Boarding the Bus of Positivity (for 24 months of travels!)

Chocforever

Well despite saying I had lots to do this weekend, I seem to have spent much of it, so far, doing not a lot.

I am typing this whilst lying on the sofa and I feel less than relaxed. I have just looked at one of my CC balances and it is £1,524 :eek: How did that happen? Really must try harder next month.

I'll let you into a secret. My boss has been procrastinating about joining a gym. A month ago, he said to me that he bet he would get round to joining a gym before I ran the London Marathon. I have talked about running the marathon before but it has always been in hypothetical terms. Well I agreed to the bet.

So I am sat here watching the marathon on the TV and, frankly, it is making me feel quite sick that I will be there next year :rotfl:.

At this point, you might be thinking, why don't I just renege on the bet? My boss is nice so that is not the issue and I think he is regreting mentioning the marathon in any case.

The thing is, I have always fancied doing it and being reasonably fit for once in my life. So I thought next year is as good as any.

In terms of family and work colleagues, I am not advertising that I am doing the marathon for several reasons, not least that my health isn't great and it may just not be possible on the day. I have had mixed responses from friends I have told, from "great idea, we know you are so determined that you will get round" to a look of horror that I am even contemplating it.

For now, at least it is taking my mind off the fact that I have a leak in the bathroom. No idea where from, but it is soaking the carpet. I hope I can get a plumber to sort it in the next few days and that it isn't too expensive.

debtfreesomeday

Exciting stuff Chocs and a real goal to aim towards! I have always wanted to run the marathon too, as does hubby. We got as far as running a half marathon for charity once which was a brilliant experience, but I'm nowhere near fit enough now to even contemplate the challenge. Keep us updated on the training, I'd love to know how you're getting on and, if you run for charity, let me know about sponsorship etc. We just sponsored an extended family member who completed two marathons this week for charity, in memory of a loved one who died in tragic circumstances. It's a humbling experience to watch, let alone participate, I'm sure.

Hope the leak's fixed too. If it's any help, we had a similar 'wet carpet' leak from our downstairs loo which was from a pipe behind the toilet which fills the cistern. There was a small leak around the joint, may be a similar problem.

debtfreesomeday

wantabetterlife wrote: »

...last year i sold my old broken laptop that didnt even switch on for £72!!!...i honestly thought if i got a tenner for it i would be doing well.

Wow! That was a fantastic result on the laptop WABL!

debtfreesomeday

We succeeded in having a fairly cheap weekend, unfortunately not free due to car parking, but not too expensive. We went out walking/geocaching and tried to enjoy the sunshine when we could find it.

Once again, I have been astounded by the price things will fetch on ebay. Here I was, expecting to make around £50-£60 on ebay via our latest batch of auctions and, so far, we're up to £127 with the last 4 items ending today. I'm really pleased, but also slightly nervous as people have paid over the odds for some things, I always feel they may be unhappy when they receive the items after paying so much! Tonight I need to make a start on the wrapping and labelling, ready to post.

Unfortunately, we won't see a lot of that money in the bank account as I had to pay ebay fees of £52 from last month, plus we bought a wedding present for someone which cost £26 (with 25% off and in the sale ). At least these things have been covered by these sales though. I shall be digging out more items as soon as I can.

Chocforever

Well done with Ebay. You are having more luck with it than me at the moment. I know what you mean about people paying over the odds and, whatever they pay, I'm not 100% happy until I see the feedback. Often though, the people that overpay just really wanted the item and are very nice about it.

I put a £10 voucher on there last night. I noticed that last week, someone paid £11.52 for a £10 voucher to be spent on the High Street. I think at that point, I would worry about the sanity of the buyer.

Well the plumbers have been. There seems to have been a few problems and they aren't sure why they have occurred. It sounded related to a problem that I had earlier in the year. Which I attempted to fix myself . Must stick to the day job.

I'm hoping the carpet dries out OK. Luckily it is not too light a colour and the water was clean so I might get away with it. I will get the carpets cleaned when I move in any case because the two rooms with nice cream carpets (hmm, won't make that colour choice again) looked rather grubby when I tidied up so I'll get them to do the bathroom one too.

When you say you aren't fit enough to do the marathon, I can currently only run for 2 minutes. I'm looking at it in the light of, just think of the scope for improvement :rotfl:. And it's a year away.

Have a good week x

debtfreesomeday

Ebay is crazy sometimes, I think peopel must get caught up in the thrill of 'winning' an auction or something. Why on earth would one pay over the odds for a voucher?!

