Opened my eyes finally & dealing with what I see

reality_check

Just catching up on your diary - good news about ebay sales, not so good about the fees! Should try maybe advertising on gumtree on Facebook pages next time and then Ebay after that? I have no experience in either so not really the best person to be commenting on!

Thats great about not adding to your totals and instead have managed to make over payments, woohoo!

I switched energy in Dec/Jan and should be getting a £30 payment, don't think I got mine...will look into it/chase that up...

Hope you have a lovely weekend whatever you do xx

Florence_J

Hi, have been enjoying reading this. I started a debt free diary late last year and am finally back now i'm on a 'sort of holiday' (visiting family) . I do the marked money envelopes too! I find it great as it means i have the money budgeted for and what is left in my bank account is really 'my' money. I wish you the best of luck. I was also stung by ebay fees last year and had to do some quite wheeler dealer-ings to come up with the money. You've given me some great ideas, thank you.

note3

Thanks reality check I'll be honest in that gumtree is unknown to me too and I tend to stick with what I know but you're right I need to look into it. Esp for a couple of large items I have. You definitely need to look into the cashback as 30 is a nice large sum to chuck at your debt

Welcome Florence pleased to have helped as it means I'm hopefully doing the right things myself! I shall go check out your diary

note3

Well...I've had to stop eBay sales til 1St March as my free listings have run out so it costs 35p each time and considering I'm just selling second hand clothes it'll leave me with only teeny profit after fees paid too!

Been doing surveys and comps still

Brettson

Hiya, sounds like you've had a really great start to your journey! You've really inspired me.
I'm currently eBaying lots but will also try listing on Facebook. I tried Gumtree but had limited success.
I'm also going to check out those Facebook groups you mentioned to try and cut down out grocery bill further.

note3

The Facebook groups are great and there's a website for one of them which has loads of recipes on (feed your family for about £20 a week). They also post links to a meat distributor called muscle foods which does amazing deals on meat packages. The only catch being that you'd need a fair bit of space in your freezer as you literally bulk buy about a month of meat. It has great reviews for them. I've been using up my freezer stuff ready to place an order in near future

lashie

I have heard from friends that Facebook is really good for selling kids clothes.
Also you can pay your eBay fees as soon as the item is sold, you don't have to wait for the invoice. It is somewhere under the my account section and is called make a one time payment. I do it straight away before I transfer any profits from PayPal into my bank account. You don't end up with any nasty invoice surprises at the end of the month then!
Good luck.

note3

Hey lashie, thanks you are a diamond! I'm definitely going to do that from now on with ebay as then I know exactly what money I've made...thanks so much!

Unfortunately our local facebook sites are filled with ad's, random toot and people flooding them with posts so stuff gets lost very quickly. There's also been quite a few bad experiences for people I know of time wasting and nastiness so I've been really put off.

I've discovered some other possible selling sites off here though like we buy books so I'm going to explore other avenues

Kitten868

Hello! I've had a nosey now too. I think we have to go through a hard and long slog with debt so that we can change our spending attitudes for life rather than for now. It's like dieting: sure you can do slimfast for a month and lose a stone but you haven't learnt how to reduce your intake with real food so it'll just go back on. I fear you're in for a long slog. Lots of lessons to be learnt over the years to come you can do this.
I think your SOA is trimmed enough as long as you stick to it. Me and oh have a joint account for all the direct debits and pay it across straight away when we're paid. We have the Halifax one and letting that £5/month roll over for ground rent at the end of the year.
eBay fees feel fierce but it's only 10% and PayPal is 3% + 20p. You get a way more diverse market and it's just easier imo. So if you sell something for 99p + postage you make 20p. It's all money in the pot. And for me liberation! After doing it for 6 months I feel so differently about stuff. Now I know the value the minute you've got it in a carrier bag.
Keep going your attitude is changing and you're doing great. Xxx

Kitten868

With webuybooks and ziffit download both apps and scan it all and compare so you get the best price plus they normally have 10% extra codes to hunt for. I use nappy or wet wipe boxes to post mine x