Dreaming of that cottage by the sea

cottage_by_the_sea

Welcome to September – gosh where has the year gone?

Well, I start the month with just £345 to raise to top up my house bills account and anything else can be used to pay off debt.

So, to the debt... I did a round up yesterday and when reading other diaries I realised that I have been ignoring interest rates. I checked and found my active credit card was charging a massive 20% whilst the tempress card (after 0%) was only charging 13%. I’ve been concentrating on clearing my overdraft but this is silly as it’s at 0%.

So to summarise in order of rates:

Active card - £2000 at 20%

Tempress card - £7500 at 13%

Tempress card £1550 at 0% until July 2014

Overdraft £1570 at 0%

So I should be concentrating on clearing my active card as a matter of urgency.

However, I really feel very nervous about having such a large overdraft. I hear rumours of banks cancelling them and requesting full payment so even though it doesn’t make financial sense, I really want to drastically reduce it.

Therefore, September goals:

Raise £345 to pay house bills

Get overdraft below £1000

All extra, throw at active card

I managed to create an extra 300 listings on the bay this week and my sales have increased by 50%. This month I’m going to upgrade my shop and aim to double my listings. As we are moving towards to the colder months, hopefully buyers will be more interested in indoor hobbies and purchase more kit.

I’ve also added another goal of losing weight. Aim is 2 stone, 2.5 pounds before Christmas.

Start the ride.

Cottie

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September goals:

House bills £345, overdraft £1570/£1000, active cc £2000, lose weight 0/30.5

cottage_by_the_sea

Quick update:
Lost 3.5 pounds in first week of diet.
Reduced overdraft and nibbled away at house bills.

I'm just about to hit my first batch of direct debits and I may have to pay for some new stock. Therefore my balance may go up for a few days before I can reduce it further.
It's frustrating but necessary to keep the business ticking over.

Anyway, thought I'd report in to claim my figures whilst in a dip. Keeps motivation up.

Take care

Cottie
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September goals:

House bills £210, overdraft £1460/£1000, active cc £2000, lose weight 3.5/30.5

cottage_by_the_sea

Wow that week went past quick.

I had a few days when motivation was low but kept plodding though. Managed not to let down days result in cake or unnecessary spends. It did seem like it was ‘one step forward and two steps back’ but over the week going in the right direction.

Good news is that I’ve raised enough to cover all the bills for the month, whilst staying under my overdraft limit. Now it’s bash the overdraft time.

I’d really like to clear half of it so I’m not living so near the edge.

It looks good at the moment but will go up as the mid-month bills go out. What I am trying to do is raise money to off set the bill before it goes out, to keep the overdraft steady. I’ve managed ok so far but have 3 large bills coming up which are too big to cover in a day or two, so will nudge balance downwards.

Weight-wise – the scales have been up a pound,down a pound and now refuse to budge. I do feel that my cake shelf has reduced a tad but would feel happier if this was reflected on the dial. Official weigh-in is tonight so I’m going to be ultra good all day and see if I do by sheer force of will.

Back to the listing..

Take care …cottie

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September goals:

House bills 0, overdraft £1290/£1000, active cc £2000, lose weight 3.5/30.5

cottage_by_the_sea

Hi there,
Monday morning - thought I'd do a quick update.

Sales have been very good since I've ramped up listing numbers in my shop. I've got double my usual quantity to post today.

I'm waiting for an Amazon payment to go through and when it does, my overdraft will be under the £1000 mark. Great to boost motivation to keep listing.

However I do have 3 bills left to pay before the end of the month, plus £50 worth of packing materials, and a £60 stock bargain. After those, the overdraft will be at £1500 but it's only the 16th. So I've the 2nd half of the month's sales to make a big dent in it.

I've yet to upgrade the shop. I decided to use up my basic shop free listing allowance first. I'm almost there - perhaps a day or two to go. I'll then have 1200 to use before the end of the month.

Anyway, best get back to the packing. I managed to prep half last night, but had left the fiddly ones to this morning, when I'll be more awake.

Have a good week...take care...Cottie

cottage_by_the_sea

Sorry for delay in updating the old diary.
Its been a bit manic here.

Sales have been good - most days they have been double their old volume. Considering I have doubled my listings I guess that is to be expected. I have upgraded my shop so have 1200 free listings each month, so want to push even further.

I've paid all my bills for the month and am still under £1000 overdraft, which is brill.

Now for the not so good news. Our landlord has decided to sell our (or rather his) house so has served us notice. So we have 2 months to find something different and have a massive de-clutter.

Hubby and I have a bit of a difference in opinion about choosing the next house. I want to reduce in size and rent bracket. Its madness spending the amount we do in rent. We are never going to get back on the housing ladder if we continue to do this. He however wants very nice area and refuses to look at semis.

Lots more talking required.

Anyway, must dash...loads of listings to do and boxes to pack.
The up side is I'm finding more sellable stock as I sort.

Plus all this box shifting must be burning calories. I've lost half a stone so far on the diet. Its been slow going so far but hopefully all the activity (and nervous stress) should give things a boost.

Take care everyone.

Cottie

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September goals:

House bills left 0, overdraft £1000/£1000, lose weight 7/28.5

cottage_by_the_sea

Quick update as I should be prepping to go out...rather than still festering in bed reading diaries.

