my overdraft by then, but only just - about £30 I estimate. Need to discuss with ATS how mch we can afford to pay towards the debt. This month we will finally drop below the £"k mark and the debt will have a 1 in the front for the first time in about 7 years or so I think. Amazing.

PiggyBankShaker

Where does the time go? Haven't had much time to do ebaying as ATS has been super busy building a fab playhouse in the back yard for the kids - I'm so proud that he has done the whole thing without spending a penny. And it looks amazing too. DD loves it already and will love it even more when the slide is in place.

Also, we've been working on our two business ideas and making little bits of progress on them. I can't say more yet, but I will do as soon as things get off the ground.

Still a little way off our stove target, about £200 I think. Friday, when I have some spare time I will do some ebay listings, but it'll be very tedious as it will just been 99p listing after 99p. Can't wait until it's fitted in less than two weeks. Its been the coldest summer for ages apparently and don't we flipping know it! Still not long before we can curl up in front of a nice cosy fire

pennywisepoundstupid

Playhouse sounds fantastic and i'm sure the kids will spend hours playing it, i remember when my kids were younger my OH brought home a huge tractor tyre from the farm we put it in the garden and filled it with sand, my DS thought he had the coolest sand pit ever and all his friends that were digger/tractor mad wanted one and not thhe expensive wooden shop bought ones that their parents had bought.

I bet you can't wait to get the stove in, it really has gone cold and feels very autumnal, we have already had our lit and the difference it makes is amazing, its the best money we have spent on the house and its lovely in winter when the winds howling and your snuggled up watching a film in front on it.

Good luck with the ebay listing, just keep thinking warm snuggly winter days to keep you going.

AllThatStuffIsJustStuff

It's been nearly two weeks since i last managed to write a diary post - and as PBS said, I've spent a fair whack of that building the kids' castle. I'm very chuffed with how it's coming along. It's amazing what you can do with some old decking and pallets. That's mostly whatit'smade of. More than my building though, I'm impressed by the backdrop PBS is painting of a hillside and sky - complete with banners wit DD and DS's names on them. It's going to be amazing when it's finished. just hope we get enough dry days to get it finished sometime soon. It's not just the weather mind - working around the littlens is challenging too. Structurally it's all finished but I need to make the tricky bits now - door, trapdoor, drawbridge and slide. I've got them all mapped in m mind but they are a bit more challenging to engineer than the main shell. Some people woul say that I've got carried away but I always like to push myself with these sorts of things. If I'd only done stuff I'd done before then there's no development.

Castle aside, Stove installation day is just over 10 days away. The downside though is that means only 12 days to starting the parquet flooring - which means i really need to get a move on to get the castle finished by then so that (a) we don't have (any additional) overlapping projects and (b) we have somewhere for DD to play while the living room is out of action.

Thanks for the message Pennywise. The tyre sandpit sounds amazing. If the castle wasn't already eating so much in to the yard I'd have to get one. You are right though. PBS's parents seem appauled that I'm building the castle. I think they think we should just buy some chunky plastic playhouse for the kids. Yes there'd be a lower splinter risk, but it wouldn't have any soul or carachter - but most of all, it wouldn't be uniquely theirs in the same way this will.

eBay is running so slow now - ultimately there is a limit to how much we had to sell and I think we've finally hit it.

Aesop

I know you have run out of stuff to ebay but

free listing this weekend

Re : Free listings weekend ~ please read
Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 September 2011
£0.00 insertion fees*
Valid for up to 100 auction-style listings with a starting price of £1 or more
All other eBay.co.uk selling fees will still apply
Applies to items listed with Quick Sell or Advanced Sell (Sell Your Item) forms or the eBay applications for iPhone, iPad or Android
Items listed using professional tools are excluded
Open to all users registered on eBay.co.uk (except business sellers and below standard sellers)

The T&Cs Have changed, Ebay have limited the free insertions to 100 items