I'm Going to Reduce My Debt

lynzpower

ebay or amazin I reckon for text books.

Ive sold mine through ebay as I personally prefer the format.

Millionare

Yeah, Ive got ebay account. Ill stick them up on there. If you dont mind me asking did you get a decent return? im thinking of auction format instead of buy it now.

Hallam_Macca

Yeah I'll do that. Thanks for the advice.

I do need to stop spending as much as I do so yeah I'm up for trying to cut back as much as possible. Although I think I've made a decent start, I don't think I've fully realised what things I can live without, just by doing this spending diary has helped me a lot. I never realised what rubbish I was wasting my money on. £10 a month just doing a game at work. I must have been mad!

lynzpower

Millionare wrote:

Yeah, Ive got ebay account. Ill stick them up on there. If you dont mind me asking did you get a decent return? im thinking of auction format instead of buy it now.

I actually did buy it now on a lot of them

Your best bet is to look if there are any others and price accordingly.

Eg one of the books I had had 3 alternatives on ebay at one time and they seemed to be closing around the 8.50 mark, so i did buy it now at 8.50- sold within a day. One book I knew was in demand but rare, started it at 4.99 and sold it for 15 in the end. Weird as you can get them new for 17 but theres no accounting for what people will buy on ebay is there!

I remember when I first started selling on ebay properly ( march time when I joined up) I was the ultimate sad case listing books on ebay at 11.00 on a saturday night, and I am not exxaggerating here I sold 2 within minutes of listing them :beer:

I found that my books sold very quickly on ebay, i was selling politics, environmentalism, social policy & social work. Adoption books sell extremely well so if anyone has any of these - get them sold!

climbgirl

Hallam_Macca wrote:

I do need to stop spending as much as I do so yeah I'm up for trying to cut back as much as possible. Although I think I've made a decent start, I don't think I've fully realised what things I can live without, just by doing this spending diary has helped me a lot. I never realised what rubbish I was wasting my money on. £10 a month just doing a game at work. I must have been mad!

That's the key to this and well done for realising it! You have a very low salary but you spend an awful lot of it on rubbish - itunes, fantasy football, going out. It's all just wasted cash. If you're serious about clearing these debts quickly then you have to cut out all that stuff. Your mobile bill is way too high, switch to a better contract or better still, go pay as you go.

If you cut back on all non-essentials (basically rent, bills, food and transport) then this debt will be cleared fast. If you keep wasting money on things like itunes, away games and fantasy football fees, you won't get anywhere.

Hallam_Macca

Today I went out for my lunch with some workmates. Ended up spending £4.25 on the food and £1.13 on half of lager. That was my only spending for today even though it's probably more waste! Was expecting to pay some money out on a prescription for my ear trouble but it isn't as serious as first thought so I'll be above a steaming bowl of water and Vicks with a towel over my head. Lovely!

I have managed to reduce my mobile bill a bit in the future, I was subscribed to an SMS service which has now been cancelled. It was costing me anything between £5-£10 every month!

I did pixie1's fantastic thread about how much everyone has cut their debt by during 2006, here's the link http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=332438. I was expecting my overall debt to have gone up but I was surprised that despite my finances not being great I had actually reduced my debt by £618.65.

If I can do that before now just how much can be achieved when I'm actively trying to reduce the debt I have?

One more full day to work before Christmas now, it's mad busy trying to get everything done as quick as possible so people can go home early for the holidays.

We normally get a lot of goodies from our contractors for Christmas but having reduced the number of contractors we use and general bad blood over the year we haven't had as much therefore we won't be receiving anything tomorrow apart from a bottle of cheap plonk form the directors. I wouldn't mind that if certain people in the company hadn't been hording gifts that have been coming in for themselves! We've all worked hard over the year so why should certain people decide to reward themselves and not share out to the others? The whole thing stinks. Bah humbug to every single one of them!

nicola1982_2

I suggest you get rid of the 'treats' for a while. Sky TV I think you can reduce - we have a good package for £21 per month (no movies/sport) but I should stress we use Sky TV as an alternative to clubbing etc, we have nights in watching Will & Grace or Two Pints repeats with a curry and beer for fun.

Budgeting is all about prioritising. Some people choose an annual foreign holiday over eating out, some choose good quality wine over expensive supermarket foods, some would rather have a nice car than live in an expensive home - it's all relative.

So think about what you love and focus. I'm guessing it's the footie. So choose your season ticket over weekly pub lunches/clubbing, have footie evenings in with mates, watch a random foreign match in the evening. Downshift your clothing - try Next Clearance for jeans/tops. Just try and weight it all up.

Hallam_Macca

Thanks for the post Nicola. Your very right I do love my footy. I'll try to put what you've said into action. It makes a lot of sense.

I've not updated this for a while, been on my death bed for most of the week and not getting much better so looks like I won't be having the greatest of Christmasses!

I have spent a bit more over the last few days. I bought a programme at the football yesterday costing me £2.50 and today I bought a few bits from the supermarket for tomorrow coming to £23.85. I was going to use my Nectar card to pay for all of this but I the card wasn't registered at the Sainsbury's store I was at so I couldn't use it to pay for my goods. Absolutely stupid rule!

I went to Customer Services to complain but got nowhere, the store I was at has had over 150 complaints about this in one week alone and I'm not surprised. It's all the same company so why can't you get money off in any store?

The rules are changing though, you can now use your Nectar card to pay off the things you buy at stores but you must have spent at least £1 48 prior at that store using your card before you can use your card to use it to pay off the stuff you buy. Still a crazy rule though!

Last of all Merry Christmas hope you all have a great day tomorrow!

Hallam_Macca

First of all I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. Mine wasn't too bad despite still being ill, I just can't shake this cough and cold off at all although I am improving now.

I didn't spend any money on Christmas Day, nowhere to spend my money so did well. On Boxing Day however I went to the football. Spent £20 on admission to the game, would have been £18 if I had bought my ticket early but I had run out of time. Need to remind myself in future to save some money. I also spent £2.50 on a programme from the game. Bought some stuff from the local Tesco Extra for the journey there, this came to about £1.50.

In a state of panic at the moment. I've got my mobile bill and season ticket payment due before the end of the year but I have money for this but nothing else. I still need to get some stuff for my holiday as well as other planned engagements! It's my sisters 21st tomorrow as well so I'm borrowing £30 off my dad to get her something today.

I've raiding my money bottle which I put any 1p, 2p, 5p & 10p's that I have outstanding. Counting full bags I've managed to get £18 from that and a bit spare to build up in future. I'm going to bank this now.

Anyways must go in a huge rush!

Hallam_Macca

Happy Days! I've just been let out of work early! Really needed because I'm still ill, tired and drained so I need some sleep!

I've virtually got no money left until the 6th Jan when I get paid next. I've borrowed £30 from my dad so I could buy my sister a present and card for her 21st. Ended up spending £32.31 on all the stuff for her.

My mobile bill left my account on the 27th totalling £58.41. I expect this to lower next month as I've used it less and I'm not receiving the SMS text messages that were costing a small fortune. I'm going to see what my bill is next month and see how much it comes to before I look to reduce my call package.

The Season Ticket payment of £23.89 left my account yesterday. Only another 4 payments on that to go.

My mum is paying me back some money that she owes me today. I'll be getting £28 plus a ticket for tomorrows football game down in Gillingham costing £15. I wouldn't bother going there if my money was so tight but I used to live there a few years back and I haven't been back since, it's just a shame it comes just after Christmas. I still need to arrange transport to get there, waiting for my mate to get back to me on that if not I'll be on the megabus. Does anyone know of any codes for megabus to get the price down even further?