Third Time’s The Charm

enthusiasticsaver

Good you haven't used cards in a year. Interest on them is worked out on a daily basis so yes in a 31 day month the interest will be more than a 30 day one. 11% is a great result. 

foxgloves

I am seconding that 'Well done', Narola. Not using credit cards for over a year is a real achievement. I am sooo picking up on your absolute commitment to getting rid of this debt & I think after so much hard work, you know it'd be madness to go that way again. So keep at it, m'dear, because making that final debt payment feels amazing, like a great big gnarly rock has dropped off your shoulders!
F x

Narola1976

Thanks @Baileys_Babe, @enthusiasticsaver and @foxgloves for stopping by to post.  It’s nice to know someone is reading my ramblings Yes, I feel really focused and to some extent the DF journey is all consuming. I think about it all the time. I know it’s still relatively early days, the real trick is going to stay focused after the months drag by. But staring at the figures and the snowball helps. I think a visual representation is important. I am grateful for the snowball app. I was quite chuffed when I saw an email last night from HSBC, offering me a balance transfer. Now the deal itself was rubbish, 1.9% interest for 9 months, and I wouldn’t dream of taking it because I still have a hefty balance at 28.9% which according to the snowball will be gone in a year. I would be all kinds of stupid to mess with the plan for what is not a really good deal at all. However, to me it signalled that I must be doing something right in relation to demonstrating good behaviour and maybe, with more time, I might actually get a decent 0% deal, Covid dependent of course. Of course, I would only take a BT deal if it brought the DFD forward significantly, say 6 months or so, otherwise I would just be playing that CC shuffle and that did not work out so well for me last time. And I would definitely get your advice before making a move. I don’t quite trust my own judgement yet  Keep safe and well, touch base later. 

Moneywhizz

It is hard to keep up debt repaying over the long term, but you are well on your way now and have worked so hard to get yourself into a better situation so I can't see you falling away from your plan now.  Having a little bit of money just for yourself to spend might help you to manage the feeling that you have nothing to spend until the end of the three years. Is there any way you can juggle your budget to free up a little "pocket money" for yourself. You seem to spend all your extra money on others or put it towards the debt. Well done for not using your credit cards for all that time. 

Narola1976

Thanks @Moneywhizz, I do feel like I can stay the course as long as nothing crops up to topple me over. I do have some money for myself. I have my hair done every week, £10 per week. That is both a treat and a necessity. I would rather pay for a specified purpose at this stage than just buy frivolously even at small amounts. In time I hope to reward myself with a few ebooks now and again but not just yet. 

So today has been a spendy day getting started early on Christmas presents thanks to Amaz*n Prime Day. I got a couple of gifts for DD and OH. I spent just over £50. Fortunately I have been saving all year for Christmas so the money was available. I also sold a tea for one teapot and cup and saucer on FB. Only £3 but paid it straight off my Argos card. I have recently heard of Ziffit thanks to @foxgloves so I am having a rummage for books to sell. Just scanned about 5 books which they are offering nearly £7. I really hope that is what it pays. So I will box it all up at the weekenD and hope for the best. Anything I get will go straight off the card. I checked my credit files today. While I know the numbers are meaningless, they all reflected an increase which to me says I am doing the right thing and the results are evidenced in the positive movement. Long may it continue. Right I am off to bed, night all

Narola1976

Morning, hope everyone is keeping safe and well in these trying times. Again, I am reminded how lucky I have been not have been affected personally financially or health wise. I am grateful. But it really has made me think how close I am to complete disaster and how important becoming debt free and having savings behind me is. Working from home has so many advantages and it’s another thing I am grateful for. I don’t have to think about staying away from Costa or wasting money on clothes or lunches. I have so many blessings in my life and I should make the most of them. 

