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

Lucifa73

Good work on the frogs and BRILLIANT news on being closer to paying off than you thought. Bet that has you smiling all the way through! :T

One-step-at-a-time

Lucifa73 wrote: »

Good work on the frogs and BRILLIANT news on being closer to paying off than you thought. Bet that has you smiling all the way through! :T

It has indeed been a very smiley day! Though I still have a looooong way to go. If I stop to think too much it frustrates me that I managed to let this mess drag on for as long as it did, and frustrates me even more that so thousands and thousands of it is interest. Such a waste! But you live and learn. Where we are now isn't perfect, but at least I know that if I watch everything like a hawk and keep planning as far in advance as I can, we don't really have to give up any of the stuff that's *really* important to us (just be extra-picky about priorities).

It's been a very MSE day today. Free breakfast at the station courtesy of the new L!dl that's opening next week (cereal bar, banana, orange juice, water and a bit of chocolate), then more free soup at work for lunch, then a colleague brought in a box of cupcakes with vanilla frosting because he had the urge to bake last night. None of us were complaining.Oh, and I found 40p in my coat pocket this morning! :rotfl:

Tomorrow should be another NSD, 4th this month (I'm aiming for 4 per week).

One-step-at-a-time

Evening all!

Friday night roundup:
1) NSD almost foiled by needing lemon juice for homemade hummus, but I am banking on the cooked chickpeas being OK to leave in the fridge until the morning, and my pitta bread dough will be better for being left overnight.
2) Nearly up to another £10 on Prolific
3) A bite of frog for dessert :rotfl:
4) Two guaranteed eB4y sales (ending on Sunday), at least £12 clear so far, multiple watchers on six other items.
5) I've just opened a Starling account. Haven't decided exactly how best to manage it yet, but for now (well, when the physical card arrives!) I intend to just use it for my PAYG commuting costs and food, so I can start leaving my normal debit card at home.
6) Still batting around the idea of applying for a balance transfer card within a few months. Today I had a couple of good 0% ones come up via MSE credit club with a 95% chance of acceptance. I do have a massive wodge of cc debt still at 3.9% and it would be great to see some of that shifted, but I am nervous about applying for another one until my credit utilisation has gone down a bit more. It's still over 60%.

This short little month feels like it's going to morph into a HUGE long slow month, but at least I have the 20 day countdown to slaying one of the debt dragons for good.

One-step-at-a-time

I'm going to do a countdown now, I honestly cannot wait to go online to make that final £446.88 payment! It will be done at 00:01 on Feb 28th.
I've even had 'hmmm, how much would my overdraft charges be if I just paid it now' cross my mind (yes, I need a slapped wrist for that thought...and the answer is less than £12, but don't worry I'm not going to go there, I'm not forking out a penny more than is absolutely necessary!).

Today hasn't been bad at all, my to-do list already has as much crossedof it as is left on it, which is a bit unusual for me this early in the weekend! Annoyingly though I forgot about a domain named renewal which happened today and is going to eat up all my survey money earned over the last couple of weeks. I'm kicking myself, but it's a domain that I use, so it's not like I would have been able to cancel it to save the money.
On the plus side my eb4y spoils will make up for it - I'm now over £20 (with 20 hours still to go) and it looks like one item may have a little bidding war starting on it. I've got all the packaging sorted out so I can get whatever does sell ready to send off as soon as the payments come through.

Today's decluttering has shifted one more bag of things to the charity shop. DH is working this evening, and I have set up my computer desk to finish the current frogs, I really have no excuse whatsoever tonight!
Hopefully the next time I post I will be (at least temporarily) frogless

One-step-at-a-time

Good morning!

