Debt-free before 40!

Missioncontrol2014

Weekly update : done quite well this week I think!

I sold the festival tickets for £120 in the end, which is about £50 less than I originally paid, but as I bought them on a credit card about 12 months ago I don't think I've done bad under the circumstances! I have another couple of gig tickets listed which might go for £30-ish if they sell, but it's starting to look doubtful.

I'm a bit of an archive/cult telly geek, so have hundreds of old TV shows on DVD. When I met my girlfriend, she was massively amused to see that several of these were boxsets of The Bill, and much teasing ensued. Anyway, I finally admitted I was never going to watch them so they went on Ebay last week, and sold for just under £80, and that's with one person backing out after auction's end because his wife "accidentally bid on it" (more like he bid more than he intended, as it did go for a suspiciously high price). That one's been relisted so should add to the coffers in a few days.

More Ebay action - I listed my copy of that rare CD that sells for £200. The £200 might have been a bit of a blip, as one has sold since and only went for £70 (I say 'only!' - that's still pretty healthy!). Mine has been bid on up to £20-something so far.

Also I had an original Xbox console gathering dust in my spare room. I bought it years ago but never used it - it's still in the box, brand new and sealed. "Is that worth anything?", I wondered. Well apparently yes! £36 so far, with about 13 people watching it :-)

Finally I've been attempting to get another Music Magpie bundle together, but so far despite adding about 20 CDs to my basket it's stuck on about £7, which doesn't quite inspire me to stay in all day for a courier! Might have another root round next week to see if I can find any more to bump it up a bit.

in_need_of_direction

All going in the right direction. Stick with it.

GunWharf

All going well and progress being made!

Keep going, I am enjoying reading your diary.

The Captain on the South Coast

Missioncontrol2014

Alarmingly, I've just realised I've not updated for a month! (and bizarrely, I'm back here updating one month to the day)

Picking up on a few of my ongoing bits from last time : sadly nearly all the Bill DVDs got lost in the post (unbelievably, as I sold most of them to one guy and sent them in two packages...apparently *neither* of them got there?) and stupidly I didn't send them by tracked delivery, so I've had to give all the money back I earned from those...in fact worse than that, I'd already paid it off my debts so I had to get a small overdraft from the bank in order to pay it off, and my next few Ebay sales will go towards clearing that.

The bottom seems to have fallen out of the £200 CD market, and I ended up only selling mine for about £35 (I say 'only'!), the Xbox did quite well though and sold for £62. Oh, and I managed to get the Music Magpie total up to around £8.50 before I shipped it off, and the cash for that is working it's way through the system v-e-e-e-e-r-r-r-y-y s-l-o-w-w-w-l-l-y-y, like it always does.

I've updated my figures on my signature, and will be updating again in a couple of weeks when I get paid. In addition to the Bill problems though, we went away for a couple of days (booked long ago before my LBM) and didn't really have the funds for it, so....sigh....a couple of things ended up going on a credit card. We're only talking a tank of petrol and a couple of meals etc but it's a setback. Also, I've not managed to get as much overtime in in June, which won't affect this payday but will affect my pay at the end of July.

So, a few setbacks. But hey. I'm still plugging away! And the overall figure will still be down rather than up!

in_need_of_direction

That last line of your post is the most important one. Chin up

Missioncontrol2014

in_need_of_direction wrote: »

That last line of your post is the most important one. Chin up

Cheers I guess after a couple of really good months where I've shifted a lot of debt, I'm struggling to accept that the next couple of months won't be as impressive, due to the lack of overtime and the little bit of spending I've done. But hey, like you say, if it's going down it's still heading in the right direction!

Missioncontrol2014

Payday update : All my loan and credit card repayments made, and it's all still looking healthy! What's not included (yet) is the spending I ended up doing on my 4th credit card - the statement for that should show up soon.

Having said that, it'll still be going down overall, and I've identified a load of potential future Ebay sales so after the next couple of weeks, which are going to be a bit busy for various reasons, I'm going to get straight back on with the Ebaying, with CC4 the main priority.

Missioncontrol2014

Bit of good news along the way - on Thursday afternoon I proposed to my girlfriend and she said yes! :-) (I bought the engagement ring from a small savings pot I'd stored up, so no debt worries there)

And with that I'm on holiday for a week - a week in Lanzarote bought and paid for before my LBM - it's all-inclusive and we've already put away what spending money we'll need, so again there are no debt worries attached.

All of this sounds a bit spendy and decadent, especially bearing in mind I've let my Ebay and Amazon listings dwindle to nothing (in anticipation of going away). I will be back to it on the 16th though, with a new combined mission that involves clearing the CCs and loans *and* trying to fund a wedding on an approximate budget of nowt!

in_need_of_direction

Congratulations. What great news in advance of the holiday. It also looks like you're in control of your financial matters which is brilliant. Well done. Enjoy the break

Missioncontrol2014

Back again, and there have been a few changes.

Faced with the dual challenges of paying off all my debt, and trying to fund a wedding, I've ended up biting the bullet and taking out a consolidation loan.

This was NOT my favourite option, not least because I've been there before, and ended up running up my credit cards again - both the HSBC loans I already had were previous consolidation attempts, from 2007 and 2011, and there had been a couple of other attempts prior to that too. Also, my ambition to be debt free before 40 is now definitely not going to happen (although you could argue that, without killing myself working overtime and/or selling everything I own, it wasn't going to happen anyway. Perhaps even WITH doing those things it wouldn't have happened).

So anyway. I've halved my monthly outgoings on debt - I was paying out around £600, it's now £281. On a flat wage, I'll now have around £200 in spending money after all bills, mortgage, food etc and the new loan instalment have been paid. If I work the odd bit of overtime, or sell a few things on Ebay, I'll have lots more on top, to either spend or add to the savings pot. On a flat wage previously, I'd have been in negative figures, and on the months I couldn't get any overtime I used to really struggle.

The loan has cleared every last scrap of debt, and raised a chunk towards paying for my wedding venue and honeymoon.

It's a bittersweet pill. I might be 45 before I'm debt free now. But I'm in the process of paying off and closing all my credit cards, bar one which I have reduced to a £1000 limit for emergencies only, so the chances of getting into trouble again are limited (plus I'd like to think I've finally learned my lesson, although past experience shows me I could easily be wrong!). I'm getting my life back, in that I can relax and enjoy my time off, rather than cramming in unwise numbers of overtime shifts or constantly running backwards and forwards to the Post Office, and I'll have a bit of money to spend on fun stuff, as long as I'm careful, and to build some savings with.

Oh, and the loan is flexible enough to allow overpayments to be made as and when, so although 40 may be a tad optimistic, hopefully I can shave a couple of years off it in time by making the odd overpayment. But initially I'll just be concentrating on not making the same mess all over again!