So looking forward to a couple of bits of income tomorrow. £23.50 from my pet insurer as a rebate for not making a claim. I forgot this is a feature of my policy and really pleased to have it. I have planned for £15 to be paid off Argos, £3.50 back into my personal care fund and £5 into DD’s driving lessons fund as will need to renew insurance end of October.  Also expecting an expenses reimbursement of £24.99. £15 to Argos,  £7.99 back into work expenses fund and £2 into my buffer pot. So in total Argos will get another £30 this month on top of the extra £3 paid last week. It won’t bring the DFD forward or anything, but it will help. I also have £11 from doing surveys owing, which I also intend to pay off the Argos card and of course the money from book sales,  assuming I do it right and get what they say I will get. Maybe if I am very lucky, I may actually end up paying Argos off a month early and I can start on the HSBC CC in January and not February. That would be a lovely Christmas present indeed. I have not heard from the BBC as yet and it has been a week now since I contacted them to cancel my licence. I am going to follow it up today. I know response times are slow, and from what I have read many people are cancelling these days, but I am eager to get this sorted before the next payment has to go out. 

DD bought me an echo dot for Christmas on the Prime sale - £18.99, a real bargain. I wanted to put it away for Christmas but she insisted we start using it straight away saying she has bought me other gifts to open on the day. So I said yes, and she has set it up in my room and managed to connect the heating thermostat and now we can turn the heating up or down from the bedroom.  I have to say that it is quite a luxury and I am rather pleased now I didn’t insist on waiting for Christmas Day. I consider this to be quite MSE because in the middle of the night I was feeling so hot with the heating on, I whispered to Alexa to turn down the heating and voila, it was done. Normally I would have just left it as lazy to get out of bed (not so MSE) or if desperate would have to go downstairs to turn it down and I would have struggled to get back to sleep. So I truly do value this new gadget and thank goodness for a teen who is a little more clued up than me. 

Right need to crack on for the day, as need to drop DD off at college shortly. Must stay focused today, which is always hard. I am going to try this focus app another forumite recommended and see how I get on. Have a good day 

foxgloves

Hello Narola,
Just popping by to say that yes, I've used Ziffit several times & they have always paid me the amount quoted. The only exception was on a book where I knew there would be a problem but I still stuck it in the parcel just in case. It was one where when I entered the ISBN number (the whole point of these being that each one is unique to a specific book title) & the wrong title came up on their system. There wasn't anything I could do about that & as it was only a little pamphlety thing, I wasn't bothered. When we were busy clearing our old family home at the end of 2018 & into last year, I took lots of Mum & Dad's books to local charity shops, but they both loved books & they had some quite specialist titles - my Mum liked books about the area she grew up in, especially ancient buildings, churches, etc & Dad had lots of books about classical music & steam trains. I brought back several boxes & as I had more time than my sister, embarked on a bit of a 'Ziffit-thon'. Even splitting the money between us, which of course I did, it was well worth doing & I found myself hoping that some of the books would end up with new owners who also loved that particular subject. They also buy CDs, DVDs & electronic games. Sometimes the price quoted is just a very few pence & often then, I choose instead to donate the book in question to our local Oxfam Bookshop (of which I am a very regular customer!), but occasionally, I've been quoted over £6 for a single title, so if you have a few books shelves to sort, it can be a useful sum. I used to sell the occasional book on eb*y, & it's true that you can generally at least ask for a higher price, but there is something very simple about packing all you unwanted titles into a box, printing off a label & dropping it at the corner shop for the courier........it's much less hassle than wrapping everything individually, dealing with all the different people, chasing up late payments, etc. Ziffit are often looking for text books. I don't get many of those these days as my university days are long over & I don't have children, but I was surprised to find a couple among my parents' books sold for a few quid each & they were quite old.
I tackled our debts in a similar way to you. I threw every little extra bit of money I made into whichever debt I was focussing on at the time. I even saved 20p pieces in a tube & when I had £20's worth, I paid them in! I sold a few hand knitted items, did surveys, all the usual things.... it really is true that every extra £1 thrown at those debts helps. I used exactly the same tactics when we were saving for our car.  I can really sense your feelings of accomplishment when you manage to bring that debt-free date a tidsy bit closer. You go girl......you'll do it this time, & I can't see you going back.
F x

Narola1976

Thank you @ foxgloves for that feedback re Ziffit. I have today posted off my first box of books to the value of £8.52. Then I found some more books including a couple of legal text books and wow, those 2 books alone were over £11. I had a book about Art that netted £2. Then they were offering a promo code which gave me an extra 20% so my total value for the second box came to £18.77. But due to the weight, they are collecting the books on Monday. I am so excited. Unfortunately I have many books that they were not accepting and so I am wondering if it’s a question of not right now or never? That will determine whether I hold onto the books for a bit or pop it off to the CS. The total of the sales all being well is £27.29. I will pay £27 towards Argos, and the 29p will go into the grocery fund. I hope it doesn’t take too long to receive, check and pay out. 

