I'm Back - and better! Final Push to Go...

zippygeorgeandben · 27 February 2017 at 2:22PM

Exerbusi2 wrote: »

Sounds like an extra bit of progress!

What will you do with the extra £300? Will you be using it all on debt repayment?

Yes I will - in January I had an extra £400 so I paid £417.67 off my CC. It was the total sum of three months of purchases from last year (yup, £200plus on candles!)
What I do need to think though is that my Summer holiday, last year was about £1250 and if you remember, I told you that I was naughty and really ought to have paid it off the CC but it just stayed in my current account. I need to think of this this year. There is no way I want to be using the Sainsburys BT card as I want to cut that up as soon as it arrives!

I could actually try and save £300 each month and that would pay for the Summer holiday.

zippygeorgeandben · 28 February 2017 at 11:32AM

Hey Exerbusi2 how are you? Well today is a good day in my battle to reduce my debts.
At the end of the month of February I have ended up with a surplus of £350.77.
During this month I did the following (this is still with the £350.77 left over);
1) Paid £300 off the ZOPA loan instead of the usual DD of £230 (extra £70 payment)
2) Transferred £250 to my sister towards our Easter holidays.
3) Sold around £200 of candles
4) Overpaid by Virgin monthly amount, instead of the £33 they request, I paid £200.

With this surplus £350, I then paid £193.32 extra off the Virgin CC, bringing it to a nice round £3000.

Things to consider next month in March
1) Out on the 4th March for a 60th birthday party. This is a meal, cabs and drinks during the evening.
2) I negotiated the SKY subscription which should be coming from £55 to £33 next month
3) I have agreed to sell three candles for £40, person due to collect tomorrow (1st March)
4) Still have yet to be paid for those musical tickets (£132)
5) Because I overpaid the ZOPA this month - this monthly DD has come down by £10 to £211 per month
6) See what happens with the Sainsburys BT card. If it comes in, I'll be altering my payments and transferring as much of the Zopa loan that I can to this card, thus saving on the interest. If it does come in, cut it up straight away!
7) Another month with no Council Tax to pay as we spread it over 10 months.
8) At the end of the month, my current account normally shows approximately £600 CR. Perhaps I could consider using a couple of hundred of this to throw at a debt, however I'm reluctant to do this just in case of emergencies and needing the money.

Exerbusi2 · 28 February 2017 at 1:44PM

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

Hey Exerbusi2 how are you?

Good thanks!

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

Well today is a good day in my battle to reduce my debts.
At the end of the month of February I have ended up with a surplus of £350.77.
During this month I did the following (this is still with the £350.77 left over);
1) Paid £300 off the ZOPA loan instead of the usual DD of £230 (extra £70 payment)
2) Transferred £250 to my sister towards our Easter holidays.
3) Sold around £200 of candles
4) Overpaid by Virgin monthly amount, instead of the £33 they request, I paid £200.

With this surplus £350, I then paid £193.32 extra off the Virgin CC, bringing it to a nice round £3000.

Things to consider next month in March
1) Out on the 4th March for a 60th birthday party. This is a meal, cabs and drinks during the evening.
2) I negotiated the SKY subscription which should be coming from £55 to £33 next month
3) I have agreed to sell three candles for £40, person due to collect tomorrow (1st March)
4) Still have yet to be paid for those musical tickets (£132)
5) Because I overpaid the ZOPA this month - this monthly DD has come down by £10 to £211 per month
6) See what happens with the Sainsburys BT card. If it comes in, I'll be altering my payments and transferring as much of the Zopa loan that I can to this card, thus saving on the interest. If it does come in, cut it up straight away!
7) Another month with no Council Tax to pay as we spread it over 10 months.
8) At the end of the month, my current account normally shows approximately £600 CR. Perhaps I could consider using a couple of hundred of this to throw at a debt, however I'm reluctant to do this just in case of emergencies and needing the money.

Wow! What a fantastic month - well done you!

The £600 CR in the account is a really nice buffer - it's essentially £150 per week, which wouldn't take long to build a solid emergency fund - do you have one? I think around £1000 is sufficient.

