Years of Breezing: Time to Break the Cycle!

StrugglingYouth

For me the maths equates to cars! Which is inherently more dangerous considering their potential for bills, but buy right and you wont go far wrong.

Kat you can also utilise the laptop to save you more funds in future by shopping around and in savings made alone it should pay for itself within a few years. Just stop juggling coffee cups and you should be alright!

itskat

Aw, but I was hoping to enter the 2016 Olympics for Cup Juggling. That's a sport, right?

I can see how the maths would be useful for something like a car - thought never occurred to me to apply it to my tech before

Bex296 wrote: »

Good luck!
I'm well versed in the credit card trap. It's so easy to just buy stuff... Because saving takes time, and I'm impatient, and I'll pay it off anyway- except that it doesn't really work out that way!

Thanks Bex, and yup, that has 100% been my problem in the past, and my justification has always been "You can afford it in 6 months time, so just get it now!". But no more! No more!



:rotfl:

Found a new spot where my card details were still stored (iTunes). It's starting to become clear how I managed to spend so much in a short space of time. I've removed them from there now, too.

Got confirmation by e-mail this morning that my balance transfer card has been accepted (woo), so I just have to wait for that to arrive and activate, and for the money to move from my current card.

I'm a little unclear as to how the transfer fee (it's £30 exactly) gets added to the new card account, and how I pay it off without incurring interest on it. Guess that's something for me to look into today!

StrugglingYouth

itskat wrote: »

Aw, but I was hoping to enter the 2016 Olympics for Cup Juggling. That's a sport, right?

I can see how the maths would be useful for something like a car - thought never occurred to me to apply it to my tech before

You havent heard of the international cup juggling competitions? Have you lived under a rock?

It is useful, but also dangerous. I always think of the Spider man quote from Uncle Ben to Peter before I use it. Otherwise il man maths my way into a Lamborghini and divide it over my entire lifetime to make it seem like amazing value.

Bex296

itskat wrote: »

I'm a little unclear as to how the transfer fee (it's £30 exactly) gets added to the new card account, and how I pay it off without incurring interest on it. Guess that's something for me to look into today!

I *think* last time I did a balance transfer it just got added on to the transfer amount and no interest was charged on the fee... Not sure if that would apply to all cards though. Fingers crossed there is no interest!

MessyBetty

Hi Kat :hello:

I have read your diary with interest as I am in a similar situation and have been lurking for a while on the forums. I have some changes to make and hope to offer support and encouragement to you, hopefully picking up some tips along the way.

The first thing I'm going to do is contact my phone, broadband and t.v. supplier and ask for a reduction as you did, they can only say no I guess. I know what you mean about building up to it and confidence. Wish me luck, as I do you x

itskat

@Bex, here's hoping there's no interest. Time will tell!

@Betty, thanks for reading! Only thing I want to point out about my conversation with the broadband people was that I was outside of my contract (I've been a customer for 8+ years, never really looked into the costs until recently...d'oh!) - if you're still within your current contract with your provider, they might not be so accommodating! Best of luck to you in your journey

Today has been fairly uneventful, which I suppose is a good thing! Did my food shop for the week: should've been £30.64 but I had a whopping £6.10 voucher (thanks, Tesco Price Promise - let's gloss over how that's essentially an overcharge from last time), so it'll be £24.54 instead.

My frivolity money for the week will be going on a haircut at weekend - long overdue, think it's been about a year since the last one (so unkempt!).

I cancelled my direct debit for the lottery, because I wanted to change the bank account it was coming from - turns out I can't setup a new direct debit until the old one runs out next month, so now I'm paranoid that I'll forget to set it back up and my numbers will come up and I'll miss out on a few million pounds. Setting the reminders now!

AleMrsT

Hi Kat, I've subscribed. Glad it's not just me who's thinking why didn't I do this year's ago. I used to just use my debit card until it got declined, then use my credit card instead. Well, no more. I am going to try budgeting properly, allocating metaphorical pots of money, and I'm also setting up a DMP with stepchange. I ddon't have a large amount of debt, but my income has dropped so need to be more on top of my finances and get into good habits. Good luck on your journey. MrsAle

itskat

Thanks for following, MrsAle, and good luck on your side!

Over here, I sold an old ereader on eBay yesterday, and the buyer paid today, so that's another £30 crammed into the pot.

I'm going to take some time over the weekend to see which of my old games/books/DVDs might be worth a decent price on Amazon Trade-In & Music Magpie. If nothing else, it'll clear up some space on my ridiculously over-crammed bookcases.

AleMrsT

itskat wrote: »

I'm going to take some time over the weekend to see which of my old games/books/DVDs might be worth a decent price on Amazon Trade-In & Music Magpie. If nothing else, it'll clear up some space on my ridiculously over-crammed bookcases.

Hey, just a hint, try zapper aswell as music magpie. I usually have both tabs open and fill in the bar codes on both, as sometimes zapper pays out more. Only pennies more, but as MrT says, every little helps.

itskat

Oh hey, I lost my "newbie" tag! Guess people don't have to be extra nice to me anymore \o/

Thanks again for the info, MrsAle. I'll definitely check out Zapper, too.

Posted the ereader (I've been signed up to that eBay international shipping thing, and the buyer was in Spain, so I've had to send it to the ebay depot or something...not 100% clear on how it works, but it's the first thing I've sent this way, so I'm a tad nervous!).

One of my work colleagues had a McDonald's for lunch today. Oh man, I miss them. I know they're overpriced and about as nutritionally sound as a cardboard box, but still. I was sitting there with my cold tuna mayo and sweetcorn pasta, breathing in traces of Big Mac, and oh, my heart t'was aching. But I perservered, and I will not be going to McD's or KFC on the way home from work. I will not! -_-

Little bit more spending, as well. Only a little. £4.72 on some hair wax, which I'll need after I get my hair cut, as I don't have any hair products at all (currently have mid back-length hair and am going for a cut right up to the jaw, so I'll need to actually start syling the !!!!!! instead of just tying it up and trying to forget I have hair). Again, did some shopping around, and ended up buying a men's product, which was about £8-£10 cheaper than any of the ladies' versions of pretty much the same thing (not paying the "pink tax", no thanks). Supposedly this stuff lasts for months, if the Amazon reviews are to be believed, so hopefully that'll be the only haircare expense for a month or so.

I really want to have a massive clear out at home. Not so much for selling/profit, but rather just to get rid of the masses of garbage (not literally) stuffed into corners and on shelves and on every surface in the house. My bathroom alone is full of so many mostly empty bottles of stuff; they could probably fill a wheelie bin by themselves.

Trying to pace myself, though. Don't want to get too ambitious at once, otherwise nothing will end up getting done at all.

Baby steps, girl, baby steps...