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

Dottles1

Watching and cheering you on from the side lines. you've got this!

One-step-at-a-time

Today is a good day! The quote I put in last week has been accepted with one tiny modification. The job is not until August but equates to another whole % off the debt after tax. I couldn't be happier as it's an area I've been wanting to break into for a while, and I haven't lowballed myself -it's a decent commercial rate.

This news more than makes up for some higher than anticipated travel expenses coming up in the next week.

[Deleted User]

Great news, well done!

db2016

hi, just read your diary over the past 3-4 days, from start.


i had one suggestion early on, re the print sales. i have a specialist niche, which helps, but anyone can do:



i sell prints (less successfully than you), but on the other side, i use stock websites, and only my first or second sale (im on around 15 now). was for a book cover (a certain mouse logo'd kids brand), and well 50/50 commission, my end after deductions and taxes etc was £1900! and a the others add upto around another £1k ish. - over the past 3 years, but the stock game hasnt had much attention from me lately (its all about keywording and in my case researching the photos origins and backstory).


this could be something you may want to look into?


as i'm sure your aware, taking photos, the copyrights are very powerful indeed. lasting (photographers life) PLUS 70 years after! so are definitely a digital asset to be added to a will.



also on the other side, i am expecting £750 from someone who ignored the rights and used an image without my permission. which i feel a lil odd about, yes they should pay up for infringing! but also i'd have rather of almost seen the image used lawfully (even if i would have qouted them way less than they are now paying up!) there are some photographers, that rightly so, but tinged with a lil sadness, earn more from court fees / catching people out, than legit "approached" sales.

so yea, theres other avenues other than prints.



but then i read, your "side hustle" from a couple of months ago, being worth £400 ish, but you got £1k because of "additional usages" so i think you know all about the above!



back to lurking, and wishing you well.



Dan:money:

One-step-at-a-time

Hi Dan,

Thanks, you've hit on one of my pet subjects here! I've been signed up with a couple of stock agencies for years but haven't got much lodged with either of them, as what I shoot is generally not usable for stock - the decent-sized purchases usually come from the subjects of the pics for small print run commercial use. I do need to trawl through my stuff and see what I might have lurking, though! I am so sloppy at keywording though - that's one of the things that puts me off stock!

Since I last posted I've picked up a couple more small jobs, and sold four more prints, so I feel like I've made a bit of progress this month despite the last week being ridiculously busy with family stuff. Hoping to be able to do a proper catch up post some time next week.

One-step-at-a-time

Another fly by update! Swings and roundabouts financially- we should come out just about above water this month - two more decent photo sales pending, but I've had to spring for a new high capacity external hard drive (been putting it off for way too long and wary of letting it become an emergency so have raised savings), and we got stung by the new ultra-,low emission zone last week (£80 of idiot tax). As long as the end of month total is lower than the start of month total I'm not going to stress over it. Other than that, I have a stinky summer cold and am exhausted from pulling myself in too many directions this week, but that'll all fix itself over the weekend!

One-step-at-a-time

Sitting down to catch up properly for the first time in ages!
I've done a round-up of everything that is due to me:
Photography jobs (all after tax deductions):
£400 - pending payment
£100 - recently invoiced work
£300 approx (tb negotiated still)
£260 - August job
...so that's just over £1k that will come in over the next three months. It will be split between repayments and topping up the EF, and help me creep towards December's target (under £20k debt, £600 in holiday savings).

The holiday savings fund is currently at £150, debt is up to date in my signature.

I got quite annoyed last week that my TopCashback claim of £125 from opening an ISA, which was supposed to be payable from July, has been declined. My payments have been going in by DD and I've been through the T&Cs with a magnifying glass and there's no logical reason for this that I can see. I have opened a claim but heard nothing back yet - if I get no joy from it I'll shut down the ISA and find a new one that offers cashback. I had allocated the £125 to a payment due in November so I at least have enough time to move things around to make it work.

With everything being really busy over the last few weeks I've had a couple of lazy days food-wise where I've not been organised enough to take my lunch into work, and have ended up getting the train instead of the bus in the morning a few times, and as a result spent £6 on lunches over two days and an extra £6.80 in fares. I feel like I've taken my eye off the ball a bit budget-wise, and while things haven't slid out of control, July is probably going to have to be a slightly more careful month.

I've been able to claw back a little in some areas - Sbury has yielded some fantastic yellow sticker bargains this week (some nice meat and fish all marked down more than 80%) so we have eaten well.

Yesterday my Mum messaged me to tell me she'd grabbed some £5 off a £20 spend in Lidl vouchers, and as luck would have it we were due to do a shop. I was able to use two, which means we're doing really well on the food part of the budget this month.

Now If I could only shift this stupid cold!!!

One-step-at-a-time

Here we are, limping to the end of the month! It's all gone horribly wrong - but thank goodness for an emergency fund when emergencies happen and dental work is required! Back to square one on the EF front as we move in to July but we are no worse off debt-wise, and DH is no longer in pain, so we are counting a few blessings. It's really nice to be able to handle this stuff without excessive panic (so long as it doesn't happen every month...). Overall June has been a month of treading water - looking back at what I said a couple of weeks ago, the end of month debt total is still lower than the start of month total, so really we have nothing to b!tch about. I'll probably be keeping my head down for the next few weeks and trying to make up some lost ground, but will be checking in from time to time.

Drawingaline

Glad the emergency fund worked for you. Mine has pretty much gone, we have a funeral to attend up north, so petrol, hotel, clothes for the kids and a day off unpaid....... But, no debt for it!

One-step-at-a-time

Thanks Drawingaline - I'm sorry for your loss, hope the journey and funeral weren't too rough on you.