My attitude to cash is similar to something I heard Warren Buffet say - "cash is like oxygen - you just need enough". Anything beyond my needs I'm currently spending on debt repayment.

Even if you kept only £400 spare per month, the extra £200 would really into your debts - it's £2400 per year when you break it down further!

I don't think there's much in the way of debt activity for me this week. It's mortgage day tomorrow, which means there's a busy couple of days in the account at the start of the month, then we get started on the debt repayments again!

zippygeorgeandben · 28 February 2017 at 3:31PM

I'm not sure whether to build up emergency fund though before paying debts off. I'm going to try and aim to clear debts by Dec 2018. I've saved a couple of months worth already with this hard hitting approach!

Exerbusi2 · 28 February 2017 at 9:50PM

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

I'm not sure whether to build up emergency fund though before paying debts off. I'm going to try and aim to clear debts by Dec 2018. I've saved a couple of months worth already with this hard hitting approach!

How long would it take you to put £1000 away? I think that's a decent amount to have away. Anything above that, I'd pay off the debt with!

zippygeorgeandben · 28 February 2017 at 10:52PM

Exerbusi2 hmmm to put £1,000 away, maybe 6 months? My job though is secure (teacher) and I have a decent pension scheme. I wish I could just fast forward 6 months though and see what finances are like. I've done well in 5 months, I was working out that with real hard work again, by the end of this year I could be under 10k owed which would be brilliant if possible. It's weird though, did you see my original post back in December? It was all about consolidating and getting more debt! I totally had a wrong mindset.
Tomorrow I'm going to be seeing what I was buying at the start of 2016 and what I have to show for that, it'll be interesting I'm sure.

Exerbusi2 · 1 March 2017 at 7:59AM

Would that 6 months allow you to still over-pay your debts?

I haven't seen your original post, but isn't it interesting how much we learn over this process?! My girlfriend still bounces her (admittedly small) credit card balance from 0% to 0% and pays the minimum each month, taking the attitude that it doesn't cost her much, so why whack it?!

You're new signature looks great - especially that Zopa debt!

zippygeorgeandben · 1 March 2017 at 1:38PM

Hey thanks for checking out the signature, yes I'm quite proud of it.
I don't think that the 6 months would allow me to overpay debts because I really want to hammer away at this interest on the loans.
My partners finances are really bad but he has accepted that they are always going to be bad. He's been bailed out quite a lot in life too. I'm hoping that maybe in year's time, I can start to maybe help pay some of his outgoings. What I do have to hope for is that when the rent is due for renewal (July/August) that it doesn't go up. To be honest, it's well overdue a rent increase. I could manage £50 or even £100. If it's £150 I might see if we can meet in the middle but the rent we pay for the area we live in is reasonable for the area.

This morning I looked at what my outgoings are and the SKY has gone down from £56
to £23.26 - how amazing is that! The Zopa outgoing instead of £229.10 is £204, so this will be more to throw at the debt.
I've just looked back at what I spent in 2016 month by month and all I can say is WOW. Not only did I get £1600+ back in PPI, I also got refunded nearly £900 in interest from a loan I had got out years ago from HSBC. I have nothing to show for this. I can also see the payments from my sister for our Summer holiday (£1200), at one stage I had over £3k in my account. In October, I spent £2500 pounds on all outgoings. This October 2016 I spent £1500 (which included an extra £272 off the CC).
Unfortunately I'm off work until 13th March but I'm recuperating at home. Just have to make sure I don't spend any money on things through boredom!

Exerbusi2 · 2 March 2017 at 10:43AM

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

Hey thanks for checking out the signature, yes I'm quite proud of it.

You should be - you've made a great few strides!

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

My partners finances are really bad but he has accepted that they are always going to be bad. He's been bailed out quite a lot in life too.

This is a concern - they don't always have to be bad. Can he not take inspiration from you and start to get it sorted?

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

I'm hoping that maybe in year's time, I can start to maybe help pay some of his outgoings.