And I feel your pain over the cream carpets. We have them all through the house, or rather had them. They are no longer cream thanks to the previous owners who loved their dogs and fake tan and now, DS, who is not fussy where he throws up/squishes biscuit into carpet. We're forever cleaning them, but they get no better! They'll be changed when we have the money to do so.

debtfreesomeday

Tomorrow is pay day, so the signature has been updated with the loan balance and monthly payments left. I shall update the credit card details when I have plucked up the courage to look at the balance. :eek:

I've joined the grocery challenge for May, with a budget of £200. We'll work on reducing that if and when we're successful in sticking to this first.

We're over £300 overdrawn too which is absolutely shocking. Another thing to work on this month... guess I'm going to have to search for more stuff to put on ebay, we may have no clothes left by the end of the month, they'll all have been ebayed if the sell as well as the last auctions!!!!:rotfl:

Chocforever

It must be good to see the loan balance reducing. Just think, next time it will be £7k which is closer to £5k than £10k and, well if you share my kind of logic , that would be a real psychological boost.

My £10 voucher on Ebay is up to £9.60. It has another couple of days to go; next time I think I will just have a 3 day auction because it isn't going to make any difference to the price. I have a few small bits to go on Ebay - need to check the new postage rates to make sure it is worth putting them on there. I am not really putting them on for the money; it just seems a shame to throw them in the bin. But I don't want to end up making a loss!

I feel very run down at the moment and I'm not doing much more than going to work . I hope it passes soon. I hate it when there are so many things I could be doing and instead I am just sat around or things are taking me ages to complete. And on that note, how is the sleep deprivation?;)

debtfreesomeday

Sorry to hear you are feeling a bit rubbish chocs. Hopefully your workload will ease soon and you'll have more time to yourself and more time to relax, which I'm sure will help.

Good luck with eBay, I completed the dreaded wrapping and labelling of all my items last night which, thankfully, didn't take too long this time as I had bought some postal self seal bags from a £1 shop which speeded the process up no end. I posted them all today, at a cost of just over £30.

Yes, the loan balance is going down nicely, it's going to feel amazing once that is paid off. I have been paying loan repayments to one bank or another since I was 21 after some very poor advice, and after 12 years of it, I never want another loan again!

debtfreesomeday

I'm currently on ironing avoidance. There's a big basket full of ironing sharing the sofa with me presently, the ironing board Is up and the iron out of the cupboard, but still I haven't started it! I shall tell you all about my slightly crappy day (financially) instead...

Ds and I went to aldi this morning to stock up on fresh food, dairy stuff etc and we got 2 huge bagfulls (the spotty ones they sell to those in the know) for £29. I was so impressed with the prices. I left feeling really happy and optimistic that we'd do well with the budgets this month, despite getting soaked in the rain loading the car.

Cue trip to tesco to pick up the 3 or 4 things I couldn't get in aldi. I bought these, and I'll list them as it sounds like very little - Greek yoghurt, low fat sausages, some pickles, garlic, beetroot, baking marg to bake cakes at the weekend and a pack of nappies (reduced to £4.99 presently). I was shocked when it came to £20!!! I double checked the receipt and it was correct, to my horror. You certainly don't get much for your money at tesco.
Things went downhill from there really. This morning I'd popped my car into the garage as we'd notice oil on the drive for a while now - oil filter was leaking and would cost £45 to fix, which they could do this afternoon. Not bad, and I'd just put £50 into the car/household pot so that would cover it. I thought about asking them to check the tyres whilst I was there as one looked a bit worn, but figured it didn't look too bad and I didn't want to pay £80 for a new tyre this month!
Ds and I wandered around the local charity shops whilst the car was being fixed this afternoon. I picked up 4 pairs of trousers for him, 3 tops, a jumper, and a stunning little boy's suit waistcoat and suit trousers for under £8. All were good brand names, next, quicksilver, Boden etc. and all immaculate. I think the suit is brand new and will be perfect for him to wear to the weddings we are going to next month. It shall go on eBay afterwards!
We returned to the garage, chuffed with our bargains, to be told the car was fixed, but they'd noticed the suspect tyre was actually bald on one side and the alignment was probably out too. £145 later, we left the garage, wet, miserable and skint!

The £50 from the car/ house pot will have to come out now, so where I'm going to find another £95 from to recoup that I don't know. Another tough month ahead by the look of things :0(