A friend just linked to an article on Yahoo about ’10 Easy Ways to Get Out of Debt”.  I clicked through with a professional interest, and was reminded of why these one-off kinds of article irritate the heck out of me.  The article was full of ‘new and helpful’ advice, including ‘keeping an eye on what you spend’ and ‘prioritise debts’.

It’s the personal finance version of “if you want to lose weight just eat less and exercise more!”.  What angers me so much about both sets of utterly useless advice is that if someone needs help with something major like debt or weight issues, you can bet your bottom dollar that they’ve already tried it.  If it was as simple as “eat less”, don’t thin people think that overweight people might have actually *tried* that?  For the vast majority of people, it really isn’t that simple.  People have complicated relationships with food. I’m fortunate that my relationship with food is such that I tend to undereat as much as I overeat, and my body has hit a comfortable stasis with my eating habits.  I’m also realistic enough to realise that many people have *much* more complicated relationships with their eating habits.  I’ve not walked in those shoes, so I can’t comment, but I’ve seen enough dear friends with self-esteem and weight problems to know that it just isn’t that easy.

These simplistic personal finance plans hit me the same way.  They all assume that you are earning enough to keep up to date with minimum payments and by simply cutting out a few restaurant visits every month, you can start making headway on the debt.

Wake up and smell the coffee.  People are in trouble for many different reasons.  People lose jobs.  Benefits get cut.  Babies are born.  People get ripped off.  If *only* it were as simple as “spend less”, we’d all be laughing.  But most of us out here are working with a set of circumstances that see us working at rebuilding some kind of financial security as hard as we possibly can.  We’ve cut our personal spending as hard as it can be cut.  We don’t remember the last time we went to a restaurant.  We don’t remember the last time we bought clothes.  We don’t get gifts at Christmas and birthdays.  We sell as much as we can, and work several jobs.  Telling us to “give up the morning cappucino” is, quite frankly, about as much use as a chocolate teapot.

And that’s why, here in 2012, this website is determined to be proactive and to actually attempt to give some useful advice.  Advice for people who have cut everything as hard as it can be cut and need some help and someone to listen to…

So, if the new year has brought you a rash of credit card bills and call centre employees who job description seems to be “be as frightening as possible to get more money”, then this link is for you:

Consumer Action Group: these people offer very practical advice and a sympathetic ear when one’s credit card company is really, REALLY unpleasant.  There’s also tons of useful advice on useful ways to fight back.  If you’re considering a PayDay Loan, then I highly advise checking out the forum regarding Wonga.com and their like.  Scary…

It’s been an odd sort of year, and dominated to a greater extent by money.  There has been good news and there has been bad news.

GOOD NEWS

1. We’re over halfway through paying off a bank loan which will free up enough money to allow us to get a grip on some other financial things.  The end is most definitely in sight, and I’m feeling very positive about it.
2. After some advice from our accountant, we find that we are in a position to wind up the business which doesn’t actually make any money, but costs us in terms of VAT and paperwork charges.  This will simplify tax, quarterly records and financial shenanigans to a great extent, and will be a relief to all involved.
3. I got another job!  It’s a job doing something that I love (organising music events), and has the potential to lead to other things.
4. We’ve got more done on the house. I now have an office, the kitchen is mostly done and my husband is on the roof nailing down tiles as I type.  This feels like real progress.  99% of the walls that are meant to be there are actually there
5. My husband continues to transition from building work to full-time music work without a drop in income.  This leads to a happier home life all around.
6. My son has decided on a career path and college route, both of which feature him being independent.  This makes us all happy – not least of all my son!
7. Starting ANOTHER job in January.  Hopefully this won’t result in income going down again (see no. 3 next list).
8. Emptied storage unit, one less thing to pay for each month.
9. Paid another year off mortgage.