Hmmm. Is that a good idea? You've already said he's been bailed out a lot in life - it hasn't taught him much but the sounds of things. Aren't you just another bail out?

I'll give you an example. My sister in law (unbelievably, given she was living at home with her parents at the time, doesn't drive and had basically no outgoings) amassed £10k of debt.

When her Dad retired, he had a large payout. He helped one of his daughters buy a house, another to pay for her wedding and for my sister in law, he paid off all of her debt, giving her a clean slate.

She didn't learn and found herself back in £3k of debt not long after. She met my brother and told him she was paying it off.

A couple of years later, in a restaurant she offered to pay the bill for her, my brother, her sister and her brother in law. It was the day after pay day and her card was declined. My brother was suspicious and asked her what the problem was. She confessed she'd taken on more loans and was now £17k in debt.

My brother earns a good salary, so is paying all of their household expenses, leaving her to pay her debt. Despite being £17k in debt and without other outgoings (my bro pays for literally everything else), she is paying minimum payments on her debt and still buying clothes, shoes, having her nails done etc.

The point being, she hasn't learnt a single thing. Would your partner be the same? Is sometimes tough love the best approach?

Here's what you could do - be a security blanket without him knowing....

When we had our second son, my partner wanted a year off on maternity leave. I was having none of it and said she had to go back after 9 months. Friends of ours who had 12 months off had been really financially hurt by the extra 3 months without income and I didn't want us to be in the same boat.

I'd put a cash buffer aside as a back up. My partner didn't know I'd done this (I didn't want her to know about the emergency fund, because it was for emergencies only - not to be frittered away giving her an extra 3 months of baby groups and coffee mornings!)

After 8 months, my partner had basically run out of money so I gave her £1000 - I didn't do the whole "I told you so" thing, I just knew there was no way she'd be able to stay off for 12 months. She realised that too, but only when she understood her rate of spending outstripped her earning!

I'm self employed, so I have to stay in tight control of my money. It also means I have to forecast, so things like that had to come up.

My partner is actually pretty good with money as it goes, she's was just being a tad self-indulgent! She's never been in money trouble before or since, so it was a learning experience for her.

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

This morning I looked at what my outgoings are and the SKY has gone down from £56
to £23.26 - how amazing is that! The Zopa outgoing instead of £229.10 is £204, so this will be more to throw at the debt.

That's fantastic - paying less out per month is key. I cut my virgin bill down, my phone bill down and my debt repayments down by overpaying!

zippygeorgeandben wrote: »

I've just looked back at what I spent in 2016 month by month and all I can say is WOW.

Ha ha! I've been there too - I probably spend an average of £150 per month on extra shopping which I really need to curb!

On my debt repayment front today...

I've got to email a client's PA about money they owe me. That should be coming in within the next couple of days, which will be very helpful indeed.

I'm also owed nearly £1000 from a company which should be coming in the next few days too. When these payments come in I am going to pay around £1000 into my savings, pay £270 off my CC bill and will use the rest to pay for a new clutch on my car, which will be around £1000 - ouch!

zippygeorgeandben · 2 March 2017 at 11:41AM

Morning Exerbusi2. Hope you are well. Bit windy here in East London today although the sun is trying to sneak out. Has that shed been built then yet? Are you going to make me something from your shed when you have the time? Oh hang on, you'll be charging me a ridiculous amount just so you can hit your debt been more! Was rereading your original post this morning!

Exerbusi2 wrote: »

You should be - you've made a great few strides!

Thank you.

Exerbusi2 wrote: »

This is a concern - they don't always have to be bad. Can he not take inspiration from you and start to get it sorted?
Hmmm. Is that a good idea? You've already said he's been bailed out a lot in life - it hasn't taught him much but the sounds of things. Aren't you just another bail out?

The main issue is, is that he earns a low salary in London. With all his repayments each month, that's pretty much his salary all gone on rent/debt repayments etc. We have quite a unique relationship with money in that everything is split in half. I've always had this relationship with money. Even when I've had friends who are on 6 figure salaries, I've never expected them to pay for nights out just because they can. My older sister (who really does need to sort money out and maybe we can discuss that later down the line) made BAD decisions with previous boyfriends 20 years ago and still paying for it now.

