Debt Free By 30-ish Diary

bobbie78

Thanks for the words of encouragement yesterday. I ended up staying in a hotel last night for a mystery shop, I though it would be a nice break away from the house mates, but as there wasn't room service or a restaurant I ended up having the worst service station dinner and breakfast I've had in years, which really took the edge off staying in a "free" hotel for the night.

I got home to find the fridge in my room has died, so all the food in their is going to have to be chucked. I brought the fridge around September from ebay as 6 adults in 1 house with 1 fridge freezer, doesn't leave much room for more than milk and one ready meal each. So I got the fridge convincing myself I'd start cooking more if I could have places to keep things. It did help me a bit I guess, but unless I can get a replacement from freecycle I think I'll just keep looking for a new cheaper house share (got a few leads) and make sure they have more fridge space.

I have sold a couple more dvd's on amazon, I can't recommend listing things fast enough. Most of the dvd's I've sold I bought for 2 or 3 quid from blockbuster as ex-rental ones. I've included this fact in the listing and I've still sold most of them for more than I've brought them for so I'm looking at a nice 50 quid from amazon soon minus the postage I paid out.

I signed up for a cahoot account and that has tracked already in quidco but I'm still waiting for the A&L account to be sorted out with my correct name, and for that to show in quidco. It better track or I'm just going to cancel due to lack of confidence that they can send me an email with my name on correctly but in the time it takes to process the application my surname completely changes to something else.

I have another mystery shop lined up tomorrow which is a 3 part one which will end up with a one month subscription to a gym for free (might go swimming a couple of times at least) and 30 quid payment which is good.

I have already had a couple of emails / phone calls with people offering me mortgages which is really quite scary, as northern rock (for example) will give you a 2 year fixed rate repayment mortgage on the basis of career history rather than time in a job apparently according to the IFA broker person trying to get my business anyway.

I am meeting up with my friend this weekend as she is taking me out for curry and drinks for my birthday, so we are going to have a sit down and work out what she can afford realistically, and how much the houses are in the area she wants. I'm going on a course next week about the ins and outs of setting up an ltd company and if it is worth doing or not so I should have a better idea then as to what I'm going to do on that score. If I do though I will have to budget in for an accountant and lots of insurances and things. I think I should either do the house or the business and not both in one year, or not at the same time at least, as that will be too much to handle. I'm a bit worried about all this talk of inflation and interest rates and things also so I think ali007 you are right that it needs to be a project.

I feel there are still things possibly missing from my SOA so I'm going to try and have a think. I just don't want to end up whereby my budget expands to fit my income, when I have lived off a lower income for many years and that was with buying all sorts of rubbish I shouldn't have.

Still no word about getting the on-call payments sorted with work, the agency sent another chase email to the client and cc'd me in this time, my manager hasn't been in to ask this week so I haven't had my time sheets signed or had a chance to get the contract sorted. Hopefully by the end of this week it will be resolved.

OK off to tesco to replace some of the food with non-fridge food and try and find something healthy (ish) to take to work tomorrow.

bobbie78

I have been trying to figure out the best way to cancel the lloyds platinum account as I begrudge the 15 quid a month, but I needed the motor cover. I was planning on digging out some tesco vouchers at the weekend and using them for rac cover but thanks to a tip on the olympic challenge thread I've just signed up to green flag, via quidco getting 20 quid cash back and a years policy is costing 29.40 so it is costing me less than 1 months lloyds bank charge for cover for the whole year, and I can save my tesco vouchers for something I want to spend them on as a treat. Just tried to call lloyds and cancel the fee account however on their 24 hour phone banking (as I couldn't see anywhere to do it on the internet banking) and I have to call back between 8am and 10pm as it is dealt with by another department.