BAD NEWS

1. Due to new credit card rules being adopted by my horrid credit card company, I am no longer able to eat away at the capital.  (Action: Work harder)
2. Aforementioned credit card (MBNA – stands for Most Banks Not Arsed, I think) fraudulently took money from my account and froze everything for weeks.  Still trying the same trick.  I shall be glad to be rid of them!  (Action: Work harder)
3. Got a job, lost more in child tax credits than I am paid.  Net loss to monthly income. (Action: continue working, I have my pride!  Also, get another job – oh hang, on, I’m starting another one in January – yay me…)
4. Everything has seemed to be a rather depressing grind this year – staggering from crisis to crisis, without sinking (hurrah!) but without making much headway (boo).  No money for much in the way of luxuries and frugal gets very boring…
5. Eurozone in complete meltdown.  Very worried about what 2012 holds.  (Action: Must get out of debt quicker!)

So it would appear that the action plan for 2012 is getting another job (already done it, will see how the workload holds up and then see if I can expand it into a similar thing elsewhere) and paying down as much debt as physically possible.  More Ebay, more decluttering, more actualising money from stuff that we don’t want anymore.

The best news really, is that I’m more determined than ever.  My financial situation is difficult, but not impossible, and if ever someone was going to work their way out, then it’s me.  Hold onto your hats – 2012 will be a year of prosperity!!!!

I’m so frustrated.  We’ve been really careful over Christmas, buying second-hand, making good use of leftovers, spending time together at home instead of going out…

We had a client’s cheque returned today, having bounced three times in the two weeks since we presented it.  We won’t be seeing the client again for at least another week, and in the meantime, their work has been completed, but the money is obviously not there.  *sigh*

Also had a couple of late payers from other things – I’m sure they don’t *mean* to be late with their payments, but what with Christmas and everything, things fall through the gaps, including the money that we need to pay…

The mortgage.

*sigh*  It’s just so frustrating that other people’s hiccups impact so badly on us.  My one big comfort is that we cancelled the mortgage direct debit, because it was costing us so much.

That statement is, of course, completely at odds with what the banks and utility companies generally tell us.  They tell us that direct debits can save us all those pesky handling fees, and are so very convenient!!!  Hurrah!  What they don’t say is that if your direct debit goes out without the money being present, it costs you money.  And (depending on your bank) automatically cancels the direct debit so it won’t be paid next month. For those who have a regular income, this is usually just a one-off blip.  However, one of those “one-off blips” did cancel every direct debit we had a few years back, and took *ages* to get everything back into some kind of order.

For us, however, it’s not a one-off blip.  We are constantly at the mercy of people being prompt payers.  And let’s just say that not everyone is a prompt payer.  Many are truly, truly wonderful, and mean that we can make financial headway. But it doesn’t always work like that, and all you need is one corporate big-hitter client who decides that he’s going to take 60 days to pay your invoice instead of the 5 that you need and you have direct debits bouncing around like that camera advert with the bouncy balls in San Francisco…

Because we’re self-employed, this kind of thing can happen more often than I’m comfortable with.  So, on the advice of our helpful bank, we cancelled the direct debits, and requested reminder phone calls instead.  So whilst we’re waiting for our mortgage payment to hit our account, we are at least not racking up bank charges.

Phew.

I do wish the clients would pay though

I’ve done my Christmas food shop.

Don’t feel too bad, I’m still spectacularly behind on most of the things that ought to be done, according to received wisdom.  According to the media I should have:

• made mince pies and sausage rolls to offer to visitors over the festive period.  (Most visitors to this house are welcomed with whatever is to hand, including the eye-watering homemade cider which kills tastebuds, so mince pies and sausage rolls are unlikely to happen)
• Sent Christmas cards to everyone I know (I hate the waste of paper, don’t have the time and prefer to give to charity instead.)
• Bought gifts for all my friends and family (I’ve discussed the fact that I can’t afford this with all the people who matter, and frankly, most of them were relieved not to do it either.)
• Made my Christmas pudding (we never eat it on Christmas Day anyway – always too full)
• Made a Christmas Cake (received one as a family gift – fab!)
• Bought Christmas crackers.  (May just make these, a la “The Good Life”)
• Decorated the entire house in a co-ordinated fashion with brand new trimmings (used old family favourite trimmings – more memories anyway!)
• Bought a real Christmas tree (we have our dear old artificial tree.  According to recent reports, you need to use a tree at least 10 times to equal out the carbon cost compared to a real tree.  Mine is 15 years old, it owes us nothing, but is still trooping on in a rather comforting fashion!)

