Looks worse when it's written down!!

[Deleted User]

£179 for bedding!! :eek: :eek:

GTBT123

SSDD23 wrote: »

£179 for bedding!! :eek: :eek:

I know!! I was shocked & annoyed as well that it was so expensive. It was beautiful but there is no way I would pay that much.

Got a few small jobs done on the weekend & hopefully will get a few more things done this week on top of the usual boring stuff like cooking & keeping on top of the washing :rotfl:

I've got a lot of spare change around the house at the moment so want to get that counted & paid into the bank. I think I might count the bigger coins, like the £1, 50p, 20p & 10p and bank these, then the small change I will take to one of those money counting machines. I know they take a percentage, which is why I'll only take the smaller coins.

My ebay items are doing alright. They still have a week left & most of them have a few watchers. Some don't have any watchers though & very little views, so I might let it run its course then see if I have any joy on Facebook marketplace. I don't particularly like using it because you get a lot of timewasters & I also find it a hassle having to wait in for people to collect what they've asked for. I suppose it's better than having them cluttering up my house though. If I have no luck on Facebook then I'll take them to the charity shop.

I need to get some boxes to help me with my de-cluttering mission. I was thinking 3 boxes, one for rubbish, one for charity/free giveaway & one for selling. Then I can fill them up & when they're empty I can start de-cluttering another room/area. Reading this I bet people think my house is a hoarders dream! I promise it's really not, we do have a tidy house, but it does bother me the amount of stuff we have got. Every room has storage furniture etc & every last bit of it is full. Our garage also has a huge storage unit, also full and our attic is like Aladdin's cave. It just needs sorting out because if we do move in a year or two, I don't want to be taking stuff to the new house that I know we never use.

On the money front, not a lot happening. It's that middle of the month lull, where most DD's have either left the account or aren't due for another week or two. Grocery budget isn't too bad, I think I've overspent a bit based on being halfway through the month, but I can pull that back in the next 2 weeks by using up a few more things in the cupboards & freezer. I was so tempted to order a takeaway last night after having a busy weekend, but instead I just put some jacket potatoes in the oven & had a jacket potato with cheese & spring onions - YUM!!

Meal plan for today is cheese toastie for lunch & chicken with baby potatoes & salad for tea. I've got fruit for snacks because I'm trying to stay on a healthy plan as much as possible. Weekends are my downfall, but I think if I'm eating healthy 5 out of 7 days, that's better than eating badly every day :j

GTBT123

I can't believe how quick the last week has gone!! My ebay sales went pretty well. 4 of the 6 items sold, total money made was £57 after Paypal fees. Obviously I have to pay the ebay fees & postage, so I think I'll have around £30 left over. That means 3 months of Netflix paid again. That was one of my plans at the beginning of the year, to pay for Netflix through ebay sales, but I just got lazy after the first lot of sales I made.

Anyway, I'm going to work harder to get more sales now to get some more money towards Netflix & hopefully Christmas. I've started doing surveys again too, which all adds to the pot. I used to do them a few years ago in my spare time & by Christmas I had around £600 in various vouchers, so it's definitely worth it if you can put up with the repetitiveness & boredom! I have got some Amazon & some M&S vouchers already, just from ticking over with them over the last few months, but I'm going to try and do them daily from now on which should help me get to cash out amounts sooner.

Money side of things, there's a few DD's to go out over the next few days & next week is payday. I've got some overtime coming to me again this month which is good, that can all go in to the debt repayments. I do have my OH's birthday in August but I have been putting money aside for that so all budgeted. I just have to find the time to go shopping for that and think of something to get him. It's so hard because neither of us really NEED anything so whatever I buy is really just adding to the clutter in the house.

Also counted up some change that I found while I was cleaning all the bedrooms this weekend. It's surprising how much spare change ends up everywhere. I found just over £8 in change so going to use that for my top up shop tomorrow, only need milk, biscuits & yoghurts.

DebtFreeMonkey

Just had a read of this thread and it's super encouraging reading your journey. I look forward to continuing to see your journey and use it as fuel and encouragement to keep going on my own.

GTBT123

Thank you Alicia, I just had a look at your thread too so I'm looking forward to reading your progress.

We have had a week of sorting & de-cluttering. It's been so therapeutic & the added bonus of raising money for us. In total we have earned over £200 so far & still got things to be collected! It's been a real boost to my motivation not only getting things out of the house, but also got us some extra money. We have decided to put half the money towards debt repayments and use half for summer holidays entertainment. We figured we'd end up spending money on day trips etc anyway, so might as well use some of the money we earned through selling stuff.

Bills and all debt payments have been made now for this month. Payday today for me so I've planned my budget for the month. I had a bit of overtime last month which means all the bills & minimum payments have been covered by my wages alone, so OH's wages can be used mainly for over payments. I will put a little bit extra in our emergency fund to top that up a bit more.

