Chloe's diary on the road to debt-freeness!

shell_girl

Great idea about selling the new phone- mobiles tend to go really well on ebay- just watch out for the 'electronics superstore' scammers!!
Make sure your new SIM works with your current phone first anyway- and if you can get the new phone unlocked then even better- you're increasing the amount of possible buyers.

chloebelle

Good day today! :j

New contract phone arrived, cue the money saving!!

The money diary and strcit budget start tomorrow, actually looking forward to it in a weird way, will make me feel that the debt-free journey is really underway.

Updated totals for £500 by christmas challenge - have hit the halfway mark (see sig.).

Have got more piggypoints and test and vote points.

Its payday tomorrow, including £86.80 of overtime to add to sig!! :T

Overall good, am going oit for meal tomorrow :eek: however am going to pay in cash and write it immediately in diary - hopefully having a unnecessary spend so close to the start of the month wil encourage me to stop more spending

chloebelle

Its D-day!!!

Its payday and also the first official day of my money diary.

Actually a few things gone in already but some of them are money saving in the long term - for example, took out a magazine subscription tonight but that will save me money over the year, did it through pigsback for points and will get a free dvd that I can sell!!

Also the beginning of my 'make an extra £100 a month challenge'. Good start, sold a book on amazon tonight.

respond well to challenges so am going to set myself one every month.

October's Challenge - aim for 50% of the month to be NSD.

will keep you all posted on progess!

babes21

Well done Chloe, you're doing really well.

Keep us updated x

chloebelle

A new week, a new month!!

Spending diary is going well, so far books sold on amazon are matching my spending so good to date.

Contract mobile all sorted, no more topping up! :j

Have decided to make a bigger effort with £2 coin collection. Met a friend today and told them, they searched in their pockets and found 4! Thats £8 in my jar!

Am planning to count my jar on 1st december which is my work x-mas do. Decided that whatever is in the jar is my drinking money for the night - this should hopefully cut down my spending. After saving all those £2, will be sad to see them all drunk away in one night.

Have increased my various points total since last week (see sig.). However, am so obsessed with money saving am wasting valuable time that I should be studying!!

Have been trying to work out a date to aim for debt-freeness. I aiming for a big birthday, namely january 2013! I know that sounds like a ridiculously long time but I am commited to 4 years of study so proper wages are many years away.

Will certainly review this date as time goes on a reduce accordingly.

Aim for this week is to have as many NSD as poss. The only day I have to spend is weds. so am going to try and avoid spending on all the others.

Thats about it for now, hope everyone elses journeys are going well.

chloebelle

hi everyone,

first week of money diary done! Seems like an expensive week but my diary did include 2 one-offs - £36 magazine subscription and £10 phone top-up (have switched to contract so won't need to do that again!)

On a good note I have done very well in terms of making extra money this week. Have made £67.96! My mission was to earn an extra £100 a month- maybe I'm being too easy on myself! Will see how much I have made at the end of the month and possibly raise the amount.

Have spent £113.42 this week :mad: but like I say that includes some one-offs. Therefore, taking into account money made, total expenditure of £45.46.

Overall seems ok :T


Next weeks challenge - spend less overall to make up for one-offs this week.
Also to have some more NSD as I only had 1 last week :eek:

Hope everyone else is doing well.

ps. have been swopping £1 coins for £2 coins this week so my jar is getting nice and heavy! Will be counted 1/12!

chloebelle

I am so naughty! Promised I wouldn't count my change jar till 1/12 but just had a 10 second rough count! Looks like about a fiver, I must be strong and not touch it again! Am gonna grab the quality street tins after chrsitmas and cut a hole in the lid, meaning I can't see the contents!

Good start to the week with a NSD, that makes 2 in a row! :T . I am aiming to have a very low spend week as went a bit overboard last week.

Earned enough piggypoints to claim £10 boots voucher which is great! Have been on computer far too long, think i'll have a break and then write some testandvote reviews to get points. Am aiming for 50000 to convert to ipoints. Only get 1500 ipoints for this amount which is a bad exchange rate! However, I dont want any of the testandvote vouchers so am going to put them towards aiming for 8300 ipoints (will get me £30 boots voucher).

gems2381

I didn't realise you could write reviews for testandvote points, how many do you earn from that? I was going to give that site up once I had enough for some ipoints but I'm still doing the surveys lol, pants site though!

chloebelle

yeah go on to testandvote, I think its the opinions page, search for the film/tv prog/actor ect that you want to review and write away! You get 100 points per review so in the greater scheme of aiming for 50000 it doesn't have a huge impact but it definately helps.

The one big advantage is that they seem to credit points for all reviews written. Pigsback is selective and only awards for reviews it publishes (I've written 3 movies reviews for pigsback and none were published). So if you take the trouble to write a review you know you will get something for it.

gems2381

Thanks Chloe I'll take a look this evening, need to boost my points somehow!