Small steps to reduce a big debt!! x

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

A daughter to be proud of

Best wishes Tilly

giblet1979

What a gorgeous little girl
Great progress with the MSE as well LMG x

LittleMissGiggles123

Thank you both. She really is special. Such a sweet natured, kind little girl just like her older sister.

I've had a productive few days. Got lots of decluttering & tidying done in the house, listed a few items on ebay, put a few more things on Amazon & also managed to sell a pair of curtains on Facebook, so got a little bit of extra money in the pot. I also found £30 in a jacket pocket that I haven't worn for a few months, so I was very happy about that little bonus.

I've got a few things on Ebay & some have watchers, 1 has a bid on. They don't end until Sunday. I was hoping to get more on there but the battery died on my camera so I'm going to charge it this week & put more on next weekend. I suppose it's better doing it this way anyway because I always struggle with posting lots of items because of work hours & people paying on different days etc.

I had 3 sets of curtains that I no longer want so thought I'd try & sell them, but I know that posting them would be expensive so I didn't really want to go through ebay. So I took a chance & listed them on the local selling page on Facebook and had lots of interest. I listed for £15 & I did get one or two people offering lower, but luckily other people were interested & were happy to pay the asking price. So I listed them last night & this morning they were sold and collected. I've got to put the other 2 sets up now, one set never been used (I bought them, didn't like them & never sent them back, purely down to laziness, no excuses!) so I'm going to try & get £15 for those ones too.

The other set are a plain, cheaper pair so I will probably just offer those ones for free (or maybe try a cheeky fiver).

I've got a bag full of stuff that I want to try & sell now in the next few weeks. I'm just hoping it's stuff that people will want to buy. Sometimes I find that the things I think people will snap up tend to hang around for ages with barely any interest & the more obscure things seem to go really quickly. I remember selling a pair of my OH's converse shoes once, he'd worn them a few times so I was just expecting a few quid for them but they ended up selling for £17 plus postage!

I've been umming & aahing about selling something in our cupboard too. Basically a few years ago I bought a limited edition box set of a very popular movie series. They were only making 15000 of these box sets so are a true limited edition item. I paid £60 for the box set, we've never even opened it, still in cellophane etc. Out of curiosity I checked it out on amazon the other day & there are only a few for sale on there and the lowest it's going for is £250. It's one of those do I, don't I scenarios because it was a gift for my OH (so technically not mine anyway) & we do like to have collectors items of some stuff, plus it's not like we couldn't afford to buy it in the first place. But then on the other hand I see it sitting on the shelf & I think, thats £250 we could pay off the mortgage.

But I guess there's no guarantee it will sell. At least with ebay you can check sold listings etc, but with Amazon you can't do that so I am only really looking at asking prices rather than true selling figures.

I think I'll hold on to it for now. You never know it might increase in value as people start opening their's up or there might come a time when we actually NEED that £250 so I could sell it then.

Baked cupcakes yesterday & a cake today. The cupcakes were for my girls for lunch boxes etc. The cake is a coffee cake though so not for the girls. I will take it in to work tomorrow for people to have a slice & then I'll keep the remainder for me for a few days as a treat. It's got buttercream icing on it so I won't be able to keep it for too long, although I have to admit I keep it in the fridge simply because the buttercream icing lasts a bit longer then. Luckily the recipe I use has a syrup brushed over the cake when it comes out of the oven, so it is extra moist.

Well, I hope everybody has had a lovely Monday & also hope you all have a very MSE week. I'll probably be back later in the week to update any goings on.

x

LittleMissGiggles123

Hi Diary


Have had a busy few days so not been on much.


Sold a few things on ebay. Not everything sold & to be honest the stuff that did sell didn't get as much as I was hoping for but every penny counts I guess. The stuff that didn't sell has automatically relisted so will see if it sells & if it doesn't sell this time then I'm going to put it in a bag & try one of those cash for clothes places.


I've also sold a few bits on Amazon. The sales are pretty slow on Amazon compared to when I sold things a few years ago. I remember listing about 20 items a few years ago & sold them all within a few days. Sold about 10 items within the first few hours.


This time the sales are just trickling in slowly.


I've reached payout level again on Valued Opinions. It's probably my favourite survey site because it pays out at £10.50 & gets to that level pretty quickly too. I usually get an Amazon voucher code but I might get a different voucher this time just so I've got a variety of vouchers for Christmas. I also thought I'd got to a payout level on one of the other survey sites but unfortunately not. I've reached the level to get what I want, but there is a minimum redeemable amount which I've not hit yet.


All accounts are looking pretty good. Only got a few small DD's to come out now & they're covered anyway so I'm not going to think about them. I'll just see what's left at the end of the month to see what sort of overpayment we can make.


We've been pretty good with spending money (or not spending as the case may be). Just bought the groceries we needed on the weekend & ate what was there, rather than getting a takeaway. I'm also currently trying supermarket own brand washing powder & softener. I'll review that later when I do the first wash load using this stuff.


I've been signing up for all sorts of freebies etc & not had many, but on Friday I had a full size bottle of that new Flash liquid gel. Will see what that's like. I've had the odd sample size of make up stuff sent to me but it's not really been anything I would use so might keep that for Christmas hampers etc for my sister.


x

LittleMissGiggles123

I thought I would update my totals today on various 'savings' pots. I'm going to add Amazon to it as my vouchers have started adding up now.