Or at least I think it is. I was awake dealing with the stupid frog until 3AM, woke at 9.30 with a foggy head and just cannot get off the ground.
It's been a nice MSE-friendly morning so far with £29.21 showing as payable in my TCB account. £25 has gone to a CC, £4.21 to the current account. Eb4y currently stands at a total of £31 with five hours to go on most items.
***edit** Eb4y has jumped over the £130 mark in the last hour! :T

Not sure if I will be able to persuade DH that going to the tip is a good/fun idea today as it's foul outside, but I will do my best!
***edit*** well, we were going to go to dispose of some broken gadgets/old stripped down computer cases, but have been FOILED because the tip is closed this week. On the to-do list for next weekend instead.

18 days to dragon-slaying day.

One-step-at-a-time

Evening diary and diary readers!
Apparently I'm in a posty kind of mood today

Very pleased with my Eb4y total of more than £150 after fees! Seven items sold, so I'll be taking four to the post office tomorrow and the rest on Tuesday as I'd probably have a mishap trying to do them all in one go. I always leave the money untouched until I'm sure that all the buyers have got their things and are happy, so the debt total won't be going down for a couple of weeks, but when I consider it 'safe' I'll be sending £125 to debts and the rest to one of the savings pots.

I've spent the last half hour on a minor frog (stupid Lidl parking charge turned up in the post yesterday, which they WILL cancel because a) I used their stupid machine b) we have more than sufficient proof that we were customers and were well within their parking time limits), so having sent emails and evidence to both the parking company and customer services, I'm relaxing with a cuppa and a nice biscuit.

Today has been a bit of an unusual one. DH (aka chief hoarder-in-residence) is starting to behave in a very MSE-friendly fashion. He's actively researching the best ways to sell some of his lesser-used, more specialist stuff, and has not objected to *any* of my suggestions about other things that we could sell/clear out. For the 22+ years I've known him, he's always been a bit of a Justin (as in 'I need to keep this just-in-case'), but this time it really feels like the penny may have dropped. I am cautiously optimistic that this will continue!

Drawingaline

Oh, fingers crossed about oh change of heart! Something in the air? Or is he seeing how much money you are making and he wants some himself?

Either way grab the chance with both hands!

One-step-at-a-time

Drawingaline wrote: »

Oh, fingers crossed about oh change of heart! Something in the air? Or is he seeing how much money you are making and he wants some himself?

Either way grab the chance with both hands!

The simple answer to this is that he's a musician who wants a new instrument, and he knows that he'll only be able to get it if he sells the stuff he uses the least! I suspected as much, but I'm pleased he's not just decided to sneak a new expense on to his CC. We've had quite a long chat about it, and the stuff he's going to sell should easily cover the potential new thing and give him as much again to put towards his own CC debt, and I honestly think he's noticed how much nicer the house is to be in now we're starting to not fall over excess stuff all the time. Although he has curbed his spending massively over the last two years, he's never really had his own true LBM, most of the momentum has come from me. Now though, he's starting to tackle stuff that he has point blank refused to look through for literally years (things that moved house with us, and we've been in this house for more than a decade).

One-step-at-a-time

Evening round-up:

• First lot of eb4y sales successfully posted this morning
• Second lot of eb4y sales packed
• One more item listed

The rest of the month is going to be extra-frugal by necessity. After all remaining bills my remaining funds are £4.37/day, practically all of which is what's left of our grocery budget. It should be manageable as we have absolutely no social events for the rest of the month. We've never really done anything for Valentines other than cooking a nice meal together at home, so nothing financial to stress over there either.

17 days to dragon-slaying day!

One-step-at-a-time

I started off with really good intentions this morning, getting up early enough to bake some bread so we had enough for both our lunches, and going into work early so I could nip to the post office later in the day with more eb4y stuff. Unfortunately things have been so busy that getting to the post office has been impossible, but on the plus side the day didn't drag. Lots of positive things came out of this morning's meeting and there's no chance of running out of projects any time soon!

Not quite an NSD thanks to needing to get potatoes on the way home, but the cost was cancelled out by a £1 refund from a recent Shopmium offer.

My last CC statement has come in today so I've been adjusting the totals for all the incremental balance transfers I've made to that card over the last year and a half and putting them in order of which bit will get paid off next. Nothing much else to say at the moment!