At the first month junction 

Tuesday 3rd June, 2008 - £8,920.19 in debt…

So, I’m a month into my two-year pledge to pay off all my debts. So how’s it going? Well, I’ve had a few victories, a few disappointments, and the jury is still out on a few things. The jury being me.

Unbridled triumph!

 (1) My biggest success has been filling out my tax return and paying the resulting £421 rebate straight onto my Barclaycard. This has saved me about £63 a year in interest.

(2) Second only to that was paying off my NatWest card by selling a few things on eBay. This has got me back into the habit of Ebaying things I don’t need, and I’ve made a total of £142.78, with more on the way.

(3) I’ve changed my current account to a Barclays First Additions account (which is only available to existing Barclays customers). This means I’m paying a monthly fee of £6.50, but the preferable overdraft interest rate will save me money in the long run: About £18 a month, if my calculations are correct.

(4) My Capital One card is now charging interest after the introductory offer, so I’ve chopped it up. Even though there’s a picture of a pig on it.

(5) And, through doing Martin Lewis’s budget planner, I’ve discovered how much I spend every month. It’s a lot more than I earn. This could be seen as a failure, but at least I know what I’m doing wrong and I can change my ways.

Failure! Doom! Disaster!

(1) Online surveys. After spending about a billion years (give or take) on the sign-up processes for these things, I’ve made no money from them because I don’t meet the criteria for answering any surveys. I might have to start lying.

(2) Trying to change the interest rates on my credit cards didn’t work at all.

(3) I quit my part-time job. Although this has been very good for me, mentally speaking, it means I’m £181 more skint every week. The four recruitment agencies I’ve spoken to so far have produced no jobs.

Not Quite Sure Yet…

(1)  I’ve written to my bank to reclaim the charges I’ve paid over the last six years, but this will take up to two years to sort out, so I’m not putting any of my eggs in that basket.

(2) I really must get around to switching my energy, broadband and home phone suppliers, but I always seem to find more interesting things to do, like creating Facebook profiles for my cats.

(3)  Mystery shopping for www.retaileyes.co.uk has the potential to be a good little pocket-money-spinner, and an excellent way to get someone else to pay for my shopping. It’s gone well so far, but I haven’t received any actual cash for it yet, so I’m still erring on the side of caution.

(4) The same goes for www.consumerpulse.co.uk – a site where you answer a few questions about the things you’ve bought during the week, building up points, which you then exchange for vouchers. So far, so massive-waste-of-time (is what I thought at first), but I’ve got a good tenner’s worth of points in a fortnight. I haven’t yet received my first voucher, and the site doesn’t give me any smallprint, so I’m crossing my fingers as it seems too good to be true. Again, watch this space…