Extra Paydays

 Regular readers will know that we have had a truly horrible start to 2023.

Following an emergency, we were presented with a vet's bill of thousands of pounds. 

We live below the line on a simple budget.  We don't use credit cards.  We have no loans or debts.  We do have an emergency fund, and used some of that - leaving ourselves a good amount to rebuild - and then listed what we could possibly do to raise the funds for this bill.

I am very happy to say that after four weeks of scrimping, selling, working, doing without, living without, simple things:  we have almost paid off the bill.  

How?

Firstly we asked the Vets if we could have a payment plan.  This meant that we could owe them the money until the beginning of May, as long as we were paying them a set amount each month.  There was no additional interest added.

We dug into our emergency fund and paid a thousand pounds into this payment plan straight away.  

The next thind I did was download an app onto my phone, that enabled me to scan the barcodes of books.  Many of our books had a value of up to £1.50: so once these had been scanned, I filled a large cardboard box and arranged for it to be collected for free.  Once the company had received our books, they paid £46.  This went straight into the vet payment plan.

I then listed some perfume and empty perfume bottles onto eBay.  I checked what the value would be, and listed them at just below their value - and they sold within 24 hours.  The received amount was transferred to the bill.

We worked out what we could manage without.  Although we live below the line, we do have 'things' that are not essential - for example, direct debits to charities, and to the National Trust.  We cancelled these (we may donate again in the future) and this month's amount was directed to the vet bill.

I sorted through our wardrobe and chest of drawers.  (We share one single wardrobe..) There were a few items we don't wear, and a couple of items we have never worn.  These were listed and sold on Vinted.  Also a pair of shoes I don't wear anymore that are good quality.  Cash to the bill.

We looked around our wee house.  We had a side table, a filing cabinet and a large metal clock we just didn't need anymore.  These were listed on Facebook selling page and sold.

I sorted out some knitting yarn into bundles and sold these - as well as some fabric I didn't need.

There was a car boot sale locally two weeks ago.  I used large cardboard boxes, and Man Wonderful helped me put in related items in each box that we could easily live without.  A set of bedding, a set of towels, two curtain rods.  Some sheet music, my old sewing machine, a couple of house plants.  A selection of plant pots, some packets of seeds, some DVDs.  A champagne bucket (don't ask!), two teapots, some LPs.  A couple of boxed sets of crochet, some picture frames, some kids toys.  It was £7 to have a stall at the car boot sale, and I sold almost everything for just under £80.  Cash paid into the bill.

I had some curtains to alter for two families last week, and the cash from that was paid straight in.

We have an amount of our monthly budget for food.  We cut this amount and are going to manage on much less, using our stock cupboard.  We paid this gathered amount straight in.

Man Wonderful works occasionally for an exam board. He's upped his hours for a couple of months to increase some funds.

I've let folks know I'm available to sew and mend, and have a good few commissions put my way thar I'm working through.

We have just a few hundred pounds left to pay : from a few thousand pounds.

At our age it feels good to know we are not helpless.

FMxx