22 months to work, dig, tidy and declutter my way to debt freedom

peaceandfreedom

Here I am, cheerfully admitting to doing pretty much nothing in October .

Target update:

Declutter..............................57 /200 items :cool:
Sell.................................... 0 /20 items
Earn extra cash/vouchers..... £0/£150
Pay off.............................. £110/£100 from a CC
NSDs.................................. 8/7
Lose weight......................... 0/3 pounds
Walks................................. 16/20 short, 1/4 long :cool:
Bike rides............................ 0/4[/QUOTE]

Sold absolutely nothing yet again - sometimes I marvel at my own consistency :rotfl:.

peaceandfreedom

On the plus side:

• I am still managing my money well.
• Debt has now dipped below the 10K mark :j.
• This means less than 4K remains on the CCs. Plan to move that to a new 0% card soon and clear the lot by June 2016.
• I have nearly reached my target savings for Christmas - this is such an unusual and pleasant feeling for me.
• I have lots of other savings.
• I am learning loads of new stuff at work (lovely marketable skills, woo-hoo).
• I went to a rugby world cup match .

I really have had the most lazy month, did nothing inside the house or outside either, ate too much, moved too little, slept too little - I'm thinking of pretending that October never actually happened .

And, thinking about it, it can only mean that November is a vast improvement.

jwil

Lazy months are good, and you still managed to reduce your debt so you have achieved the most important thing!

peaceandfreedom

My balance transfer card has come through and both balances transferred. Balance currently just under 4K. Have calculated that to clear it by the end of June 2016 I need to come up with an extra £130 per month on top of the £400 I am sending by direct debit.

I can afford that OK to be honest but there are other things I need to pay for at the moment, especially with Christmas looming, so will need to get inventive to come up with the extra cash.

Like, er, selling stuff maybe .

peaceandfreedom

Meanwhile, a ton of stuff to do today and as the sun is shining, will get my butt outside to get some garden jobs done. Also need to carve the pumpkin at some point before it gets dark and get some goodies ready in case we get any trick-or-treaters.

Am getting frustrated with my own inability to get on and DO stuff. Having written off October, I am determined that November will be much better .

Be back later.

peaceandfreedom

I did a marvellous job on the pumpkin, even if I say so myself .

It's time for some more random targets. I'm feeling optimistic this month so here goes:

• Declutter..............................400 items
• Sell.................................... 20 items (a triumph of hope over experience :rotfl:)
• Earn extra cash/vouchers...... £150
• Pay off extra ...................... £50 from the CC
• NSDs.................................. 7
• Lose weight......................... 3 pounds
• Walks................................. 20 short, 3 long
• Bike rides............................ 2

My regular payment for the CC has gone up by 90 quid this month, so I have scaled down the extra payment a little. I am defo going to declutter lots of stuff this month, have already started, will update targets in the next post .

peaceandfreedom

Aaaaaand an update on those targets:

• Declutter............................51/400 items
• Sell.................................... 0/20 items
• Earn extra cash/vouchers....... 0/£150
• Pay off extra ....................... 0/£50 from the CC
• NSDs.................................. 1/7
• Lose weight......................... 0/ 3 pounds
• Walks................................. 0/20 short, 1/3 long
• Bike rides............................ 0/2

To be honest, the real declutter total is probably a bit higher as I had a bit of a clear-out of various old statements/cards etc. But I decided I'd round the amount down as really it's just a pile of 'stuff'.

Nice start. Now, I just need to SELL some stuff and I'll feel I'm really making some progress on the decluttering/selling front . Jwil, send some selling vibes my way.

Pollygarter

Morning!

I am subscribed to you diary and am really pleased to see that debt has got onto a 0& card. Now, as you say to pay it off by the end of the free time. It's a great deadline, we all need those! And it is affordable. If you get selling. I am similar. I had a huge push to move house back in August and managed it. I scrimped and sold like mad. But I still have some 0 percent debt. It isn't free money of course and will be back to bite us both I we don't sort it. I've got a tiny bit in a savings pot too let over from the house move and tucked in my ISA. I'd like to be able to keep that...it would be the first time I ever managed to keep any savings since I was a kid. So I'm going to get back on the horse of ebaying, I still have some clutter left in boxes. So let's keep pushing on eh? How many items are you going to list this week? I'm going to get one on by tonight. You?

jwil

Selling vibes heading your way

Just get one item listed - put it on facebook or local paper etc if you can't face ebay. You'll feel so much better when you do

I hate the whole listing process, so I take photos one day and make any notes about condition, then often on another day do the actual listing. All my ebay stuff is packed away in boxes once the prep is done, and I just have a few sheets of paper with the notes on them.

I don't always do it all at once. It's much quicker that way for me, and the listing part only takes a couple of minutes so I can just do a few here and there. Now you can schedule 20 items for free as well, you can list when you like and schedule them for when you want them to go on.

Lacherlich

Hi!

Glad to see the debt clearing is going well :-)

I also had a pretty lazy October, I made the mistake of weighing myself and am now the heaviest I have ever been! Ouch. Not that I'm humongous, but definitely a concern! Think I'll try and eat clean for a month once all the food in the house is gone - maybe go for a run... ha.

Congrats on your Xmas money stash! Wish I had some saved, but got a few vouchers for John Lewis from completing surveys that I will give to people. This year is going by so quickly!

Hope all is well :-)