Paranoid's Debt Free-Wannabe Diary!

Paranoid124

Cheers Buzz.

Yeah I'm living alone at the moment, but in a contract until July. It's sapping a huge amount from my monthly income but I've grown to accept it (also got a pay rise due next month which will ease things). Will definitely be looking to change places in July to somewhere around the 500 mark!

Paranoid124

As suggested by Millionaire, I went ahead and called T-Mobile to reduce my mobile phone tarriff.

I am now on the lowest, costing me £25 a month (Starting end of March). I I will exceed this limit easily each month, but because they are all business calls I can charge them in. So I've also asked for full itemised billing, and no doubt that will prove my work calls can actually cover my whole bill! Lol!

Puzzledbubbles

Hi Paranoid,

Well done on the mobile bill, ive been a proper numpty with mine, i always go over on my 500 texts per month and have been thinking for a while that i need to pay a higher tarrif to get more texts.

I rang up Orange and they told me that i was elegible for a free upgrade to unlimited texts as they had updated the price plan and i have been with them for over 12 months.

Ive been spending an extra £5 - £25 a month for no bleeding reason - grrrrrr

Puzzled

Paranoid124

Yeah I know what you mean Bubbles! I used to be a terrible text-a-holic...fortunately I seem to have grown out of that phase, and now I just call and text like crazy instead!

That said...I just registered on t-mobile.co.uk and suddenly realised it provides all the itemised billing I need....for free!! So I could remove my request for itemised billing and save another £1.50.

Using the above, I've broken down my phone usage between business and personal, and get this:

Mobile Tarrif: £42.50
Average bill: £45.00
Business calls for Feb: £44.00 (!!) - 3hrs 43 mins
Personal Calls for Feb: £38.60 - 3hrs 13mins

So for my £45 mobile bill, I can reclaim £44 from my work!!

With this new tarriff I'm moving onto I would be paying £4 more than what the contract would offer me, so with a little more self-control I will more than half my mobile bill!

As for texts, I've joined up to Valkrie so that should reduce my costs there (although it still seems to be charging me 0.01p a text, when I was told it would be free...any help on this would be appreciated!). I might need to consider moving up one band on the tarriff (T-Mobile are going to love me!), but will see how it goes for the first month.


...in the meantime I'm charging in £44 business calls and saving myself a whole bill!

millionaire_in_training

hi there good luck on the NSD's I hope that works out for you.I love getting a NSD but with 2 kids it is really hard. I just set myself a budget instead and try and stick to that. Good luck

Paranoid124

Thanks Millionaire,

First one is tomorrow...need to start making my working lunch soon! I'm pretty confident of achieving it, stick to the free coffee and water, no snacks and I should be fine!

Note how I purposefully didn't make Tuesday a NSD as I'm expecting news of my promotion etc. then hehe!

Paranoid124

I would also like to note that Total Spend Today = £0.00

...on the downside I've sat on my fat @@s all day watching TV too...so not altogether the healthiest NSD!

Paranoid124

Does anyone think anyone would be interested in buying an ipod video?

It seems to work fine except when you play a podcast, where it just stalls and doesn't play. I went and recklessly bought a replacement last week rather than try and work out how to fix the podcast section.

Dunno where and how to advertise it really, it's still worth a pretty penny I'm sure, and this problem is most likely fixable!

Thanks!

Paranoid124

Success!

Managed to survive my lunch hour without spending a penny! Had a couple of quid jangling away in my pocket but refused to give into that can of Diet Coke and settled for the "Council Juice" (water) and my homemade sandwich instead!

Paranoid124

OK so my NSD almost succeeded! Ended up buying a Thank You card for £1.35 on the way home from work tonight (it would have been bought on my non-NSD anyway!). But I used the loose change in my pocket so at least I don't have a heap of change from a tenner haunting me!

All in all I'm pretty pleased with today's progress, I think my aim is now to only spend £10 this week!