Brainfreeze's DFW diary

brainfreeze

I've now figured how to match bet. Had a good weekend with my first two attempts (Coral and Totesport both offering very nice £50 free bets to match my first deposit) and am now just over £93 in profit which is excellent:j

I now have to wait for the money to be credited back to my debit card account and then I will pay the profit off the bills and recycle the stake money with some more matched free bet offers. I don't know how much to aim for as a monthly target from matched betting, but can definitely see this is going to help make a massive dent in repayments.

Without this site I would never have discovered this:beer:

brainfreeze

Hi everyone,

Well week two of my debt free wannabeness:j and no slacking yet.

I have some bits on ebay - but nowhere near as much as I should (been far too busy at work and not getting home til late each day). Hence I haven't been posting on here at all either. I am sooooooooo tired it is unbelievable and so glad the weekend is with us. Stuff the housework...I am going to sleep the whole weekend away;)

My match betting is going swimmingly - why didn't I discover this ages ago! I started match betting on 13 April - so my one week anniversary today:rotfl: and I have £183 profits PLUS £93 in Quidco from linking to the betting sites. At the moment I'm ploughing it all back in to lay off my bets but am going to aim for at least £300 profit per month to reduce these debts by. Others have done it and I will to.

So..........no more number crossing off this week because the money is tied up in the matching betting system at the moment......but watch this space:T

Hope everyone else is well and happy this week too

fallenwiccan

well done, you'll have that HFC paid off in no time and wont it look good to have your first "paid off completely" on the list

brainfreeze

fallenwiccan wrote: »

well done, you'll have that HFC paid off in no time and wont it look good to have your first "paid off completely" on the list

HFC paid of ....oooooh I do hope so:T

I know I keep saying it...but I really can't believe the change admitting my debts and talking about them (well to you lot anyway:rotfl: ) has bought about in me.

I've been ill over the past couple of years, but I have also been suffering deep bouts of depression - which family all put down to the illness, but in reality I knew it was the worry over the debts. I can honestly say I have smiled for a whole two weeks now and I know it's from the relief of having talked everything through properly with DH (not snapping at each other about money and bills) and even though the debts are still there I know that my DH and I are working together to get rid of them and we will be debt free as soon as we possibly can.

Hope you all don't mind....but I aim to keep my diary going as it helps me to see how far we've come (even in just two short weeks:j )

brainfreeze

Hi everyone

Thought I'd pop in and say hello:beer: I've been busy with family over the last couple of weeks and haven't been around.

Haven't achieved much in the way of ebay sales (well okay then none in the last week:o ....I have been too busy matched betting. It's a bit addictive;)

I've managed to get a profit of £724 since I started just after the beginning of April. It's all still sitting nicely in my accounts. The bank statement looks like I should apply to gamblers annonymous:rotfl: Two whole pages of deposits and withdrawals from bookies.....oh my god:eek: Good thing I told DH about it before I started otherwise heart attack could have imminently followed opening the bank statement:rotfl:

My first goal with the matched betting profits is to pay the £1,000 outstanding on the interest free loan from HFC....due by 1st June or a horrendous interest kicks in.....and guess what .....NO WORRIES:T With £724 in profits already....another week or so and I'll have it all.

I need to update my signature but will have to check the online account for that and.........it's down at the moment:mad: I used to hate looking at the account, but having worked our money out we are getting through the month okay now and having money at the end to pay off an extra bit of a card.

The only thing we are not 100% with is tracking our non bill/debt spend, ie the shopping and personal spends. We are being good and taking a set amount out each week and that is it...no more dipping into the bank - but I think if we were being really, really, really good we could actually get to the end of the week and have some change from that money to put back towards a debt.

My next goal (after clearing HFC) is to keep on with the matched betting and hopefull get £250 - £400 per month extra income to go straight off those cards for the rest of this year. It is a big target (between £2,000 and £3,200 extra income just from match betting by the end of December:j ) - others have done that and more and so I think it is achievable. If we do manage to get on target with that...then I think we may have a week away somewhere cheap and cheerful (this country ...and probably in a tent:eek: ).

