Holy moly!!

Crikey123 · 15 November 2017 at 4:46PM

Today I've made a list of meals that we all enjoy so I want to use this to come up with a meal plan. At the moment I am basing what we eat on things that we already have, but after that I will plan my shopping around my meal plan.

I have also thought about some things we have in the house that can be sold. There is no point keeping things taking up space that could get me some money to pay towards the debt. I'm really getting into this now. I keep thinking of things to sell and checking ebay to see previous sold items to get an idea of how much to expect. I wont put anything on there until Sunday though because I have heard that is the best day to do it because if it's on a 7 day auction, it will end the following Sunday which is when most people seem to browse ebay. Whether this theory is correct I don't know, but I'll give it a go.

I brought lunch with me again today and eating at a family members house tonight, so that means I have had a day of not spending any money and also the meal I had planned to cook tonight can be saved for another day. Every little helps

Chrystal · 16 November 2017 at 2:09AM

[QUOTE=Crikey123;73416643

I have also thought about some things we have in the house that can be sold. There is no point keeping things taking up space that could get me some money to pay towards the debt. I'm really getting into this now. I keep thinking of things to sell and checking ebay to see previous sold items to get an idea of how much to expect. I wont put anything on there until Sunday though because I have heard that is the best day to do it because if it's on a 7 day auction, it will end the following Sunday which is when most people seem to browse ebay. Whether this theory is correct I don't know, but I'll give it a go.[/QUOTE]

I've just read somewhere on here that if you put it on ebay on a Thurs evening for a 10 day auction it gets looked at over 2 weekends and finishes on the Sunday evening. More people to see it perhaps?

Crikey123 · 16 November 2017 at 11:22AM

Chrystal wrote: »

I've just read somewhere on here that if you put it on ebay on a Thurs evening for a 10 day auction it gets looked at over 2 weekends and finishes on the Sunday evening. More people to see it perhaps?

Oh thank you for that tip. I will put some items on tonight.

Crikey123 · 27 November 2017 at 10:48AM

I put some of the items on ebay that I thought about. One has sold already on a buy it now. The others have had bids on them so looks like after the fees & postage I will have made over £100. I'm having a big sort out over the next week so that I can see if there is anything else I can sell.

I have made all payments to the debts this month, making overpayments to all of them, but specifically to the ones that have interest on them. I have just been offered another 0% deal on one of my cards so am going to transfer as much as I can on to that to get rid of the interest.

I was paid on Friday so have set my budgets on You Need a Budget for everything this month. I've covered groceries, fuel and christmas shopping. I am going on the basis that I might not be able to make any overpayments this month due to Christmas, but I won't increase the debts either. If I can get to January in this state then I will be happy, because then 2018 will be my debt busting year

MeenaM · 27 November 2017 at 11:11AM

Hello and welcome! that's great regarding Ebay , I have had items on there for the past few weeks and nothing has sold, i am loath to reduce the price though maybe that is where i am going wrong?

well done on making the overpayments ! yes i agree transferring to 0% is a good move if you have large amounts on them as the fee you pay will be less than the interest charged if you carry on with your existing interest adding cards,

is the YNAB an app? i have not heard of that one?

Crikey123 · 7 December 2017 at 11:52AM

Hi MeenaM, thanks for the welcome.

Ebay is tricky isn't it. I have put things on there before and ended up getting decent money for them, then other times put similar items on and have been disappointed in what I earned. I do tend to put items on auction rather than buy it now though. The only reason one of the items last week was on a buy it now was because it was one of the beauty advent calendars that are sold out everywhere anyway, so I knew somebody would buy it. Apart from that I put everything on auction, starting at 99p. It's risky because I have had things sell for £2 or £3 in the past, but my view is it's £3 more than I would have had if I had just thrown it in the bin.

I've continued to get some Christmas shopping done out of the way and have also made a few more overpayments so things are on track.

YNAB is a software package. I have it on my desktop but you can link it to the app as well.

Crikey123 · 18 December 2017 at 1:58PM

So a quick update.

I've put more things on ebay, they end tomorrow (not great timing but trying to get things sent for Christmas if possible). I put 3 things on, 2 of them have bids and loads of watchers, the other thing hasn't even got any watchers so I think I will just end it early & see if I can get rid of it on Facebook. The good thing is, the two things that have got bids are on £11.50 & £26.00 at the moment, with another day to go & over 30 watchers of each. I know often people watch items to get an idea of selling prices, but hopefully in amongst those followers there will be a few people who might get into a little bit of a bidding war.

Also some amazing news. I had a credit card with HSBC. I did try & reclaim the PPI on it a few years ago but it was rejected because I had signed the form (my argument was actually that I was told I had to have it but hey ho). Anyway, they recently contacted me about it again because of some new case (Plevin?) regarding commission. I read the details and put a new claim in based on the fact that I had no idea about the commision. It took ages for a letter to arrive even acknowledging the claim, but that arrived about 2 weeks ago, so I wasn't expecting to hear anything else until after Christmas. Well, I've just logged on to my online banking & there is a payment of £998.13 going into my current account tomorrow!! I was genuinely expecting around £100 so I am shocked & ecstatic at this. I am going to pay it straight on to the card that is incurring interest, which means that by the end of this month I will have paid off £2430.82!! I know it's a one off and this won't be a regular thing every month, but that makes such a massive difference. I've really got the bug for getting things paid off now & actually can't wait for January just so I can do my new budgets to see what I can pay off in the new year.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Mumoffourkids · 18 December 2017 at 3:23PM

Hi,
I was just reading your diary and we are a bit similar. I am by myself but my debt totals around £20000 but I do have a reasonable amount of disposable income to pay it from so should be done in around two years.

I also work in accounts so I should know better but it's easier to budget with someone else's money!

I am really pleased to hear that you got some money back on a ppi claims. I did the same with my Tesco Bank and the original claim got rejected, but I recently had a letter in the post about them taking too high a commission so I have just claimed for this online. I am hoping I receive a decent amount like you did.

Will subscribe to your diary to see how you get on.

Crikey123 · 18 December 2017 at 3:30PM

Hi MO4K, thanks for reading.

I am definitely lucky to have the disposable income, I just need to stop spending that & more! I'm surprised at how well I've done this month even without the payout, especially with it being Christmas as well.

Yes that's the same letter I had, but from HSBC rather than Tesco. Fingers crossed you get something.

Drawingaline · 18 December 2017 at 9:59PM

Well done, especially on the ppi pay out. Annoyingly all my ppi was in around 1997 and I understood what it was when I signed for it. Then in 2000 I started working in a bank and had to actually sell it on credit cards (it was targeted and I hated doing it) and I never took it out on any other products. Great at the time, but I would have loved a windfall when everyone else I knew was getting rebates.

Sounds like you have been bitten by the debt busting bug, I did really well at the end of 2016 into the fort half of 2017, them I received an inheritance and paid off a huge chunk. Now I am back to deal with the last lot. I also use ynab and love it, but you do have to want to use it correctly for it to work. Like any budgeting thing it is just a tool, you have to have the willpower to leave money in savings categories!

Holy moly!!

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