I am also pleased to report that I made a Faceb**k sale of two items so far, one for £7 and the other for £5, with 50p delivery charge. I paid £10 immediately off Argos and moved the other £2.50 to the grocery fund. So Argos has had an additional £55 paid extra this month on top of the snowball amount of £413. I have another sale pending for £10 assuming the buyer shows up in the next couple of hours. That too will go off to Argos if it comes through. I have quite a few FB sales going but not sure they will all be successful.  I have no patience for Flea-bay, as I don’t have the time to be posting things off all the time. And I have read lots of stories where people claim not to have received good etc and the money gets taken back. So I prefer FB where people generally come to collect. But I am running out of things to sell or rather running out of things I can reach. The attic is heaving but as I have to rely on OH to go up, I can’t really have a good rummage for stuff to sell. Making extra money is quite a challenge. I do PA surveys but those don’t come round too often. I don’t bother with others as I find they ask loads of questions and then all of a sudden you don’t qualify for the survey. That is quite annoying. Ooh looks likes my sale is definitely happening, just had a message to say she will be here in 20 minutes. *Does a little virtual happy jig*

 Have a good evening

foxgloves

Wow, great price on those text books, Narola! Re keeping the unwanted items to try them through Ziffit at a later date..... I've not done this with books, but I did when I was selling my Dad's huge classical CD collection. Every couple of months, I ran the barcodes through of all the previously rejected titles & I always found some which they now wanted to buy. Once I'd done that 4 times, I took the ones that were still unwanted to our local Oxfam bookshop.
I do 'Prolific' surveys too, but I tend to sign in & see if there are any available, rather than wait for the email invitations. I do Ugov & Ipsos too. I occasionally do Onepoll...
in fact I might resurrect that because I do have some earnings on there I should at least get to cash-out level. I gave up on one of the other big survey sites because like you, I found it infuriating to get quite a long way through the survey only suddenly for them to decide I was the wrong demographic. I can't bear having my time wasted so I don't do that one any more.
Anyway, great that you have raised a bit of extra cash to pay towards that pesky Argos card. 
F x

Narola1976

Another little sale and another £10 off Argos today. Really happy with that. So within the last 48 hours I have paid a total extra £75 on top of the snowball amount. I did it straight away, didn’t think about it in case I decided there was something else I could do with the money. Today I have been feeling a little sorry for myself that I am in the position I am in through no one’s fault but my own, wishing I could turn back time to make better decisions.  But I am learning this time from my consequences. And actually what I am learning isn’t so much about how to make good spending decisions but rather more about the importance of staying true to a course of action. All my life I have had this gung ho approach, get all excited and motivated, and then it all fizzles out in a few weeks or months. A good example of this was when I discovered scrapbooking. Oh my how I loved the idea of it...bought all the stash, tons of it, worked on it for a while but ran out of interest. I still love looking at scrapbooking stuff but I have very little interest in doing it myself consistently. And this has been a pattern in my life, and it was no different with my first couple of LBMs. I gave up eventually as it was easier to give up than persist. The journey just seemed too long to constantly deny myself. I do not want the same again this time. For me, all I want is to be consistent in this journey, not to be swayed when it gets too hard or it’s demoralising when I stare into what feels like an abyss. I know 3 years isn’t long. How do I know this...because 3 years or so ago, I was in a lot less debt with a plan to be debt free in 3 years. It seemed like a the journey would take forever back then, but here I am now 3 years later realising that not only am I not debt free, I owe so much more now than I did then. 3 years wasn’t that long after all, it just seemed that way going through it.  Now I am staring at another 3 year journey but this time, I know the sacrifices I have to make. This time I know that this house of cards only needs 1 good gust of wind to topple it over. This time the thought of still owing the world and his wife 3 years from now makes me want to be physically sick. This time there is no “excitement”, no “buzz”. Just hard slog, day by day. I need to be free, I need to breathe. There is no other option for me but to stay the course, no matter what. Three years will go by as fast as the last did, even though it doesn’t feel that way right now. I just need to keep swimming as Dory says. And take 1 day at a time.