Oh Bum's to it all

ohbumstoitall

My username reflects my current mood. I just want to pack it all in, escape to an island and forget I ever had debt.

BUT.....I can't do that. I was doing okay, I had reduced my debt but then I [STRIKE]might've[/STRIKE] had an episode and spent 10k on my Amex.

Whilst it's a huge issue that I've spent all this money, the main thing here is that it's an interest bearing card and I have no real room elsewhere to do a credit card shuffle. This had been how I was paying off my debt, by shuffling every few months.

I'm now paying £400 a month towards this card and having to pay at least half that in interest. i'm not forgetting about the rest of my debt but those payments will just keep going out whilst I try to crack on with the most important ones. If I don't sort myself out I'm going to have a 3k deficit by the end of August (I've worked out how much is coming in and going out including debt payments) and I would like to try to avoid going into a DMP mainly because I can see that my 6k HSBC card and my 11k Amex would CCJ me and I really need to avoid that. The HSBC is interest free for a long time luckily.

I had lost my AMEX and so was using it on PayPal which is basically what led me to royally frak up (sci-fi reference for you there) so it's been removed from all of my online shopping things. I've then requested a new card as I have about £1400 on my TSB card to BT.

Today I've reduced the Amex from 13k to 12k limit. And will reduce it every time I hit a 1k down, I have £800 credits available, I don't want to reduce that as I would hate to go over the limit (interest blah blah) but I think I can trust myself not to spend that.

AMEX: £11143.81
BarclayCard: £2034.16
First Direct Loan: £3881.71 (if I don't overpay this is how much I will pay in total including interest)

There are other debts but they are not as important at the moment.

I'm currently on an eBay-ing mission. I've got 30 something items listed: [Removed]
Ironically, these are some of the things I purchased with the Amex. I can't return them as the date's passed. I've got a couple of things I can return however and also something from ASOS that I think I can send back for a refund of £50. I've also got a lot of clothes I've never worn, the only issue is I'm due to have a gastric sleeve in a couple of months and then will lose weight, so I either keep them to wear as I lose weight or sell them. I'd have to buy new clothes though thats the issue. At the same time, my standard "uniform" really only consists of leggings and longline tops which can be bought cheaply AND a lot of my current tops will still work as I shrink because of the style of them. I also think that it will take a good few months before I start to see any effect in terms of my size. Oh, the sleeve is being funded by the NHS due to health problems so I won't be paying out for it. Controversial I know but its complicated.

indigowarrior

Happy new shiny diary!

fay66

good luck with your diary and spending

[Deleted User]

Lovely to see you over here.

Good luck xx

ohbumstoitall

Hi all, thank you for the welcome

I've managed to get LOADS on eBay. I've only tackled a quarter of one room!!! It's shocking what I have that either is unopened, unused or barely used.

I've found 3 x lavender hair dyes and a dark blue. There are then two red Manic Panic dyes hiding somewhere else. These were all hiding away from when I had the ends of my hair dyed various colours. Definitely don't need them now.

I've been looking at my cookbooks wondering how to sell these, a lot of them have just been listed on amazon but I won't make much from them at all. I might have to just try facebook websites. It's annoying when you know how much you can buy them new, but selling them second hand you lose out on the postage fees and because Amzn is a pain in the pahootie.



I need to try to be methodical so I don't get overwhelmed. I've got about 35 things on eBay so I will leave it at that until I've finished my next OU essay that's due this thursday. It might be handy to start it!

On the food money saving front, we've having freezer jacket potatoes tomorrow with whatever topping I can dig out of the freezer. I plan to have baked beans with mine, as OH is moaning about the giant tub of homemade ones that have been frozen for about a year. I've got freezer soup for lunch at work, need to dig out some pitta and OH is taking pulled pork wraps to university. I've also got greek yoghurt and grapes at work already, and porridge oats so no reason to run to the tuck shop, which ironically I run.

I put some stuff on as BIN on eBay, so I've sold two hair dyes for £8, Philip Kingsley Elasticizer and some Mod Podge for £20 but listed them as free postage so need to deduct that. I think the Elasticizer can go as large letter, and the mod podge as a small parcel. The hair dyes I'll send by eBay shut which is about £3 so I should get £15 before fees.

Still haven't sorted my amazon returns yet. Must do that, there's about £100 between that and Asos/Simply Be.

System

Good to see you over here now . Keep posting .

savingholmes

Well done on selling stuff and starting a plan.... It all starts there... after a while it will all come more naturally.

ohbumstoitall

Oh no! I had £20ish in my paypal account and it's been taken out by a subscription ARGHHHHH

Cinny91

Followed your diary here from the other board and wanted to wish you good luck!

For books you might be better selling them to a dedicated website, if you google "book selling websites" a whole bunch of options come up. It's normally free shipping too.

Annoying about the subscription! Could you get in touch with the company and ask to cancel/a refund? There is a section of paypal you can go into on desktop to manage your subscriptions, might be an idea to scan through and cancel what you don't need! I completely deleted my paypal last year because I was just spending too easily with it

enthusiasticsaver

Good advice above from Cinny.

Automatic renewals are a big bugbear of mine. I hate them but sometimes you don't get a choice but there is usually a way to get it back afterwards and cancel. Anti virus software is a common one.

ohbumstoitall

Unfortunately can't get it back with this one, its a subscription to a Matched Betting service, which I don't really do anymore as it's not as lucrative but I guess I'll just have to try to make £15 back from it.

I put a load of the books in the above photo onto amazon - admittedly at a lot less than bought for. I've sold 9 in one day ARGH!! Won't make that much profit but its more than if I left them on the shelf. I've not done any more eBaying as I have 35 things on the go on it, plus the books. And I'm in the middle of writing a 2000 word essay.

I managed to BT from my HSBC card to the Amex and I've just transferred £1200 from the TSB to the amex which brings the Amex's total to about £9930. This makes it a little less scary I have to say. I've also managed to down the limit to 12k, just waiting for the TSB BT to clear so I can drop it to 11k.

I've upped my BarclayCard to 3k (it was 2.5k) and whilst that means there is about 1k available, I don't have any BTs. I think I need to get the balance down quite a bit more for one to appear. it would be super handy to help with the Amex though.

OH registered with a job agency today, they've said to come back in May and they're confident that they can find him work at around 18k initially. He apparently had super fast data entry skills which is definitely a good place to start. My only concern is childcare in the summer and doggie care so I'll have to do the maths and see what we're going to do. I love my dogs dearly but I'm nervous about them being at home all day and doggie daycare is expensive