That is another 15 quid a month to go towards coffee, I mean credit cards :j

bobbie78

Well back from seeing friends for my birthday. Didn't end up being exactly what I expected due to bad weather and babysitting failures but ended up only spending about 20 quid as went out for a curry and only 1 drink after, then went to cinema today but managed to use my cineworld pass so that counts as a free go. normally if I go visit these friends we end up at vue so all worked out quite well apart from some scary driving home in the sleet/snow.

Another bonus was I got a coffee maker for my birthday!!:j so no excuses for going to starbucks now, just have to see how much the pod things cost and see where I can get them from.

I've sold 5 more dvd's since I last posted but amazon messed up some how and sold one dvd twice, a couple of the others that were sold were still showing as listed too but with quantity 0. I gave the person a refund as soon as I figured out what was happening and have tried to contact amazon to complain but haven't had a response yet. Will have to post on the amazon thread for some advice soon I think.

I thought I'd finally closed my egg card the other day and they took a 1.50 outstanding payment, but when I got back today there was another 7.59 on there, I had to ring them to see what it was for as the internet banking wasn't working but it looks like interest from last month. I said OK can I pay it and close it today, she said you have to have a month with a 0 balance, well I don't want to have interest acrewing on this though or it will just keep happening for months. In the end she took an over payment of 10 quid which should cover any other interest they might add in a state of weirdness then they will refund me the difference. I just hope that works and I won't have to go through this again next month.

I've done a couple more mystery shopping jobs and have 2 more set for tomorrow so I'll need to go through and update my gold challenge total soon.

I have also realised that my concerns about blowing the food budget was completely wrong, even with sneaky trips to get coffee I'm only at £80 - 50 on groceries and 30 on takeaways and coffee. Considering I gave myself a bigger budget of 120 this month (which is a huge reduction on pre-lightbulb from eating out all the time) I'm actually still well under this so I'm determined now to come in under 120.

I've setup quicken to hide money for car insurance etc so I am actually budgeting things and loving the graphs and pie charts, I'm just still trying to make sure I've included everything I need to in my SOA so I know what I've got for debt repayment so I don't end up with any surprises that need to go on the credit cards.

bobbie78

Happy birthday to me :j

Today I did a mystery shop for a pizza place for my birthday tea. I hadn't planned to but they rang me this morning desperate for someone to go, so I thought that would be a good birthday treat. The next 2 day's I'm doing pub visits too so that's my birthday drinks sorted. Also I got a free drink at starbucks today so apart from posting some amazon dvd's this morning, and paying for the pizza (but I'll get that money back) it has been a NSD but with lots of treats.

I got my password for my icici savings account today so I have logged into that and done a small test transfer before I move all the money over for my car insurance etc into there to keep it out of my current account so I don't spend it by mistake. Also after 20 minutes on the phone got my platinum stuff cancelled on my lloyds account, so they will change it to a classic account, then I'll have to upgrade it to a classic plus account so I can get interest on money when it is waiting to go out to pay the bills. Apparently they couldn't change it all in one go, but at least that is 15 quid a month I'll be better off.

Other good things are I'm still not smoking so I have not smoked for Four weeks, one day, 6 hours, 40 minutes and 44 seconds. 439 cigarettes not smoked, saving £98.81. Well it isn't saving it is not spending on credit cards, but it is weird I'm getting my sense of smell back, which I hadn't realised I had lost to such an extent. In a way I could do with loosing it again a bit more as I hadn't realised how potent some people at work are.

bobbie78

To Do list :-

ring tax credits people and see if they did take too much money and get refund, or confirm final overpayment date.

send p45 to umbrella company

get time sheets done and mileage sorted out

get manager to email head office about getting contract finalised.

ring axa and see how long money will take to come through from cashed in policy as they keep sending me letters about cancelling dd.

have another look at hosting companies and backup current websites / plan migration to new host.

find accountant

check out ltd co's with nominated secretaries to see if they are a good idea or not.

do mystery shopping tonight and book the induction for other job, get all paper work sorted.

post amazon dvd sold yesterday

charge camera and see about ebay listings.

bobbie78

Oh just saw I've reached the 100 quid mark for not spending on ciggys, and it isn't a month yet as I quit on the 26th of December. How scary is that.

