The Rambler Returns - JCD's debt free diary v2

Snagggles

I love Body Shop stuff, but have itchy, rashy reactions to a lot of it. Not their Vitamin E range though, or their Peppermint Foot Spray, which I love after a day of wearing heels!

I like their make-up brushes too. I bought a few when I had more money, and they are lasting really well.

JCD_Capulet

hypno06 wrote: »

I generally cheated and waited til I saw benbenandme post successful glitches on her diary then took my chance to see if I was stil in time

*goes off to subscribe to benbenandme's diary* :rotfl:

Snagggles wrote: »

I love Body Shop stuff, but have itchy, rashy reactions to a lot of it. Not their Vitamin E range though, or their Peppermint Foot Spray, which I love after a day of wearing heels!

I like their make-up brushes too. I bought a few when I had more money, and they are lasting really well.

I have pretty sensitive skin too Snaggles, but I'm really pleased with the wise woman products, not causing me any discomfort at all and my skin is feeling softer than usual. Best glitch for me yet.

I should look into makeup brushes at some point too come to think of it, mine are ancient and not holding up to being washed as much as they used to.


Update:

My four ebay listings ended at £93 which was way more than I'd anticipated so I'm very pleased about that.

*Viking order still hasn't arrived although it has been debited from my bank so it must be due to arrive tomorrow, I hope. Still no sign of the nectar points for that yet either.

*H&M order is out for delivery (I'm so impatient)

*La Redoute order is on a two week hold for stock, so I think I'm going to cancel that order, I can always pick up new boots another time and just pay the £26 to council tax instead.

*Boots 2 for £6 offer on slippers I'll be collecting from my local store on Thursday (for bf's mum and auntie at christmas to be put away until then)

and.... picked up 2x Tho*ntons continental 460g (i think) boxes on BOGOF for £12.25 inc next day delivery - for my mum and bf's mum this Sunday.

TCB, QC and shopitize are collectively sitting at £35.55 - hoping to be able to keep on saving these up until there's something worth withdrawing from paypal and stick it straight on the council tax.
Not had any wombles yet, but I've collected £1.73 in APG vouchers.


One slight downside recently. I've been hoping to rebuild my credit rating and according to Martin the best way to go about it is by getting credit on a card like Aqua. Well, I applied and was declined. Yup, can't even get accepted for a card for people with poop credit ratings. t*ts! Oh well, I'll leave it for a few months, concentrate on getting the council tax down little by little and then maybe apply for something like a catalogue account and see if that helps.

I think maybe one of the problem areas is that I'm self employed, so I'm going to be seen as a risk until I've got many years under my belt and a bulging business account which could choke a pony. But until then - clicks, cashback, freebies, ebay, grabbits and work.

x

JCD_Capulet

Forgive me Martin for I have sinned, it has almost been a week since my last diary entry

Hellooo people :hello:

*H&M Order arrived - One large bath towel, two small hand towels and a tea towel for £7 delivered (not the biggest bargain in the world but I was happy with it)

*Four items listed on ebay, one has a bid and ending in seven days time.

*Viking order still hasn't arrived. I called and asked if there was an issue with delivery as my bank was debited on the 4th but they've assured me they are on their way and will be here before the end of the week.

*La Redoute order was debited from my account before I decided to cancel but still no sign of it either. Hmm, we'll see how we get on with that one.

*Boots 2 for £6 offer on slippers arrived and they're lovely! Although my BF suggests they may be too big for his mum so I'll put those away for my mum instead.

*Thorn*ons chocolates arrived speedily!

*TCB, QC and shopitize are collectively sitting at £73.83

*Paypal is at £102.20 (although I will be drawing on this to put towards the CT debt)


I had a bit of a think on how to best tackle my debt. Writing my weekly budgets is of course good, but getting involved in too many challenges on the boards was becoming hard to juggle and rather distracting. So, I've cut it all back and decided to join the 1% at a time thread.

Basically, take any debt you have outstanding, divide it by 100 and you have your 1% value. Mine is £5. Print off a 100 square grid online and colour in each square every time you manage to pay off 1%. Simples! (Damn that meerkat annoys me). Today I had a NSD, cashback cereal for brekkie, approved foods soup for lunch, and some eggs veg polish sausage (ooh er!) salad type ensemble for dinner. Now having a cuppa cashback coffee and approved foods go ahead biscuits. So, on reviewing what I had in the money box at home I had £20 left from last weeks budget - and that's been paid to the council tax so 4% of CT debt dealt with. Hurrah.

I'm rambling lol

Anyway, I've a job to be doing tomorrow and Tuesdays are wages day so I'll get online and do my bank transfers once I'm home.

Toodlepip for now.

Keep at it DFWs! I'm right behind you!

JCD_Capulet

Hey folks :hello:


So this post is all just me rambling on about how my budget looks until the end of the month.