Will my Christmas be a sad and desperate affair because I haven’t spent money on these things?  No, it will not.  It will be full of love, laughter, food and togetherness.  We will play games in the afternoon.  We will drink homemade wine and cider.  We will walk the dog.  We won’t worry about the credit card bills in January.

Sure, we’re in debt, but I’m darned if I’m going to get further into debt to have the kind of Christmas that the *media* tells me I should have.  I’m going to have a lovely family Christmas on a budget we can afford and continue paying down the debts.  It’ll be a *good* Christmas

You know by now that the title of this blog and my recent confession mean that I’m not exactly flush, huh?  I save money wherever I can, trying to pay down debts in a black economy and win a little bit of financial freedom back for myself.

Christmas poses a bit of a problem for those of us who are in this situation.  Every advert on television tells us that we should be spending spending spending!  I’m particularly horrified by that Littlewoods advert this year to the tune of Bernard Cribbens’ “My Bruvver”, wherein a number of nativity-styled children dance across a stage telling everyone in the audience that this year their mother will be giving out smartphones, laptops and designer doodads for Christmas.  Judging by what she’s giving out, I can only assume that she’s married to a Hedge Fund Broker….

There won’t be expensive doodads in this house this year – we simply aren’t in a position to be spending hundreds of pounds on a single gift, no matter how hard we are advertised to.  Even if we weren’t trying so hard to minimise spending, I still don’t think I’d spend all that money on a single day, for much the same reason as I think that expensive, showy weddings are a very bad idea – think of the come down the day after…  We don’t have a lot of new stuff coming into the house on a regular basis, so  my kids will be happy with what is coming their way, I think!

My 8 year old daughter is desperately in love with the “Sylvanian Families” range of toys.  She plays with them constantly, makes little outfits for them, writes stories about them…  Good play value, even though the toys themselves are rather expensive.  I wrestled with my conscience a little bit this year, because in order to afford the thing that she REALLY wanted, I have had to buy it second hand.  I have bought from Ebay a set with all the little pieces there, and nicely boxed, but it’s not new. If I wanted to buy new, I would have had to buy something that wasn’t exactly what she wanted.  I would have had to buy something that would have seen her happy, but not as happy as I know she will be now.  This is the poor parents’ equivalent of getting the moon down out of the skies for her to play with.  But I felt guilty.  It’s not new.  Christmas should be about new, right?

Where the heck did I get THAT idea from?  Christmas isn’t about new, it’s about love, and peace and joy.  It’s about being with your family.  It’s about … well, for us, it’s about Jesus (there, I’ve said it!  I’m a Christian!!!!), and he didn’t say, “make sure that you only buy new presents to celebrate my birth, guys, OK?  Because nothing says ‘born for you’ like a good old credit card debt that you can’t pay!!!!”.

Some of the gifts I give this year will be homemade, or second hand and that won’t minimise the love with which I give them at all.  And after the wrapping is discarded, only I will even know that it is second hand

So, my challenge to you today is to think about the practicality of 2nd hand gifts.  If you’ve bought the gifts already, maybe Christmas Day is a good day to talk to loved ones about expectations for next year – how about setting a goal of giving recycled, homemade or second hand gifts next year?  Kind to the purse, kind to the planet

So, it’s not been an *easy* two years, financially, but there are two ways of looking at every situation.

On one hand, every time I’ve made headway, I’ve also suffered a setback.  The alternative way of looking at it is this – without the original headway, I would have been well and truly stuffed.

We are in a better situation than we were, and we are certainly in a more *stable* situation than we were.  We’re in the house that we’re building, and we’re keeping up with the mortgage payments.  It’s a little rough around the edges, sure, but we’ve got a lifetime to make it look pretty.  At least we don’t have to move again in the forseeable future.  This makes me happy.

I’m working two part-time jobs, following what I want to do – which is working well for me.  The opportunity to branch out into a third (self-employed) aspect of one of the jobs has opened up as well, and I’m grabbing it with both hands.

Some of our little money-making sidelines have blossomed in a big way and are taking on increasing importance in our monthly budget.  Others have proved to be be white elephants.