Four weeks, one day, 18 hours, 11 minutes and 57 seconds. 446 cigarettes not smoked, saving £100.43.

bobbie78

bobbie78 wrote:

To Do list :-

ring tax credits people and see if they did take too much money and get refund, or confirm final overpayment date.

send p45 to umbrella company

get time sheets done and mileage sorted out - Done

get manager to email head office about getting contract finalised. - Done

ring axa and see how long money will take to come through from cashed in policy as they keep sending me letters about cancelling dd. Done

have another look at hosting companies and backup current websites / plan migration to new host.

find accountant

check out ltd co's with nominated secretaries to see if they are a good idea or not.

do mystery shopping tonight and book the induction for other job, get all paper work sorted. done

post amazon dvd sold yesterday done

charge camera and see about ebay listings.

Well got about half the list done so far. I finally have my contract through though with the right money on so that is a huge weight off my mind. I am officially on call from today for a week, and I am also doing overtime tonight from midnight which would be up to 5 hours at time and half on top of the on call money so that extra money is going towards the gold challenge when it comes through.

AXA lost one of the redemption forms even though they were in the same envelope which they claim was the problem. ok so you must have got the forms if you have processed one of them why can't you just go look for the other one - oh well you can't put them in the same envelope they get lost that way - but you have lost them - oh but it is your fault for using one envelope..... So I am waiting for another form so I can get the rest of the money.

I have done my time sheets and mileage but there was no one in to sign them today and I get to work from home tomorrow after being up all night and at work all day today so I hope there is someone in on Wednesday but that will be a big chunk of money when it comes through. I have enough in my account to pay all of febs bills due to the new spending habits - even with the star bucks slip ups, so things are going ok.

I rang the IR today to register as self employed for the mystery shopping and they offered to send me on a half day course to understand tax stuff which is dead handy with me trying to understand it all to set up the LTD so I should hear in the next couple of days about that.

I couldn't find the number for the tax credit over pay team, so I need to have a better hunt for that as I really don't want them taking any more money when I don't think they should have had the last lot, so I need to get that sorted this week.

I think once I get my wages through and the rest of the AXA money then I'll get the redemption figures on the loans again and see which ones I can pay off first.

bobbie78

Well I'm off to bed, after working 9-5 on monday then midnight till 4:30 at time and a half, then working 9-5 again today I've had about an hours sleep so far since getting up at 7 on monday morning, I will try and sleep now but I've gone past the point of being tired. I have earned (before the tax man gets his cut) a stonking 180 quid in overtime by doing this though, so will have to see how much that ends up being.

I will sleep well tonight.

GettingThingsDone

Hi Bobbie - keep up the hard work.

Sounds like you're making some real progress. I'll keep an eye on your thread. Out of interest, how long have you got until you are 30? I managed to clear my debts before I was 30, but I didn't have the wisdom of this site to keep me on the straight and narrow.

I set up a ltd company over 10 years ago to originally pick up work through agencies. I don't do agency work any more but I still run the ltd company, so if you have any questions, I can try and answer them It is how I paid off all of my debts and saved a substantial amount of money...

When I started out I found out an interesting rule - generally the first agency you work for will try and screw you over. Do whatever it takes to find out the agency's cut.

This is not necessarily for personal self-interest (i.e. you v. the agency) but you have your client's interests at heart too . On my first contract I assumed that because I was paid the lowest rate out of the people on my team that the client must have also been paying the lowest rate for me.

However, 6 months later I learned that the client was actually paying the highest rate for me - I made sure after that that a) I changed my rate with the agency b) the client got the best work possible out of me.

Also, from then on I always always always requested the %cut the agency was taking and negotiated hard on reducing it.

Anyways, happy birthday for the other day and did I hear something about biscuits?

funnyflip_2

Well don hon keep it up you sound like your really focused
Go get it !!