Weight loss got a boost; lost 3 pounds this week. Must be all the box packing / moving and cleaning I've been doing.

Financials - still just under the -£1000 mark. All last month's bills paid plus minimums to both credit cards for October.

My aim for this month is to pay off the overdraft completely. Should be possible if I keep focused. Really need to do this as I'm sure a new house will involve a credit check.

Best get on..a busy day ahead.

Take care

Cottie

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October goals:

Overdraft £1000 / gone, lose weight 10/28.5

cottage_by_the_sea

Wow, the days are flying past. Almost half way through the month already.

Things are quite stressful at the moment and its needing all my will power to stay focused and not resort to opening wine and chocolate. A very small weight loss last week but hey, it’s still a loss. The way I feel, it could have been a huge gain, if I wasn’t keeping tight control.



The bay is continuing to be frustrating – some days ‘tap on’ with loads of sales and I start to get optimistic. Then tap gets turned off and I might get one sale for 24 hours. The system seems to be full of bugs; some days the photo upload doesn’t work, others you can’t list or revise without re-logging in and it then doesn’t recognise your password. You have to keep deleting cookies between edits to get back in. I think they have acknowledged this by offering business sellers an additional 50,000 free listings next week. Not sure whether you will be able to access these after your normal free allocation has been used up first, but I guess time will tell. It won’t really change my listing activity. I’m trying to get as much on as possible anyway.

Financially, slightly behind schedule but getting there.Overdraft is currently under £500 but still have £1000 of bills to pay this month. My target is to clear it by month end but current estimate is that I’ll probably be a few hundred over .

House hunting has been unsuccessful so far. There’s just so little available and what is around is very expensive. I’ve been working on a Plan B of putting everything in storage and moving in with family. What has been heart-warming is that all of my close friends and quite a few of my larger circle have offered to put me up. I wouldn’t dream of imposing but it’s been lovely of them to offer.

Financially it would help to move in with family. I would save like crazy, pay off debts and re-build savings. The downside is that it would mean a move away from my current area which I adore, my voluntary jobs and all my lovely friends.

I’m worried that it would then be very hard to move back. Good rental places go quick so if you can’t view for a few days, you miss them. Also, it would be very hard to leave my family again when I’m sure they would get used to me being around to help out.

Anyway time to get up and at ‘em. The day ahead involves more sorting, packing and then when I’ve had enough, back to the listing.

Have a good Sunday everyone

Cottie

cottage_by_the_sea

Hi there everyone,

Wow…can’t believe how time has flown by. A zoom through update coming up.

Financially, I managed to get the overdraft down to under -£300 at the end of October which I was pleased about. For November, if it was a normal month, I’m sure I’d end up in the black…however…this is not going to be a normal month.

We have to move house so potentially huge bills to pay. There’s removals, cleaning, and probably loss to our deposit, so we’ll have to make up the difference for a new one. The latter I’m particularly worried about. We have a huge deposit on this house and have been here years so there is a lot of wear and tear mainly because nothing has been done for so long. Also, I’m fairly certain that at least one carpet will have to be replaced. As I work from home, my office is in constant use and the carpet has become quite worn.

I guess I have become resigned to the fact that I have to cash in one of my long term saving policies. It is in the league of ‘ locked away, not to be touched except for a deposit on my own place’. I’ve raided all my short term accounts over the past few years to support us and have resisted with this one as it’s my last hope to get back on the housing ladder. I know you shouldn’t have savings whilst you have debts but this one is long term and the thought of it keeps me reassured that one day I’ll have my own place again.

Anyway, we will see what the next few weeks hold. We do have another minor problem of not having found anywhere to move to yet. For most, this would be a major stress point…but in some ways this has made things easier. I’ve decided to put everything into storage. Yes, it’s another expense but I think I needed to have a proper sort out and consider what items are important and which I can part with. I’m not saying it has been easy; it definitely hasn’t. There has been times (lots of times), where I sat surrounded by boxes and burst into tears. I can understand the people in those Hoarder programmes and how attached you get to items that perhaps look worthless to others.

In fact, the more my OH says ‘why are you keeping this junk’, the more I want to hang onto it. I think it’s a bit about justifying your decision to buy it to start with (especially if you bought it as an investment hoping it’s value would rise), a bit of a safety net knowing that you might need it some day, and the fact that it’s my stuff and its reassuring to have it around. The last point is a lot about yearning to go back to my single life and a house full of books, pictures, cushions and candles. So when I find a box containing all my lovely ornaments and beloved books that have been stuck in a back bedroom for years, I think I’m allowed a tear or two.

My current strategies?

Don’t work for too long at a stretch. I found that I start being quite decisive then after a couple of hours, it gets harder and the ‘to keep’ pile starts to outgrow the chuck pile.

If I hit a box that I can’t decide on, put it to one side and find a box that is easy first. This really helps because at the start I looked at the rooms of stuff and wanted to keep it all. So I allowed myself a room to put things that need thinking about.

This seemed to have worked and now the house is virtually free of clutter except one room (my thinking pile). Initially this room contained a huge pile but it’s a room I have to walk through every day so I kept picking at it and now feel more confident that it’s not going to be a huge task. Anyway, the day has come and today is the day for that room. Wish me luck.

Best get back to it.

Cottie.