So – what has worked for me?

1. Ebay.  I started by selling excess things that I no longer wanted.  Both my husband and I are lifelong collectors and we realised during one of our many housemoves, that we just had far too much stuff.  Some of it needed to be rationalised and moved out to new homes. This is an ongoing process, but after a while, we realised that we could sell far more stuff than we had.  So we started going to auctions.  We bought things that we thought were beautiful, and put them in our home.  We enjoyed them for a few days and then we listed them on Ebay.  After a while you develop an instinct for what will sell, and what will not sell.  You also realise that it’s safest to stick to your areas of speciality.  My husband knows musical instruments very well, and is generally fairly accurate about what they will fetch.  He spent a little money on an instrument repair day course, and is now selling instruments on.  I have a good eye for kitchenalia and craft ephemera.  I’ve made some *good* investments there.  There’s a knack to it, and I’ll post on that in more detail at a later date, but Ebay can be *great*.
2. Skills.  I’ve picked up students for many of my various hobbies.  A little self-promotion goes a very long way.  Some of them are paid, some of them are not, but the ones that are not are *definitely* networking possibilities.
3. Cutting expenditure to the bone.  I laugh in the face of glib articles telling me to give up smoking and buy a cheaper brand of breakfast cereal.  I’m making a LOT of stuff from scratch these days, with huge savings.  We’ve started exploring wild food (nettles are *very* tasty and much nicer than spinach!), and lots of preserving.  There will be no expenditure on cough syrup, pickle or out-of-season eggs in this house, thankyou!  Also, I have embraced the joy of ‘near-date’ food.  With the exception of bread (it’s always stale and not very nice), I will often plan the evening’s meal around whatever is cheap at the local shop…
4. New businesses.  I’ve still got an eye out for new mini-businesses and expanding what I do.  I’ve just started a mini-chicken party business with a friend and will be ramping that up in the spring, and am also looking at a mini craft-business with another friend.
5. Getting a new job!  I know – it’s bizarre, but if you’re good at what you do, don’t let multiple putdowns stop you.  I got my dream job by idly surfing a  job website when watching tv, and spotting a vacancy and filling out an application in about two hours at midnight – 2am.  I never thought I’d get it – I have been knocked back for so many *much simpler* jobs that I was starting to doubt myself.  A little chutzpah and self-belief and everything got a lot better.

What hasn’t worked?

1. Amazon marketplace for selling.  So few books are selling at a profit these days that it’s hard to make anything at all.  I’ve lost money a couple of times on hardback books which cost too much to send through the post.  I’m very careful about what I list these days, and sales rates are very spotty.  It’s still a good way to get stuff moved out, but there isn’t much profit in it…
2. Anything involving me being pro-active when I’m feeling down.  I’m not good at cold-calling, and when my spirits are low, I could procrastinate for England.  I need to find a way to bolster my self-belief before starting in on these things.

I’ll expand on many of these in the next few days, but don’t give up hope – there are things that work, even in these straightened times.  We’ll find them together!

So.

I’m one of *those* bloggers.  One of those who get going and then run out of things to say and just drop off the radar.

Except – I didn’t run out of things to say.  What I ran out of was lies that I could tell myself.

Life is difficult right now, and trying to say anything else would be just another of those lies.  Every single difficulty lies around money and trying to swim against the current and get out of the debt that I’m in.  The rest of my life is wonderful, actually – my marriage is stable, my kids are doing well in school, and I’m happy in my jobs.  But there’s a big “but” there…

I’m swimming against the tide with debt repayment.  Every time I try harder, I find that I’m thwarted:

• I start to make headway with my credit cards.  My horribleawfulnotsogood credit card lender puts up all my minimum payments in line with government suggestions on *new* credit card loans.  Mine was a long standing debt that I was slowly paying off, by overpaying regularly.    Not any more.  Struggling to make minimum repayment and everything that means.
• Get a new job to help eat away at that debt.  Tell the taxman (as is right and proper).  Taxman informs me that government legislation has now changed and I am no longer entitled to the child benefit that I was before.  Taxman suggests that I earn too little and too much to qualify for extra money.  I lose more money in benefits than I am making.  Even the taxman suggests I should give up work.  I refuse.  I am proud.
• Multiple mix-ups with the horribleawfulnotsogood credit card attempting to take multiple minimum payments from my account simultaneously, sending my account into overdraft and occuring bank charges.  And then denying all knowledge of it because “it’s not a payment if it doesn’t clear”.

