The Ultimate Incentive part 10. The only thing holding you back is you.

wendz86

Is hard work when they stop napping. Have to save most my jobs for the evening. I was hoovering yesterday and Poppy was sat on the hoover and thought it was great fun turning it off every 2 mins.

Lara - enjoy time with your sister.

Dinah93

Grace is terrified of the hoover. And the iron. And sellotape. It's hard to do any of these things unless someone takes her out of the house. She loves to help with the washing machine though.

kavics17

Thanks for the article. I followed the lady's blog after but expected a bit more from her:). I already do what she did for a year and it's not a big thing really although sometimes I cave in and get her a book or two.

Hope it goes well with the business, you need to make a big decision and I understand NIM's dilemma.

Dinah93

Such a sore throat today On the plus side - Grace is napping

Dinah93

Well that was brief. Less than a 10 min nap.

I've whined a few times in the last year or so about having literally hundreds of paperbacks that I wish I could get some money for. Well I'm pleased to say I've found 4 sites where you can trade in books not just CDs and DVDs. The one that has given me the best prices on the ones it takes is https://www.zapper.co.uk, https://www.ziffit.com doesn't offer as much but accepts more. https://www.bebuybooks.co.uk so far has offered the same prices as ziffit but taken less, while https://www.fatbrain.co.uk has hardly accepted any but I'm including it for the sake of completeness. So my current plan is to do a trade with zapper, ziffit and music magpie (as they are the only ones I've found who take clothes, and I'm so sick of relisting and relisting certain things on Amazon). Any books, dvds or clothes none of these will take can happily go to charity knowing I tried all options. We did a car boot last year and after the entrance fee made around £8 so I'd rather just donate a few bits to charity tbh especially when I think the petrol over was probably about that anyway.

I have a spreadsheet of my self employed miles last year, and I think I'm going to just have to claim them at whatever the pence per mile is rather than doing all my car costs and allocating 15% to business stuff, which works out as a bit more, but this box of receipts has vanished and I just want to know its in now.

Dinah93

Spent the evening listing more DVDs and books, looks like eventually I'll have a Ziffit trade in, Music Magpie trade in and Zapper trade in. I'm feeling very serious about kicking this debt atm, after we discovered it had risen to around £16,000 when we thought it was about £12,000. New sig will come soon.

tinkerbel

Looking forward to seeing the totals so we can hopefully help you smash them once and for all and perhaps again see where you could cut back? I don't know how it's not going down when you both earn good wages and seem to be so so careful and with all of your extra income things you've got going on!

Is NIM likely to get tax back too with him not earning so much for part of the year?

Just found our gas bill is going up grr and we haven't given a meter reading for 6 months because I'm really scared of how much it will be and electricity! Hopefully we will have done the readings by next week..! I'll report back!

Sounds good if you're managing to off load some books for cash! I bet it's quite hard work trading them in? If so, well done for sticking with it!

Payday can't come soon enough to be honest but 2weeks being paid early in dec isn't really a good thing!

so how can grace be scared of Sellotape?!

wendz86

Good to see you are so positive about kicking the debt. I need to pay off as much of my cc as possible by april so will be joining you in thinking of ways.

eek about the gas Tinkerbel, hope it isn't too much.

I hate the fact we get paid early in December too, struggling!

Cinny91

I'm up for some kind of penny making/debt clearing challenge. My debt is at £3020.54 and I've only managed to make a sad looking dent of £120 off it in the past two weeks. Good news is I finally got my £706 refunded this morning so it's all systems go as of Friday :beer: Problem for us is we've sold everything we can, and don't live that wildly anyways so it takes some mustard to find ways to cut back!

Will PM you Dinah!

Hope the gas isn't too scary, Tink! It's one of the reasons I'm happy we're on a meter, no big bills to worry about (guess it's the point of them!) Totally get you both on the long January, Rich used to get paid like that too and it was the worst!

clearmydebts

Max and Evie are both scared of hand driers as well! Max is a real scaredy cat and obsesses about things. The latest is volcanoes and lava and whether there are any nearby that could get him. They must have learnt about them in playschool!

Max and Evie were sick over the weekend. Max's temp was around 39C and he was so listless. I kept him off school yesterday but he was actually fine. I sent him into today but I have it now so couldn't go to work. I sent Evie over the childminders for a few hours. I feel really guilty but I struggled with them yesterday. They are so energetic and couldn't understand why Mammy wasn't reading with them, etc.

Good to see you back posting regularly Dinah. I was having a think about your business plan. First off, well done for putting together something that impressed the bank. No easy task so obviously it is a fantastic idea and one that would work. Reading between the lines you have mentioned a few times that you aren't sure if you are in the right place at the moment to get something started. You sound worn out to me. Also, with getting a business going, you need to put so much time and energy into it. Are you sure you want to be working full-time and missing out on Grace? Or would you have to look for a full-time job anyway?

I know I mentioned this before, but what about selling your house? Is there much equity in it? Could you sell, clear off your debts, have a lump sum and rent somewhere. Just enjoy being with Grace without any money worries for a year or 2? Renting isn't as bad as you think. We have rented since 2007 and although I am dying to have a house, it will take longer because I am a part-time worker. I'm not saying this is the right thing to do, but it's an option.