Debt support thread #2

[Nerfmother]

Here we are! Can't be bothered to think of an exciting title, sorry

I feel like my brain is going to implode :(
Car still leaking. So back to garage. 3rd time lucky eh?
State of kitchen getting me down.
WC sink leaking again. Dh sure he has fixed it each time. Then I come downstairs to a flood again!
On the plus side -
Builder had agreed a fee of £800 to fit the kitchen if we strip it and build the units.
Feel very down about it all today.

2whippets
welcome aboard
there are lots of ideas here from people at different stages of the process

((( badvoc ))))
WC sink : turn it off at the isolator vales and ignore it for a week - wash hands elsewhere

£800 to fit the kitchen is a good price, well done
make sure you use the ikea planning tool (even if not getting an ikea kitchen) to show EXACTLY what you want it to look like

car : I have to keep a tarpaulin over mine because it leaks so badly!

Hello 2whippets!
Feel free to post when you're ready

badvoc but you've done brilliantly - £800 for the kitchen is well good! You'll have change for !

I know what you mean about things keeping going wrong though, sometimes it feels like the bills just keep creeping out of the woodwork no matter how hard you try to scrimp.

NSD for me today again, hoping to keep it that way until Saturday.

Evening all, NSD today. Nothing else to report really...meal plan done for the week, will only need bread/milk between now and Sunday. Doing a room by room declutter to see if I can find anything to sell DS room tonight!

I need to do my meal plan tonight or tomorrow Mum2Fergus. Hoping we only need top up stuff, as we have tons in the freezer. Need to get ready pads/Lansinoh etc though, which will be £££.

Chin up Badvoc, you are doing brilliantly. Look how much cheaper that kitchen is looking like being compared to what you originally thought. I like talkin's sink advice - save it for next month!

Pixie I am struggling to keep lazy luxuries down too. Not doing too badly but it's a daily struggle!

Listed another two eBay items today (scheduled to start tonight), a few watchers on the two things I listed yesterday but no bids yet.

Have been reading a few money saving/debt repayment blogs recently, feeling simultaneously inspired by people who've paid off huge debt and demoralised by the fact that most of them have massive debt from either student loans (and now have good jobs) or from mad unnecessary overspending, so they have the salary and means to make a few not too clever cuts to make huge overpayments. I like mortgage free in three woman as she has kids to consider and clearly not an enormous income. I want more family oriented debt repayment blogs where the debt has been run up from just, well, living.

Elaine at Mortgage Free in Three is fab, really recommend her blog (on FB and Twitter too) ..

possibly could you link some of them? I'd love to read!

mortgagefreeinthree.com/

I'll link some of the others I found tomorrow when I'm at the computer missannersley. Mortgage free in three is current fave at the moment, worth a read through the archives for ideas. I should combat the lack of family ones by writing my own. Maybe I'll leave it till we're actually repaying debt rather than accumulating

That blog is amazing. She really is an inspiration isn't she?
Oh, I forgot to mention...I got ds2s world book day costume today!
Yet another e bay purchase (before I give up for lent!)
He is going as a Viking.
Ragged trousers (from an old dress up outfit of ds1s), a brown top he already had, furry ugg boots for £5 and a furry gilet for 99p!!
Am so chuffed with it all :)
Possibly, I know what you mean. Our debt is all house related. No mad spending sprees and foreign holidays for us...just making sure the house is warm and we have a roof that doesn't leak :(
It almost wouldn't seem so bad if we had had the time of our lives accruing the debt!!

Oh! And we are desperate for DVD storage (major first works problem, I know!!:)) and I was trying to figure out how to either cobble something together or try and find something really cheap and tonight my aunt has given me a small oak storage chest,
Top needs recovering but :)
Just need to get someone to teach me upholstery :)

Hello, just checking in and waving my skiing catalogue at burma to stay motivated!

Typically my desperate bills account all went wrong yesterday, when the bank didn't move my dds over in time despite being asked twice. They are refunding all charges thankfully, for those direct debits that will need representing.

On a positive note, I am almost at the end of my first week surviving on cash, I actually went around aldi an tesco last night totting things up on a calculator! Something I swore I'd never do

talkingpeace I really do think you are the voice of reason, please don't ever leave!!

