A Fool and Her Money- CAFCGIRL's Debt Diary

Hi All,

Apologies in advance for the self indulgence, but like those above me, this is my one way of keeping track on myself!:o
Besides this way I feel like I'm more responsible and answerable to the gods of the board to keep this struggle an uphill one!

So heres the gory details,
I'm 22, sharing a flat, close to city centre, work full time as an assistant manager in a retail store, have a boyfriend and a gorgeous house rabbit called Peanuts.:T

The salary take-home is £880, total pants for the work that I do:eek: , am on the lookout, but I do like my job! Asked on friday for serious convo about payrise, was told no chance, nothing personal but company have frozen all recruitment and pay-talks due to takeover.:mad:

Got myself a credit card, simply because I could, if I'm being honest! 20years old and days to pay it off ahead of me.
Used all the credit there, paying £50 a month (limit of £1500). Had whacking great council tax bill of £900, plus a three year bill from British Gas for me and (previous) flatmate of £1,000!

So tried to face it all head on, got myself an unsecured loan, got suckered in by bank telling me I was getting a good deal based on credit rating, i.e living in rented acc' poor salary. So that was £3,000

Now heres the real honesty. I blew it!:eek: :eek: :eek: Paid off the credit card, paid off council tax bill, and just frittered the rest, by the time I had realised, my share of gas bill was still no smaller:mad: ! Now I'll be honest when I got the loan I'd forgotten about a £450 store card, which did get paid off, but then something else didnt etc. I didnt give myself a detailed enough plan for what to pay off etc.:doh:

So the interest and PPI (which I'm desperately trying to get cancelled) means my total to repay on loan is £4,800!: _pale_
And I managed to spank the credit card again. A victim of my youth and some seriously deluded moments about my own self worth etc.Self diagnosed (with a little medical assistance) slight depression.
So the credit card went to £1,400 again
Add together
4,800 -Loan
1,400 - CC
580 -Store card
240 -Staff card
600 -Gas bill
So thats £7620

The loan has had about 3 payments made
So currently I'm around about 7200(my signature lies)

Small efforts I have made to this include:
Applied for I.F credit card, giving me 4.95% p.a on BT for life of all BT made within 6 months of opening.
Unfortunately credit limit wasnt as much as Abbey credit card so only transferred £1,100, but better than paying 18.9% on balance to Abbey!
Have written to Abbey requesting cancellation of PPI on both credit card and loan with little response.I don't quite understand why its difficult!!
Am in the process of seriously reviewing budgets and current acc statements to find where the hell my money does go!

I'm looking to get myself up to date, besides the loan balance, in two years which should be difficult, because then I plan to make early repayment to the loan if I can.:T

So by doing this diary, I'm in the vain hope that I will keep myself on the straight and narrow. I've been making some small changes in the two months prior to this posting, but have decided that today is the dayNo more fart ar*ing around.

I spent it
Now its time to pay it back

Please be gentle with me, sometimes I do need a small push in the right direction and right now I'm quite happy to try what I can!
I've posted SOA before and got some great advice. Have discovered that my main controllable expenditure goes on
TESCO!
This place should be a category all of its own for me!
All those little £7.19 add up!:silenced: