£50k to zero - made it across the finish line

One-step-at-a-time

Drawingaline wrote: »

Cream tea sounds good. It's amazing what you see as a 'splurge' when you are intensively paying down debt lol!

It is, isn't it? I have to be really careful with not getting too obsessive about it, there is such a thing as being over-frugal to the point of causing arguments!

Drawingaline wrote: »

Good luck with the raising extra cash. I really ought to look at selling things but I just don't have the patience.

Thanks! Oh, my patience appears sporadically and is good for at best a couple of hours at a time, using ebay is like getting teeth pulled!

I nipped into the supermarket on the way home and the yellow sticker mojo was strong again; I spent £13.78 tonight, again practically all of it on things that are already on our shopping list, and saved 72% off the undiscounted price. So that's a total of £23.73 on shopping this week, and enough food for us to eat really well for at least the next ten days, including some cuts of meat normally out of our price range. I may have to spend up to £5 on muesli and eggs before the week is out, but that low a spend for that much time for two adults (one of whom is 6'3" and a bottomless hunger pit) is not too shabby.

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AARGH. I was annoyed with an ebay buyer this morning - they were dragging their heels on payment, so I logged in to give them a prod to find that they are in Portugal when the listing clearly says UK postage only. We've sorted it and I've relisted the item, but that's £14 after fleabay fees that I won't be paying off Bcard this month

Oh well, at least I earned nearly £5 on Prolific last night...
As a knee-jerk reaction to this I decided to try to shave a bit off September's costs (we have a couple of things in September requiring overnight stops, one stop was paid for last year, but so far I have shaved £12.20 off the other one by swapping hotels. Every little challenge just means looking harder for an answer

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It appears that a substantial ebay sale has been made! Buyer has already paid, and I have cleared £411 after fees and postage. There's a lot to be said for waiting until fleabay has a low selling fees promotion! Happy bunny! There is a small measure of paranoia at play because I inherently don't trust people and am fearful about being ripped off, but I will take pictures of the item at every stage of packing, and I'm using insured courier delivery, so everything *should* be OK. Once it's all clear, that's 22.7% of my December target met, which is a brilliant start. BCard you are going DOWN. I will actually pay the £411 off MBNA's 4.9% balance and then move the same amount from Barclaycard at 6.9% to MBNA at 3.9% with no fee and save myself another pound a month while I'm at it.

I'm also confused by a payment from my old camera insurance which appears to be a refund of £36.60. I'm not going to allocate it to anything because I wasn't aware that I'd made any overpayments, and it could vanish as quickly as it arrived, so I'm going to move it to the tax savings pot for now (just so it doesn't sit in my current account). I will need to query it with them, but if it's not a mistake then balancing next month's budget will be a bit easier.

I just need to sit on my hands for a bit before shuffling anything else around. I'm also waiting on two CC statements to show in my account - I'm always much happier once they have landed and I can update my spreadsheet with the totals left at each transfer rate.

As things stand now I still have £190 to last 18 days of which £34.50 is needed for transport, and no need to do a food shop until next week, so August is still on track.

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The continuing saga of balance ping pong. This morning HFax have withdrawn the fee-free transfer I've been using to bounce balances, so that's reinforced yesterday's decision to divert more funds to MBNA and use that to transfer/reduce the BCard balance as quickly as I can. I am so glad that I am checking everything daily so that the changes don't come as too much of a shock.

I did more shopping last night on the way home in M&S of all places, I was originally going for a NSD yesterday, but spotted a bunch of expensive and freezable ready meals down to 65/70p each, so we now have a freezer that's pretty stuffed with reasonably priced meals, and I am keeping a careful tally of the food spends. All still on target.

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Yesterday I talked myself out of impulse-spending £4.
I *really* could do with a new pair of running compression capris, mine are not long for this world. I saw some in TK Maxx yesterday (I really wasn't there to shop, I was avoiding rain waiting for my bus!) for £4 in clearance. They are a 'name' brand and cost way more than I would ever consider paying new (£70 :eek:). After giving myself some time to mull it over, I think that I will go back this evening and buy them if they're still on the rack; I'm highly unlikely to find anything for close to that good price a few weeks/months down the line. If they're not there, it wasn't meant to be, right?

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I didn't spend that £4 - the capris were nowhere in sight when I went back.

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Swings and roundabouts this weekend - three offers made on ebay items, one accepted so far which (if paid for and collected) will bring £25 after fees and help declutter the house. That's actually made me really happy, as it's an item large enough to really make a difference to our space. One offer was declined (they offered half the starting price, but the item has four watchers so I'm going to sit on it), and there's another one that I haven't made my mind up on yet. I've also sold one item to a friend if it doesn't go on ebay within the next two weeks, so that's another £8 coming in soon. However, our 'no spend' weekend actually set us back £30 in fuel and food. I am *almost* resigned to going over budget this month; we can get by without going overdrawn or increasing the debt, but I will have to borrow from myself and hustle a lot more next month to catch up. Still plenty of food in the fridge and freezer, we're doing pretty well in that respect. I just need to keep plugging away at things!

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Well, it looks like ebay has just about come between me and disaster. The big bulky thing was paid for and collected, and the person who bought my little camera is delighted with it, so I deemed it safe to pay a chunk off bCard with the proceeds. I've also cleared another £12.50 in odds & sods over the last couple of days. The end of the month is in sight, and we are going to make our target! I knew we'd be stretched in August, but it's been trickier than I expected. I'd be lying though if I didn't admit to getting just a bit fed up and frustrated with the constant slog against the debt, more so than I have in a good few months.

I've been going back through my 'ways to raise money' spreadsheet and am still committed to raising the extra £362 in September to meet my monthly BCard challenge (not to mention still having a week left this month to make a dent in it). There won't be much respite between now and the end of the year if I'm going to finish in the position I want to be in (which is 40% total paid by Christmas), but I do like a challenge, and there is nothing quite like seeing those numbers go down.

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Woohoo we are into another maximum £1 fees listing period. Tonight is my only free night while the offer is valid, so best get a move on with all that! The next lot of listings have a combined potential revenue (after fees) of over £500 - mostly smaller electronics and accessories. How great would it be if I could meet September's overpayment target before the end of August? (and yes, my house is still a bottomless pit of stuff. Every layer of decluttering reveals more layers beneath).

We have a day out tomorrow, and I have done all the food prep so that we have loads of yummy things to take with us and no need to spend money. Kind of glad now that I prioritised that over ebay last night, or I would have been kicking myself at missing the fees offer.

Drawingaline

You are doing so well. I have a stupidly tight budget from sep, but I hold be debt free by Feb! It WILL be worth it