301k in debt and morbidly obese - things aren't great!

gallygirl

MrBloater wrote: »

Combining two of my interests - education and writing sounds pretty appealing to me - must fill out an expression of interest. (potential return - prestige, a fair chunk of change and I dunno, maybe I'll be invited to join the freemasons or something)

Don't forget the satisfaction of knowing thousands are suffering at your hands - that's got to be worth something surely :rotfl:.

All sounding positive. Except the ebay. If you sold EVERYTHING in there, realistically how much would you fetch? £100? £500? £1000? Is it really worth the mental angst? Could any of it (old records etc) be sold elsewhere? If I was in your shoes (not the smelly running trainers though :eek:) then rather than have the shed continually sucking the life out of me every time I thought of it I'd ditch the lot. Start to clear it out. If something fills you with paroxysms of grief at the thought of ditching it for nothing then put it on ebay immediately. None of this 'wait till a free listings weekend' stuff. If you can't be bothered doing it immediately you can't be bothered doing it full stop so in the bin it goes. It's worth exactly the same to you in the bin as it is in the shed - zilch.

Imagine having a lovely empty man-cave, with internet access and a bolt inside the door :T.

Skinnylatte

Thank you for your posts, they do bring a smile to my face! I was turned down for a PPI claim so that makes 2 of us. I did get paid out on one actually - £69. The other was worth several £1000

Verbatim

You'll write any appeal re PPI far better than any cowboy. Have you got a block on doing this?

Honey_Bear

Ebay-Escapee reporting. I have a cupboard full of P0rtmeir!on china that OH really, really hates some of which was expensive when my parents gave it to me. It has been doing sturdy duty at our holiday chalet that gets rented out for a very few weeks a year and I recently noticed that there was rather less of the stuff than there should be. Sure enough, breakages account for a fair amount, which sort of irritates me as I don't mind accidents, I just wish people had told me. The rest was therefore destined for Ebay and I had the foresight to check prices achieved and it seemed pretty okay until I weighed the stuff and thought about how to post table lamp bases. Lightbulb moment - I phoned the local auction room which is run by someone we've had dealings with for 15 years and have found to be very realistic and trustworthy.

Outcome: Portmerion 'hasn't found it's market yet.' Apparently ceramics generally haven't.

Reflection: If he can't make a pretty penny out of the stuff, I sure can't.

Result: Items that I think are worth something that haven't 'found their market yet' go in the attic, boxed, clearly labelled and stored for 10 years.

Honestly, Mr B, you hate Ebaying stuff. If it's worth selling, it's probably worth putting it in a specialist sale at a local auction room. It's certainly worth a phone call to find out.

PS Congratulations on the promotion.

patman99

Mrb your signature seems to have disappeared. Now, we have no idea how your battle with debt and weight is going.

I see you have given-up on the (fe)ebay thing. If you live in a busy area how about a garage sale in the spring?. You can drag all the stuff out of the shed & stick it on a table in your front garden.

Am currently doing an inventory of surplus stuff around the house that I can sell really quickly to make enough money to actually put food on the table. Trouble is, I sold nearly everything last time I got laid-off & never replaced any of it.

MrBloater

Totally uncharacteristically of me I shall start with a couple of responses.

1) It's not the shed that gives me the horrors about ebay - it's the packaging, the hassle of postage, the annoying buyers (I have been pretty lucky with this but some have really cheesed me off) and the fact that now a cut of the postage would go into what are already pretty hefty fees. One of my friends has just started volunteering at a BHF shop so it might be a case of getting her to send the van round - cos the concept of clearing the shed for a mancave sounds rather appealing.

2) Signature. Yeah, I took it off a while ago. I decided it wasn't necessarily motivating me and it had got too clunky. It might make a return at some point but don't hold your breath. For the stat fans among you the last total debt figure I had was 259k. And the weight is about half a stone down on when I started this back in 1973 or whenever it was..

Moving swiftly on, managed to bank a 7.5km run yesterday followed by a 7.7km one this evening which is rather fine and keeps me sane. Sunday was runless and absolutely awful - broken toilet and tap in bathroom and no spare to fix it with sent me into a bit of a spiral. I also seem to take it incredibly personally that I cannot fix everything that breaks like it is some insult to my masculinity. Am not sure why I feel like this but everytime a practical issue beyond my knowledge comes along I feel this way. Possibly because I grew up with lots of broken things that were easily remedied but never were. Failed to do any of my to-do list and have to make time tomorrow to do so. Pay day tomorrow and we have staggered over the finish line again.

MrBloater

Fitter, happier, more productive. Have oodles to do tonight and it's either going to go one of two ways. Have already put myself in credit with the moral bank by logging on here and reporting in, and should follow it with a run, then a check of the payments due this month, then the application for the exam writing job, then the PPI claim, then the letter of pure hate to the car manufacturer. Or else I kick back with a cheap bottle of red and play some GTA. I have some tough decisions to make.

UPDATE: 9.06pm - just done a 6.3km stumble. Still undecided as to next move but I would err on the side of fun.

hummingbird

Let us know which way it went Mr B.....or was it a mixture of both, writing the letter of hate whilst under the influence of the bottle of red??? Oh dear..........

MrBloater

The more I dwell on it, the more I am starting to think I haven't even had my LBM yet - or at least not the one that stops me in my tracks. This is the time of the month when I am usually not around. Day after payday and there is still a little slack left (after all the minimum payments have been done). I should be well into a bottle of red by now with my debts the furthest thing from my mind. Certainly exercise would have gone out the window by now. But I'm back here, reporting in with no funny stories to tell, just hoping that this time I can keep on the right path. Run, letters, applications, etc, etc are on the to-do list for tonight as per usual but after a full-on day at work and getting the kids to sleep and trying to clear up the resultant bombsite of a house I don't know how much is left in the tank. I will be running on fumes. But I guess that's better than nothing.

scotdebs

Ah......Mr B perhaps your energy saving (very mse ) LBM may just be flickering in the corner, have enjoyed your musings from the start of your journey but have to say have never really felt that you have truly gone "I OWE HOW €^}}|^$ MUCH" I say this as one someone on LBM no 3..4 or maybe even 5 which would suggest the previous were not LBMs at all..... As an MSE'r of such epic failed proportions the yogurt knitters would be throwing their homegrown tomatoes at me I have no advice........other than to say .....keep a wee eye on the forum even when you are not in the mood for posting I find it helps keep my inner spend hussy at bay