I want to feel in control again.  On paper, we are OK, but the reality of getting all the ducks to line up is very different.

So here I am.

Broke.
Fed up.
Angry.
Scared.

It’s time to get angry again, and start to fight again…

Well, the quick answer to that title is, “No”.

However, I’ve been taking some of my own advice and thinking deep thunks about how to go about moneymaking.  I’ve done a bit of an internal audit of my skills, and tried to see where there is some money to be made.

Well, the good news is that after a bit of solid thinking, I remembered that I have two jobs that I haven’t invoiced for yet!  Hurrah!  This is the business equivalent of finding spare change down the back of the sofa.  Of course, an invoice isn’t money in the bank, but as one is for someone very trustworthy who I have done lots of work for before, and the other one is for a Local Authority, I think getting paid is a foregone conclusion.  Only problem – do I count it as money earned *now* (as I’ve done the work already and am sure of payment) or do I count it when the cheques arrive?  Hmmm.

I’ve also spent a little while listing some things on Amazon Marketplace, having started trawling through boxes of books. This is always a bit of a depressing exercise, because  whilst it is by far the best place to list books and CDs, there are now so many people doing it that the value of many books is virtually zero.    One of the “features” of Amazon Marketplace is that there is just a flat postage and packing fee of £2.75.  This is fine if you are posting a paperback, but if you have a big, hardback book then there’s no way that you can afford to sell the book for £0.01 with £2.75 packing, pay Amazon £1.18 sales fee and still come out ahead of the game.  I’ve decided that items priced at 1p are not worth selling, and have more value on my bookshelves.

But, to be positive, I have listed a handful of items for decent prices, and if they sell, I will be happy.  The nice thing with Amazon is that you can be poddling along online quite happily doing something completely different and not thinking about making money at all when all of a sudden your email alert chimes and you discover that Amazon will be paying you a fiver and you’ve sold something that you didn’t want.  It’s a random and happymaking thing.  Fingers crossed that I will be happy soon!

I have been giving a bit of thought to having some kind of roadside stall/table where I can sell surplus eggs and craft items with an honesty box attached.  I could also pot up some herbs into pretty terracotta pots, label them nicely and sell those on.  I need to talk to Poor Old Tim and see if he might be able to knock something up out of scraps of wood and so forth.  I think he might relish the challenge.  Well, I hope so, anyway!  But if I can do that, then it’s another source of income.  Taking scented candles, crafts, home-baking and produce to local tabletop sales sounds like an idea as well, and is the sort of thing I can do with the kids around as well.  I need to get making and baking, I think!  I’ve also had a quick look into “Folksy”, which is attempting to be an English version of Etsy.  It has the advantage of being small, easily searchable and more local than Etsy, so I might give that a try and see how it goes…

I did want to try busking this week, to see how that goes, but our long spell of hot and dry weather has definitely broken into cold, wet bleurgh.  I’m hoping that this isn’t going to be the shape of the summer to come.   I just can’t cope with the idea of *another* wet summer.  Too depressing!  Oh well, that’s an idea that will last until another time – which gives me time to figure out where the blue blazes I’ve put my spare harp strings and tuning stuff, as the little bag which holds it all is still missing after last week’s gig.  Ho hum!

I’m intrigued by the idea of “selling a brick” in my house walls.  I’d be more than happy to do that, and I think that it’s a beautiful idea too – I love the idea of being surrounded by the names of people who have helped us achieve our dream.  It makes me warm and cosy inside   I may give this idea a bit of a spin and see how it goes!

It seems as though I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two years on “When….” statements.  You know the kind:

“When I get a new job, I’ll have enough money to start sculpting!”
“When the kids are a little bit older, I’ll have enough time to write a novel!”
“When I’ve paid off the credit cards, I’ll travel the world!”

