This one was with Monument. At the start of the month, I owed them £527. I managed to pay off a lot following pay day and was left with £190 to go. I figured I would clear it next month but then something strange happened...
I have obviously been off sick for a fortnight now as I am deaf (still deaf but I return to work tomorrow). Last week, I decided to run some errands and ended up at the tip, dropping off some broken old garden furniture. While I was dropping some stuff in the wood bin, I noticed a few trays of printers blocks at the top of the skip. My sister likes the trays because she hangs them on the wall and fills them with knick-knacks she has collected. I asked the site manager if I could have them and he said I could for a "donation" to the tea fund. I gave him £8 and he got the trays of stamps out of the skip for me. So I take them home and don't think much of it...
My sis said she would definitely have the trays so I just had the blocks to get rid of. I decided to have a crack at selling them. I put a font set on ebay for £15 Buy It Now with a note saying if there was any interest, I would sell more. They sold within 4 minutes.
OK, I thought...
So I listed another few sets but there was no more interest. Til I woke up the next morning... I had sold them all overnight (at £110).
Hmm... right then...
I listed more determinedly, with practically everything selling within 24 hours. I have so far made £654.65 and I have another £590 worth of listings on ebay with watchers.
Not too bad for £8 and a bit of dumpster diving...
So now I have all this spare cash I did not expect to have. I decided on a whim to pay off Monument and I have also bought myself a few little bits (vinyl, mainly).
As for Monument...
This was one of those where they stopped me in the shopping centre and offered me a credit card. I was already spiralling into serious debt and took the card out hoping it would tide me over til I got some money from Phil's book (of course, that never happened...). They accepted me and gave me £2000 limit that I ran through very quickly whilst on Motorhead's UK Inferno tour. Of all my debtors, though, they were probably the easiest to work with when I started getting myself sorted out. They froze interest for a year and agreed the reduced payments that I could afford. They also charged me the least interest.
I believe Monument changed after I joined them, though. They went from an OK company to one of those that charges 3000-odd% interest to desperate people for the pleasure of some plastic. They are now out of business and are just running down the debts of people like me. Once they are cleared, they will be gone.
Such is life...
I now only have to pay about £2k to Barclaycard and then I am FREE! Aside from my loan with HSBC, of course, but that is slightly different. I don't have an overdraft, my one working credit card is on nil balance with £3000 limit, and my MBNA and La Redoute accounts have definitely been shut down. Oh and I can't remember if I mentioned it but MBNA finally agreed to pay that bank charge from January and that is already in my account. Hell, for the first time in years, my bank balance at the middle of the month is more than 3 quid.
Things are looking up...
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