I'll be here till all of you are cracking open the bubbly on debt free day

Can wait for that day! Thank you talkinpeace for keeping us motivated

NSD for me

Good evening, got back from my trip today, spent £20 less than budgeted which is excellent, and had a great time. Kids came back from their Dad's fed and watered, so skipped the Aldi shop which can wait until tomorrow.

Had "fun" reconciling in ynab this evening, while I was away tons of transactions had gone through and I was 70p out. Drove me mad. Eventually found it in a mis-recorded tesco shop. That's why I usually reconcile every day!

Npower have messed me about for months and in the last couple of weeks have changed my DD amount 5 times - ranging from £70 (too low) to £230 (too high). While I was away they finally took their DD.... for just £11

Gonna have to call them AGAIN and wait on the line for hours, AGAIN. I mean, how hard is it really to bill someone properly??

In other news, I sold 2 items on Amazon, which is nice

Morning all!

I have a few things on ebay, one of which has a bid and six days to run. I made about £60 last month so I was pleased. It will pay for DD2's birthday present next week.
I have worked out that I have about £50 a week for the next three weeks shopping. I am really panicking about it as I need to shop today. Will make a list after dropping the dcs at school.

Still need to talk to dh about our crappy money situation. I also need to redo my cv and apply for some jobs.

Yay to ebay whippets! I've made about £60 so far (before postage and fees before I get too excited), and hope the other items on there will round this up to £40. They're all auction ones, so probably won't fingers crossed for Sunday night!

Another good blog for motivation and ideas is frugal queen.

According to ynab, we are set to come in £1165 overdrawn. My March mission is to pay minimum to SLC and CC (included in budget), and reduce the OD amount by as much as possible.

Ishesingle I hate it when YNAB is out, I try to reconcile daily too. Npower have been a nightmare with us since we moved and switched to them (purely because there was so little to choose between providers for our usage and they don't have a leaving charge, so if a better deal comes up we can move). They have failed to take out the DD since we moved, so we now have a bigger DD set up to start in April. Sigh.

Got my first bid on eBay last night - a box of Brita filters that we no longer need since moving to a softer water area. Excitement! Not quite as good as your £60 themoneyone.

Blogs I have come across that made for good (if frustrating at times!) reading: girl meets debt, man vs debt, a story of debt. I'll post more as I think of them. Mostly American though, and mostly student loans/OTT lifestyles, as I said. Difficult to understand when we are struggling to keep our debt down just from living.

2whippets I hope you're able to talk to your DH, it really does make things so much easier once you are both on the same page.

breaking a NSD to by chocolate is allowed when you have an ofsted visit isn't it??

As long as you're allowed a huge Yorkie when you discover you've not charged your ebay customers nearly enough postage .

my nugget of advice is.... cost out your meals.

now this sounds simple, but if you know which parts of your meal cost what then you can make adjustments.

for instance i bought a hunk of meat for £9 and i knew that i needed three chops (one for each of us at that meal) then i cut the meat into sets of three. I mananged to get 5 meals out of it, will all the meat being at least 1cm thick. so i know my meat cost £1.80.

then when im shopping anywhere else and see those mega packs 3 for a £10 or whatever, i count the chops and can see the value right there.

this is good for people who cant do maths, since you can see amounts

Themoneyone oh dear! I often seem to under-charge on postage, but have taken to not listing anything for less than at least a fiver so I figure at least I end up making something, even if not as much as I hoped.

the money one

This happened to me recently too - What I have now done is looked up the brackets for each size of parcel, e.g. letter, large letter, small packet, medium packet and then estimate generously towards the top of that bracket. So I charge £3 for a 1st class recorded large letter and find most come out as £2.20-£3.00 so in most cases I also have a few pennies for packaging etc left over.

I was initially stung by their ridiculous requirement that a "small packet" be a long, narrow rectangle - I posted a jacket, it weighed nothing and cost about £6!!!

Also I figured that in total I made £427, so it was money I didn't have overall even if one or two items sold at a loss. Waiting for the invoice of the fees, it will be around £55 as they now take it off the top line including postage!