Tilly Tidies pot £1000.00! This is partly because I've been putting my holiday savings in to here as well so very pleased with this.
Boots Advantage Card £30.78 - increased slightly as I had to buy some toiletries (all budgeted for)
Tesco Clubcard £19.00 - Not gone up at all because they haven't issued new vouchers yet, but we have 1504 points on the account too.
Nectar Card £29.15 worth of points, this is a massive jump again because I'm still getting introductory offers.
Onepoll accounts £12.05 & £16.95
Valued Opinions £2.00 (have had 2 payouts recently)
Inboxpounds £18.62 (so close to the payout!)
Toluna 63865 points - have reached a payout for some £10 vouchers but can't decide which one I would prefer or whether I'd like to push to 80000 points to make it a £15 voucher
Topcashback account
- £0.17 payable
- £123.23 confirmed, waiting for these to become payable:)
- £108.30 pending (tracked but not confirmed yet, although I have no doubts they will be confirmed as they are all genuine transactions)
I have both car insurance renewals due soon so will definitely be going through this site to see if I can get cashback
Quidco £3.85 tracked awaiting confirmation. Had a few pounds paid out recently. I'm not going to be using Quidco anymore so I have raised tickets to chase these last few confirmations so that I can withdraw.
Amazon gift voucher total - £59.83


Have opened a Valued Opinions account for my husband now as I seem to get to the payout levels pretty quickly so if he can also get some payout levels we should be able to rack up quite a few vouchers for various places. I converted my first 2 or 3 payouts to Amazon vouchers but my most recent one I decided to convert to a New Look voucher as my eldest daughter likes to shop in there & she needs some things for holiday so it can go towards that.


x

LittleMissGiggles123

Not including the Tilly Tidies pot the above totals £325.63. Again this is lower than my previous total, but I've had a few payouts on surveys etc that I have converted to vouchers so some balances on the survey accounts have gone down but were paid out first & either spent or saving for Christmas.


I think I'm going to start a sheet to keep track of any vouchers I redeem etc so at least I can make sure I do receive them & also so that when account levels go up & down I can physically track this.


x

WhiteSnowdrop

I love how you've tracked all of the vouchers and survey totals. I don't do any surveys at the moment (wasn't sure about the tax implications) but I do save nectar points and boots points for christmas. I am thinking about suggesting we start using vouchers savings as op's, its just another way of chipping away at the mortgage.
I know what you mean about flea bay. I haven't been selling on there for very long but I still seem to have no idea about what will sell and what won't? Its probably a sign I should never go into retail!

You are doing really well

WS

LittleMissGiggles123

Thanks Snowdrop (love the name).


I find tracking them helps me to remember that I have those points on the cards etc so I remember to use them. I kick myself now when I think of the Tesco vouchers I've let expire in the past. I remember once seeing I had £15 worth of vouchers close to expiration, was going to convert them to get some theme park tickets, forgot to do that, the vouchers expired & I ended up paying for the theme park tickets. So to me that felt like a double whammy because I lost the vouchers plus spent loads of money on the tickets.


It's also helping me to relax a bit about Christmas knowing that with the various points & vouchers I've got, plus the gifts I've already bought, I could probably get at least 5 people sorted without spending any more real money.


I had a busy weekend & got loads done.


The 2 items that didn't sell on ebay last weekend were relisted but only 1 sold (and not been paid for yet either). I'm going to just put the final item in the charity bag that is being collected tomorrow. I gave it 2 tries on ebay & nobody wants it, nobody even watched it so obviously no interest in it. I was surprised as it was a really pretty Next girls dress, but I know the sales are on now so people are probably getting bargains there & also starting to get ready for autumn now instead.


In other ebay news I put 12 items on yesterday night & have bids already totalling just over £12. The bids are on 5 of the items & all have a few watchers so I'm pretty sure the bids will go up a bit. I'll be happy to get over £25 to be honest.


I had a big sort out this weekend. I decluttered & tidied 3 rooms. It was very therapeutic seeing the end result & also meant that I found quite a few items to ebay & also found over £30 in change in my youngest daughters room! I counted that up for her though & told her it can be her spending money for when she goes anywhere over the summer.


Bank accounts are looking ok. We've been lower on cash this month because we've paid the final instalment on our holiday & also saving for spending money. But it looks like I should be able to make a small overpayment which is good, as I wasn't expecting anything at all.


Now that it is the summer holidays I am going to try & work a few extra hours occasionally to get some extra money at the end of August. I'm lucky that my hours are flexible anyway & I could probably get away with starting earlier a few days a week. It will all add up & should hopefully mean I get a bit extra to overpay then in September. Will have to see how the weeks go now I guess.


Right, lets have a look at the goals I set to see how I'm doing.


x

LittleMissGiggles123

Ok so goals & achievements as follows


Financial
Save another £100 - Done but going towards holiday spending money
Mortgage OP of £100 - Not sure if I'll get £100, will see if I can stretch what money I have in my purse
Have at least 1 NSD a week - Actually quite proud of myself because I have achieved this
Get to some payout levels on survey sites - Done with VO & Toluna but have decided to go for the next level on Toluna rather than redeeming now


Home
Have another baking day - I did this but do want another one which I'll do this coming weekend
Keep washing basket low - Sort of, I've kept on top of the washing but had a load of bedding to wash as we bought some new items
Declutter DD1 bedroom to freshen up a bit - Haven't done yet as I need her to help go through her things


Myself
Haircut!! - hahahahahaha
At least 1 run & 1 walk per week - Not done both but each week I've managed to do either one or the other. This week should be easier to do both so will squeeze these in somewhere


So quite a successful month so far & still over a week left. So I'm going to overrule the goals above now & concentrate on the goals below as mini goals.


2 runs, 2 walks
4 NSD's
Reach Toluna payout & redeem
List a few more things on MusicMagpie


x

giblet1979

Sounds like it's all going great x