Finally getting my head out of the sand

samclarke669 · 7 September 2012 at 9:55AM

Hi all,

Had a lightbulb moment (At 2AM last night for some reason) that i'm going to sort myself out and get rid of my debt. Currently as it stands it's just one credit card with a fairly big limit (For my age, anyway...)
And as my partner is buying a property soon, i figured it's high time i grow up and sort it out!

I've already signed up to some survey sites to try and generate a bit more income per month, I'm currently on quite a low salary which won't be changing any-time soon, but i like the job and it's secure so i'm looking at alternative ways to gain a bit of extra money and to get a handle on my credit card.

I've been paying the minimum (about £10 after interest) per month for about 2 years now, and it's not going to go anywhere until i start chipping away at it! Hopefully posting here/doing some challenges will help with my motivation.

Cheers all

IamIain · 7 September 2012 at 10:06AM

It's a good thing to do Sam, when you reach that light at the end of the tunnel I can tell you that the world feels like a different place and the weight is removed from your shoulders so keep going and be honest and hard on yourself when you're thinking about buying things that you don't really need.

I've recently become debt free after many years and from a pretty bad starting position, I definitely walk a bit taller now! I just have a few credit rating issues to resolve and the job will be complete.

Good luck

downsizer3 · 7 September 2012 at 10:11AM

Well done for seeing the debt for what it is. Every little helps and I'd recommend spreadsheets to monitor your progress - it really helps when savings and scrimping gets tough - you can look at how far you've come - it also reminds you how hard it is to pay off debts and stops you racking up more!
Good luck.

ChopinonaBudget · 7 September 2012 at 11:34AM

Good luck with becoming debt free

One little thing I've done you might want to think about with regards to your credit card; I also can't afford to pay more than the 'minimum' (you'll we why I used quotes in a moment) as I've been concentrating on getting my current account functioning and saving enough to get me through my summer of barely no income. Managed it! Anyway, rather than setting my b/card to pay the actual minimum, I took the minimum payment at the time (£109) added on £1 for luck, and set that as a monthly set repayment. I can always add payments if I can, and will be when my snowball scheme has paid off the o/d, but in the meantime, a year down the line, I'm now paying a little extra off the capital than I was when I started as my payments haven't dropped which they do when they're set at minimum. It's not a huge difference but it's something.

samclarke669 · 7 September 2012 at 11:37AM

That's a great idea! I think my minimum payment is £93 and about £80 of that is interest or something, I haven't worked it out yet, so I was going to up it to £100 then at least i'm paying a few £ more, every little helps eh?

Question regarding surveys, is it a case of signing up to the top sites and waiting for them to email or do you proactivly have to look on their site to get them done? My plan is to use the surveys/swagbucks ect to help pay for my lunches at work

ChopinonaBudget · 7 September 2012 at 11:53AM

No problem! I'll probably never up mine any more as my income fluctuates, but £110 is always enough to do something useful, and I know I can afford it even when money is tight, and the rest I'll pay off as overpayments.

I do surveys, but not swagbucks. They email with links to the surveys. I do them in the evening when I'm watching tv. I signed up for loads of different companies then deleted the ones that continually sent me on wild goose chases (can't remember which ones they were, sorry), but Valued Opinions I've just earned a £10 and YouGov I'm 20% en route to £50. They don't pay out much, or often, but it's Tesco Tactics. (every little helps):)

samclarke669 · 7 September 2012 at 12:03PM

Cheers! I found a thread on here with some good ones and signed up to them. I spend a lot of time dossing about on the net so doing surveys which take 10 mins each really doesn't bother me too much

samclarke669 · 7 September 2012 at 2:22PM

I had an idea about how to manage my money, Do people on here think this is a good idea, or am i over-thinking it?

Using rough averages at the moment until i can properly work it out, but I get paid £1050 per month AFTER tax from work, my outgoings, including petrol/credit cards ect come to about £350-400, but the problem is, as i end each month in my overdraft paying interest that my "free" income doesn't really exist.

I have a nasty habit of going on Amazon and buying CDs that I don't really need, so my idea was:

I have a current account that i opened years ago and did nothing with, it still has £40 in there from 2009 i think! I could get work to transfer my wages into that bank, and pay my other current account half of my wages, £500, to pay my credit card and to use to fuel and the like, then have the current account i get PAID into, disable any sort of overdraft and put a block so that i can't go below £0. Then I can get used to checking my account and not having my overdraft to fall back on.

Thoughts? I probably haven't even worded it right!

Jay1_2 · 7 September 2012 at 4:13PM

Can I have some advice too please. I'm not actually in debt but my money has just gone down so I need to be carefull to keep myself that way.

I want some advice on how to lay out my monthly income and outgoings. I use my credit card a lot because it is cash back (so everything I buy on it is very slightly cheaper than if I used cash) and the full amount to pay that month goes out on about the 20th. I get paid on the 30th/31st.

So there is my opening bank balance with my pay just gone in, then I note down everything I spend that month and the end of the month balance should be my pay (plus any money left from last month if any) minus my outgoings. Only it never is because what I used my credit card for won't come out of my bank till next month.

I hope you can understant what I am saying. It makes perfect sense to me until I try to write it down.... Where do I note the money that I know I won't have next month so that I'm careful to leave enough in this month's budget to pay my credit card off.

Thanks for reading.
Jx

unimaginative_user_name · 7 September 2012 at 5:12PM

Hi Jay!

Do you note down your income and expenditure on a spreadsheet and calculate running totals? If so you could have a second sheet which is a list of cc transactions with a total at the bottom of the page and a future transaction on your current account sheet which is linked to the cell co tsing your cc total. As you add cc transactions the total would increase on your cc sheet as would the cc deduction from your current account sheet.

I have an old version of Microsoft Money which does this automatically. I know when my cc payments have to be made so I add this as a future transaction and I know what my cash-flow will be like and whether I need to transfer money from another account if my main account is going to be short.

Finally getting my head out of the sand

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