Of course, the only problem with these statements is that you have a tendency to spend large chunks of your life waiting for permission to start something.  For me, it’s been the statement: “When we’re moved into the new house, I’ll have enough time/money/headspace to get ahead on the debt repayments…”

For over five years now, I’ve been spinning around that statement and putting lots of things onto hold.  Our financial situation was tricky to say the least – we were in the unenviable position of having spent all our savings on a half-finished project, but still being in a situation where a lot more spending was necessary before we could start reining the expenditure back in.  It has felt a lot like haemorraghing money in all directions, and it wasn’t a nice feeling.

But now we’re moved.  We’re finally in our dreamhouse, albeit one that isn’t finished and seems to be based around a theme of concrete, gaffer tape and polystyrene.  We’ve still got a lot of financial commitments, and I’m not at all comfortable about meeting everything every month.  We’re doing OK at the moment, but I’d really like to be doing a WHOLE lot better.  Added into the mix is the fact that we need to get bricks around the outside of the house and tiles on the top (we’ve used a non-standard building system, which is why that statement sounds odd, but we’re fine mostly watertight and happy, don’t worry!).  And for this we need to up our income stream.

So.  We need more money.  I’d like to step up some of the other debt repayments, too.

It’s very easy to sit here and panic about it.  I spent large chunks of time back in the late 90s panicking in that way, and I’m here to tell you that all panicking does is stress your marriage and send your blood pressure way too high.  Oh, I got hives as well.  It wasn’t nice.  When the same situation came up in the 00′s, I treated it differently.  I tightened my belt, took a deep breath and determined to earn more, spend less and generally do better.  This attitude worked *much* better, and we came safely through that little storm.

So, my intention (as of today), is to spend the next two months working my tail off to build up my “brick fund”.  Today, the Brick Fund stands at zero.  What will it be like at the end of July?  Just what can one Very Determined Woman achieve in two months?

I intend to publish how I’m doing, so hopefully you can all help me with my accountability.  I’ll be trying a variety of different ideas along the way, and we’ll see which ones are the most successful…

Wish me luck!

Something strange happened to WordPress, and it’s taken me a while to get it sorted out, so I do apologise for the protracted absence here.

Bad Me.  Sorry.

I will admit that life has been more than a little mad in the last few months anyway – after a rather convoluted house sale, we finally exchanged and moved out of our cottage in September 2009.  It was a huge relief, and we are lucky to have sold to wonderful people who have turned into good friends.  The fly in the ointment is that due to a complicated set of hold ups, our new house was not ready to move into as we had hoped.

Oh dear.

So we are in rented accommodation again with minimal belongings, and getting very used to the phrase, “I think it’s in a box somewhere…”

I’ll cover the problems that all of this uncertainty brings to finances in another post, but right now I’m in shock at something I’ve just seen on the TV.

I’ve always been fascinated by the kind of adverts that screen during daytime TV.  When I started this blog it was all Carol Vorderman and ‘consolidation loans’.  Nowadays there seems to be a veritable rash of “Sell My Gold”-type things, whereby you are exhorted to stick your jewellery into an envelope and send it through the post to a company who will make up a price and send you a cheque.

I was a little disturbed to stand behind someone in my local Post Office who was enquiring about this service.  Our Postmaster refused to take the package and said that there had been so many thefts of these packages that he didn’t feel safe handling them anymore.

*Ulp*

But I just saw the WORST deal ever, and aimed at the most vulnerable people.

I recommend you check out http://www.wonga.co.uk just so that you can tell everyone you know not to touch it with a bargepole.  The tv advert I saw featured a man desperate to borrow £70, whom the bank had laughed at.  But no problem, just contact wonga.co.uk, and they will lend you up to £1K at the bargain APR of 2689%.  If you don’t believe me, then go look at their homepage, it’s right there at the bottom, and that’s just the *typical* APR.  It could go higher, no doubt…

Did you catch that?

2689% APR

I don’t think I need to say anything else, do I?  I don’t need to say anything about preying on vulnerable sectors of society, loan-sharking or the sheer brutality of those figures.

I think I need a cup of tea.  And I think I need to look at an article about other ways to earn £70…