I'm still working hard on a meal plan. I seem to stick to it for about 2 weeks at the beginning of the month, then lose it a bit in the second half of the month. I just need to stick to it a bit better & remember to take things out of the freezer in time to defrost.

In our de-clutter mission I have also given away a few things for free. My sister is taking a few things off my hands, so I need to drop them over to her house tomorrow.

I'm going to update totals tomorrow when I have some time to log into all the accounts.

To do list

1. Hoover & mop downstairs
2. Take stuff to sisters to offload
3. Update totals
4. Get online grocery order done for delivery tomorrow
5. Put a few things on ebay/facebook to sell

GTBT123

Here's how I did with my to do list:-

1. Hoover & mop downstairs - DONE
2. Take stuff to sisters to offload - I ran all my other errands & forgot to pop these in
3. Update totals - I haven't checked them yet, that's my job for the weekend
4. Get online grocery order done for delivery tomorrow - DONE
5. Put a few things on ebay/facebook to sell - not yet, another weekend job

Payday has been & gone. I've updated all my budgets for the month & some of my direct debits have left the account. Let's just see how the rest of the month goes.

It's Friday night, I've had a busy week & I'm treating myself to a gin & lemonade tonight. We have a few different bottles of alcohol in the house that we've received as presents or we've bought ourselves. I don't really drink a lot because I don't like the feeling of being drunk & hate the hangover even more, but it is nice to have one or two on a Friday to wind down

We've started watching the latest series of Handmaid's Tale. It's alright so far, I got a bit fed up of the show in the last series but it did improve towards the end of that series, so I thought I'd give this latest one a go. If it starts to get a bit boring again I think I'll give up on it, I just lose all interest if things get boring.

Work has been busy & a bit stressful lately. A few of my colleagues aren't happy with the way one of our other colleagues has been acting, so we have to have a meeting on Monday to get it all straightened out!

mark55man

Hello. Just found your diary after reading Alicia's.

I'll pop in for the ride if that's OK. It is a long old slog and a bit of company on the way always helps.

I found I got worried "that everyday I went to the shops" type posts were too boring, but now I try and do it everyday - people will pick up on the bits of commentary. I change topics occasionally when I have a new focus, I find commenting on it every day keeps it front of mind, even if I decide not to do anything about it that day

Good luck you've come a long way, and the first part is always slowest, when you have locked in all your budget savers you will be able to find new ways that just brings everything down faster. But be realistic, if you are too ambitious you just fall of the wagon even though a lower target would have been achievable and made a difference

GTBT123

Hi mark, thanks for joining

Haven't updated for a while but made some progress. One of my cards had come close to the end of it's 0% offer, but at the same time one of my other cards increased my limit & offered me 0% balance transfer. So I've managed to transfer almost everything on to one card and one other card has a small balance left on it. I'm continuing with paying over the minimum. YNAB is such a great help for me to keep track of how much money I have available.

I've also sold quite a bit on ebay & facebook. We've been trying to have a major clearout, so been up in the attic as well as sorting through the other rooms and managed to get rid of quite a bit. Some stuff I've just given away because they're really not worth anything, taking up space in my house but also I don't want to just throw out because then I'm adding to the landfill waste We've done well so far! Just from facebook sales we have made over £250!! We're keeping it in a bowl hidden in our kitchen & going to use it to treat ourselves when we have finally finished our clearout. As for ebay we've made around £300, but as these were all Paypal payments I've had those transferred into my account & then used that money for overpayments. It's given me such a great motivation to keep selling stuff. It all adds up, even the little £2-£3 items go in the pot.

I'm going to update my totals later.

GTBT123

Ok so I've been rubbish at updating but was ticking along very nicely paying things off monthly. However, things have changed for us. We recently moved house. Saw a property near to where we live which fits in with our dream we've had of having a much bigger garden & room to do the things we want to our own house. It wasn't more than the value of our current property.

The good news is we had over £100k of equity in our property so I have used part of it to completely pay off the debts. The rest of the money is sat in my savings account now until we decide what to do with it & we're going to continue using YNAB to stick to our monthly budgets.

It feels so good to see all the card balances at zero and I am determined to never build up any debt again! I've already started sorting my November budget out as I get paid next week. It was such a great feeling allocating money to my bills and then savings, instead of debt repayments.

I know that compared to most people on here I have got rid of our debt the easy way, but my journey since I started this diary has taught me a lot, so even though I'm now debt free I am not going to go back to the silly spending habits that got us in debt in the first place. I'll still stick around these forums too to find ideas on saving money & hopefully be able to help a few people with some of the tips I have been given over the years.

Good luck to everyone on their debt free journey

Sea_Shell

So have you re-mortgaged for an extra £100k and kept the cash back?