Exerbusi2 wrote: »

I'll give you an example. My sister in law (unbelievably, given she was living at home with her parents at the time, doesn't drive and had basically no outgoings) amassed £10k of debt.

I've considered us both moving back up north, living with Dad for say a year and paying off my debts a lot quicker but the capital is where I call home now.

Exerbusi2 wrote: »

When her Dad retired, he had a large payout. He helped one of his daughters buy a house, another to pay for her wedding and for my sister in law, he paid off all of her debt, giving her a clean slate.

Very kind of your Dad, I keep trying to encourage mine to downsize (4 bed cottage, he lives in Spain 3/4 months of the year) and sell the cottage. Not necessarily to give money to me from the house sale but he can live his life from now without budgeting on 20 Euros a day and not worry about putting the heating on!

Exerbusi2 wrote: »

She didn't learn and found herself back in £3k of debt not long after. She met my brother and told him she was paying it off.

A couple of years later, in a restaurant she offered to pay the bill for her, my brother, her sister and her brother in law. It was the day after pay day and her card was declined. My brother was suspicious and asked her what the problem was. She confessed she'd taken on more loans and was now £17k in debt.

My brother earns a good salary, so is paying all of their household expenses, leaving her to pay her debt. Despite being £17k in debt and without other outgoings (my bro pays for literally everything else), she is paying minimum payments on her debt and still buying clothes, shoes, having her nails done etc.

The point being, she hasn't learnt a single thing. Would your partner be the same? Is sometimes tough love the best approach?

Here's what you could do - be a security blanket without him knowing....

When we had our second son, my partner wanted a year off on maternity leave. I was having none of it and said she had to go back after 9 months. Friends of ours who had 12 months off had been really financially hurt by the extra 3 months without income and I didn't want us to be in the same boat.

I'd put a cash buffer aside as a back up. My partner didn't know I'd done this (I didn't want her to know about the emergency fund, because it was for emergencies only - not to be frittered away giving her an extra 3 months of baby groups and coffee mornings!)

After 8 months, my partner had basically run out of money so I gave her £1000 - I didn't do the whole "I told you so" thing, I just knew there was no way she'd be able to stay off for 12 months. She realised that too, but only when she understood her rate of spending outstripped her earning!

I'm self employed, so I have to stay in tight control of my money. It also means I have to forecast, so things like that had to come up.

My partner is actually pretty good with money as it goes, she's was just being a tad self-indulgent! She's never been in money trouble before or since, so it was a learning experience for her.

I think going back to my partner and money, he had to take about 18 months off work due to serious illness, he didn't want to go back to work so his Dad kindly funded a Masters for him. I'm just happy now that he is in a job that he actually enjoys (for the first time in probably 5/6 years).

Exerbusi2 wrote: »

That's fantastic - paying less out per month is key. I cut my virgin bill down, my phone bill down and my debt repayments down by overpaying!

Ha ha! I've been there too - I probably spend an average of £150 per month on extra shopping which I really need to curb!

On my debt repayment front today...

I've got to email a client's PA about money they owe me. That should be coming in within the next couple of days, which will be very helpful indeed.

I'm also owed nearly £1000 from a company which should be coming in the next few days too. When these payments come in I am going to pay around £1000 into my savings, pay £270 off my CC bill and will use the rest to pay for a new clutch on my car, which will be around £1000 - ouch!

I feel quite lucky not having to drive! I enjoy getting the train and I'm pretty good at getting the deals. Partner and I have a 'two together' card where you both have to make the same journey together but you get pretty decent discounts off fares. I realise that there aren't many people in the world who don't have ANY transport costs at all, I think I put about £20 on my Oyster card each month.

We have a wedding to go to in August I found out the other day. It's in Hampshire. Do you want to have a guess at how much it costs to stay the night (and we are expected to stay for 2)..
Go on hazard a guess...

£425

Have a good day!

I'm Back - and better! Final Push to Go...

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