Starting again - my new debt free diary!

Hi All

Been a bit quiet on the debt busting front recently, had a rough time with life at home and fell off the wagon a bit but with my wedding just 5 months away, I am now more determined than ever to stop wasting money on things I don't need and getting a healthy savings balance to pay for the wedding, and then clearing the debts as soon as possible after that.

Its been 13 months since I had my lightbulb moment, and whilst my debt hasn't drastically reduced since then, my attitude towards spending has for the better, and what I have learnt on these forums will be with me for life.

My soa is as follows:

!
My Income: £1,397.34
OH Income: £1,333.35

Total Income: £2,730.69

Monthly Commitments:
Barclays loan: £274.37
Egg Loan: £102.54
Halifax loan: £192.23
CC's (minimum): £65
Mortgage: 521.31
Council Tax: £83
Home Insurance: £33.34

Life insurance: £11.39
Sofas: £54.77
Sky: £18.50
Internet: £7.50
Mobile phones: £44
Water rates: £23.00
TV licence: £11.31
Gas: £22
Electric: £28

BT Phone bill: £24.50
Garage rent: £27.65

Total: £1,544.48

That leaves a surplus after standing orders/direct debits of £1,186.21.

Obviously the above does not include any amounts in relation to everything else, such as shopping, fuel, going out etc, but the plan is from this month onwards that we will have £100 a week 'spends' which will cover everything, as we don't do much, I cannot envisage us struggling on this amount. Our shopping bill for 3 weeks out of 4 is very small, usually around £15-£20 as we have one big shop a month where we stock up and fill the freezer etc for the rest of the month. That big shop is normally around £60.

Spending only £100 a week leaves us with a spare £750 a month.
Until July, this is being placed in the savings account for the wedding, after July, this will be used to pay off our credit card debts, after that, the loans, depending on early redemption penalties etc. Only one of the loans, as far as I am aware, is front loaded and that is the smallest one which only runs until Feb 2010 anyway.

The credit card balances are:

Virgin: £3,770
Tesco: £1,646

These are both interest free, the Virgin one until Feb 2010 and the Tesco one until around March 2010. We should have enough to pay these off before they are interest bearing. However, in the short term, the tesco balance will increase by anything upto £600, this is to pay for my OH and dad to go to the British Grand Prix, whilst this may seem 'stupid' on the face of it, its to reward them for being absolute rocks over the last few months when I've been going through a tough time and we would be able to afford it from a normal months wage but would rather spread the cost seen as its interest free.

The loan balances come to approx £13,500 and if we don't pay them off sooner, the last payments will be in Feb 2010, Nov 2010 and then Nov 2011 (I think). Sooner these are gone, the better, as they drain a large part of our monthly income.


Our current savings balance sits at just a shade under £2,200 and we want to double that before the wedding which is certainly achieveable, we will probably end up with more than what we need.

OH will find out what his annual pay rise will be soon, last year it was 5% and expect something similar this year, plus his income will increase by approx £50 as he has finished paying his student loan but they are still taking deductions, so after the tax year ends, we will be due around £200ish back from the student loan company too.

I have just had a large payrise, and I am expecting for my pay to go up another £6k in July which will increase the surplus even further. Hopefully this means that we can be debt free by the end of 2010 which would be lovely!

Anyway, thats an update on me, I hope that my nice new fresh diary can provide me with the motivation and support I need, in what will a tough few months as we plough all efforts into not spending!


Comments

  • Just wanted to say hi, and good luck with your plans - Looks like you've got things under control and moving forwards :D

    GA:A
    ~ On the Road to Making Dreams Happen ~
    January £10 a Day Challenge £ 0.00 / £750 - (Running Total £1,512.11)
    52 Week Challenge £ 0.00 / £1,378

    Debt Owed £23,200 / £19,251 - Mtge Owed Bal £140,000 / £130,940 - Total Debt Balance Owed : £163,200 / £150,191
  • Thanks for the well wishes.

    Just done something not very DFWish and ordered unlimited cinema passes for me and my OH which will cost £23.98 a month. Whilst this will reduce the amount we have to save/pay off debts, I think it will save in the long run as it will give us something to do for entertainment, especially seen as there are loads of films out that interest us!
  • Woo, student loan refund has come into the bank account today, didn't think we would get it until after the tax year ends so quite chuffed that it has come through. Transferred it straight over to the savings account.
  • Going into the Halifax on Monday to switch my current account over to their new reward one so I get £5 a month just for paying in £1,000.

    My original plan was to transfer £750 into my savings account at the start of the month to help me budget better, however, I am going to transfer all my money, aside from the money to pay direct debits over to the savings account so that it reduces my mortgage (offset account). At the end of the month i'll just pay what I have spent on my cashback credit card with the money from the savings.

    Just trying to find the optimum way of getting my money to work the best for me without having to do much different
  • Signed up to DooYoo tonight, OH is very good with words and he has writen some fantastic reviews so hopefully if they go down well, we will be getting Amazon vouchers which will pay for the new computer games he wants!

    Also doing the daily scratch cards on Take A Break bingo, was telling my mum yesterday and she thinks im mad to go to that much effort for 10p a day!!
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