Looking forward to reading the other threads and diaries and catching up on everyone's goings on.

brainfreeze

Had a good week last week....but totally gobsmacked at DH:mad:

When I did the SOA he just gave me the figures and percentages, I never saw the statements (he doesn't keep them). The figures etc were all okay, but when the statement came this month he gave it to me as we are now working together to sort everything out and there was a strange entry...just one line of expenditure for something called VPRewards.com :mad:

There was a phone number also printed next to this on the statement so I made him phone up the number and find out what it was. Apparently he had completed some form after buying some stuff from Vista Print and this form (he remembers filling in a survey but not buying or committing himself to anything) signed him up to VPRewards. I searched on MSE and found a thread with loads of unhappy people who have been caught like this (so in fairness to DH it was obviously not clear). Apparently this form he completely gives agreement for Vista Print to pass on the credit card details to VPRewards and they will then debit £9.95 a month :eek: :eek: which customers can benefit from by being part of a ridiculous rewards scheme.

I then made him phone up his credit card and find out exactly how much had been paid each and every month and track it right back to the start of the debits. He has paid 11 lots of £9.95 and 2 lots of £11.95 - which is a total of £133.35 over thirteen months and he didn't even realise it:mad:

After some discussions he phoned VPRewards and they agreed to refund the lot. Apparently they have had lots of complaints and realise that people weren't aware of what they had signed up to. They didn't argue and were actually very good about it....but they have had our (well the credit cards) money for month after month so have interest on that but at least they agreed to give it back. Two days later 13 separate credits appeared on the online statement so I am very impressed with their turnaround times.

Oh well....that ended better than I had hoped for when I opened the CC statement....but I am definitely go to get copies of all his past CC statements and check them out for dodgy entries;)

ally1974

Hello
Congratulations so far on dealing with your debts! Forgive me if you've already thought of this but did you have critical life insurance or something similar on your mortage? The reason I ask is that I was clearing out a load of old magazines at the weekend (well, I say clearing out more like sitting on the sofa with a big cup of tea re-reading them and snipping out the recipes!) and there was an article about a girl who didn't realise she could make a claim on this insurance linked to her mortgage that paid out for life threatening illnesses. She got a fair whack from it. Just a thought.

Good luck with the HFC loan, I too am saving hard to pay mine off by september! :T

brainfreeze

ally1974 wrote: »

Hello
Congratulations so far on dealing with your debts! Forgive me if you've already thought of this but did you have critical life insurance or something similar on your mortage?

Hi

Thanks for the thought - yes we did have a small element of critical illness insurance which we claimed. Because of family medical history critical illness insurance was hugely expensive so we opted for a policy which paid out a 10% lump sum on diagnosis of certain critical illnesses and then pays out the full 100% of the policy on death.

So we had the 10% amount (£15k) when I was diagnosed and that helped us live and keep on top of the payments for everything until Christmas time.

Now, even though we have been paid £15k we still have the full £150k pure life cover remaining should it be needed.

brainfreeze

Hi all,

I've been having a 'doldrum' week. Everything has been getting me down. Don't get me wrong I'm still revved up and keen to reduce the debt to zero...but everything seems to put obstacles in the way this week. The car breaking down, the boiler conking out, the fish I took out of the freezer smelling...well YUK:eek:

And then I sat down to look at my snowball and suddenly 2011 just seemed so far away. Must admit I had a few self pitying tears and wondered if I feel like this after two months if I can keep going for another 46:eek:

And then.....my son came over with my 4 year old granddaughter and I suddenly thought about how quickly she was growing and didn't it seem less than the blink of eye when she was born....you know what I mean. And putting that in perspective, suddenly 2011 is just around the corner.

And then....the boiler got fixed for less than a tenner by a fab neighbour who is corgi registered and owed me a favour (thermo coupler thingy was all it needed apparently). The car is being fixed by my brother during the week and he reckons less than £100 for parts:T - the fish is in the bin....but what the heck.

So...doldrums sorted and everything back in perspective.

Seaxwyn

Hi brainfreeze - sympathies for the doldrums moment, I think that is a regular hazard for all of us DFWs. It seems to turn life into a series of exaggerated ups and downs. But important things like children can put it into perspective. Lovey to think that you will be debt-free when the little girl is 8.

Good news that the car and boiler aren't proving too expensive - with your new DFW savvy you will weather these little setbacks with no harm done.