Funds

Pending work payments......... £214
Cash.................................. £205
Bank - Personal.................... £91
Bank - Business.................... £315
Paypal................................ £100
TOTAL................................ £925

Outgoings

Rent.................................. £230
Virgin Media........................ £70
Power................................ £35
C/T & Min payment...............£140 (paid £30 to this already)
TOTAL............................... £475

£925 minus £475 = £450
£450/2 = £225

SO this means I have one budget of £225 for food / entertainment / living expenses until the end of the month, and an additional £225 I can add to the council tax payment. This would bring the total payments (both my pre arranged payment plan plus everything over and above that) of my council tax arrears to £315!!!!!

My outstanding council tax debt is £443, so minus the £315 and that leaves £128!!!!!!!!! :j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

I'm so bloomin' close to being debt free! It's the final furlong in this one donkey race which has been running since 2007.


April features my sister's birthday and tax return time :eek: which means presents and paying my accountant, so the first two weeks I imagine I'm going to be pretty skint.

With that in mind I'm going to give myself a DEBT FREE DATE of Tuesday 30th April so I don't knock myself sick with earning/saving.


It's so close I can feel it!



I love all you MSE luvvies, you are ALL freaking wonderful :beer:

JCD_Capulet

*UPDATE* (can you tell I'm excited?)



Hey everyone :hello:

I called the council tax office to check the balance of the debt.

£373.74!!!!

:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

It seems making extra little payments whenever I could has worked in eating into it.

I need to go have a bath then buy milk and sit down with my maths again. I'm in a tizzy but a good one!

scubaangel

*Unlurks*
Thats great news JCD, surprising how the little bits we throw at things make a difference without us noticing!

*Relurks*

JCD_Capulet

scubaangel wrote: »

*Unlurks*
Thats great news JCD, surprising how the little bits we throw at things make a difference without us noticing!

*Relurks*

I laughed aloud at *unlurks* :rotfl: no need to lurk, I'm a friendly (if slightly barmy) one - I dinny bite

Thanks scubaangel.

I've been trying to tackle my debt since 2007, I can't wait for this to be over! x

scubaangel

The problem is I do tend to bite (in addition to being slightly barmy too!)

Snagggles

Oh wow, great news about the council tax! Every little helps, they say!

JCD_Capulet

*STRETCH*

Well look at that, insomnia crept back in again. Morning DFW's :hello:


Paying off the council tax seems to have slowed a bit as work is drying up slightly but hey ho, IT-WILL-GO!


So what have I been doing to make extra pennies and things. Hmm.

*Ebay selling finished at £170! After ebay fees it was £150ish. Still waiting for one buyer to pay and then deduct the paypal fees (fees, fees, fees!! Grrr) and that should bring about £140 to the pot

*Viking order finally arrived (two £15 one4all giftcards) so went out and bought some ink for my printer and I've printed off a bunch of APGs (total - £3.26) which I'll take with me on the next grocery shop. I also printed off a bunch of MOCs totaling £7 for shampoos and cleaning products etc at t*sco, they don't expire until 20th April though, so I'll keep an eye on the in store offers and use those wisely.

*I started doing swagbucks yesterday - monotonous but I'm looking at it as something to do when work is quiet and the amazon vouchers will come in handy at some point.

*Also started doing Nectar Adsense - that's capped at 250pts per week and some folk have reported that after the first week it drops to as low as 10pts depending on what's available. Well, I did the 250pts in one sitting (and three cups of tea.... and a rest room break), so looking forward to clicking away next week and collecting those points where I can. Again, they'll come in useful for something.

*I registered as a royal mail post tester - not heard anything from them yet though.

*Registered at three different focus group companies (working freelance I can easily attend anything which comes up, so hopefully that'll work in my favor)

*I've been looking at Martin's guide on ISAs, and as I want to save as close to 5k as I can by the end of the year, when the new tax year starts I'll be opening an ISA straight away.

*I took a look at my tenancy agreement and rather sickeningly, because I have no lump of savings and my credit history is shot to pieces I can't take advantage of the 25% discount I've accrued on being a tenant here for the past ten years! :eek: That's taught me a lesson let me tell you.

*Back on the plus side though - I was reading Martin's guide on council tax banding (yeah, I was still studying MSE whilst the forums were down for maintainance). It turns out my one bed flat is listed as a band B but valued back in 1991 as a band A. Also, there are semi detached two bed houses on my street listed as a band A! So I've submitted a proposal to the Scottish Assessors Association for rebranding and *fingers crossed* hopefully a refund.

There's £172.96 of a difference between band B and A here, so hypothetically, if I were to have my council tax band reset to A then I'd be saving that per year afterwards And double hypothetically (is that even a thing?) if I were awarded a refund of over payment for half of my tenancy (yup, I was in debt for a loooong time) then that could mean £864 being returned! How cool would that be!?!


Anyway, I'll go have a quick shifty around the forum then go grab myself a nap. My Sis, nephew and half baked (li'll bun still in the oven) niece are paying me a visit today. Today will be a good day


KEEP ON ROCKING DFW'S! :T