Adventure wanted, but first we must rid ourselves of debt

mummy2threeboys · 17 October 2017 at 7:07PM

Hi Home edders here, So very sorry on the run and just saw this pop up and didn't want to lose it, will be back to read soon loads of love fellow adventurers

mummy2threeboys · 17 October 2017 at 8:16PM

Hi caught up yay.
Hi I'm mummy to three lads (can you tell) Home ed for about 4.5 years ages 11, 9 and 6.

You are doing really well! Pad sounds fun but I didn't ever understand it feels like shifting one debt to another (my bank account is in od) I did start well in Jan but way above where I am in my sig. I am burying my head a bit until after Christmas. I have a holiday coming up soon and Will try my best to not waste money.
That's one downside of Home ed..the fact you can get holidays at a really really low rate but it's still money going out. I too Love traveling a lot.

You mention subscriptions, do you know popart home education and learning begins in wonder on facebook? Both get discounts often huge ones on online subs, Mathletics I got for £13 instead of £59 , always worth joining up.
We have lots of climbing clubs in Kent , keep meaning to take the kids to one of the Home ed Groups but we do so many clubs as it is plus we try to stick to the cheap or free meetups ,
Heres some we do that are free/cheap Sometimes its just a case of you taking charge and heading a group or suggesting it if that's not your thing.
Tesco Fork to farm healthy eating workshops Free
local museum workshops £2 per child (But need a minimum of people)
Another local museum workshop Free
Pizza express and Frankie and Bennies do Free workshops
Jamie Oliver free pizza/pasta workshop £2 per child Minimum of 10 children I think.
I also became a WWF youth wildlife ambassador and a small group work towards badges free but badges £1
RSPB do free Certificates to work towards
Pdsa have animal protector clubs to work towards its £20 per level BUT you can split cost with a group
DIY.org is a fab free fun and educational site to work towards badges (although it's us and badges are dear so I just print a paper one off)
Local libraries Bookclub
We also approach local businesses you would be surprised how many are happy to put on a tour. (Off to a pumpkin farm tomorrow for a talk and pick)
And lots of museums not just local ones have school workshops we can participate in as a group

Maybe teaching grandma how to suck eggs, but might be some use for you or someone else. If you know of anything else free/cheap as an outing would love to know.

Maybe I should be brave and go see my debts again. Sigh.
Oh yes there's a fab free printables/downloads group as well ill try find the link at some point

£49 "saved" I didn't buy that adorable autumn leaves/pumpkins rockabilly 50s dress (sobs)
Have a fab evening , hope to chat soon x

AdventureWanted · 18 October 2017 at 9:43PM

mummy2threeboys wrote: »

Hi caught up yay.
Hi I'm mummy to three lads (can you tell) Home ed for about 4.5 years ages 11, 9 and 6.

You are doing really well! Pad sounds fun but I didn't ever understand it feels like shifting one debt to another (my bank account is in od) I did start well in Jan but way above where I am in my sig. I am burying my head a bit until after Christmas. I have a holiday coming up soon and Will try my best to not waste money.
That's one downside of Home ed..the fact you can get holidays at a really really low rate but it's still money going out. I too Love traveling a lot.

You mention subscriptions, do you know popart home education and learning begins in wonder on facebook? Both get discounts often huge ones on online subs, Mathletics I got for £13 instead of £59 , always worth joining up.
We have lots of climbing clubs in Kent , keep meaning to take the kids to one of the Home ed Groups but we do so many clubs as it is plus we try to stick to the cheap or free meetups ,
Heres some we do that are free/cheap Sometimes its just a case of you taking charge and heading a group or suggesting it if that's not your thing.
Tesco Fork to farm healthy eating workshops Free
local museum workshops £2 per child (But need a minimum of people)
Another local museum workshop Free
Pizza express and Frankie and Bennies do Free workshops
Jamie Oliver free pizza/pasta workshop £2 per child Minimum of 10 children I think.
I also became a WWF youth wildlife ambassador and a small group work towards badges free but badges £1
RSPB do free Certificates to work towards
Pdsa have animal protector clubs to work towards its £20 per level BUT you can split cost with a group
DIY.org is a fab free fun and educational site to work towards badges (although it's us and badges are dear so I just print a paper one off)
Local libraries Bookclub
We also approach local businesses you would be surprised how many are happy to put on a tour. (Off to a pumpkin farm tomorrow for a talk and pick)
And lots of museums not just local ones have school workshops we can participate in as a group

Maybe teaching grandma how to suck eggs, but might be some use for you or someone else. If you know of anything else free/cheap as an outing would love to know.

Maybe I should be brave and go see my debts again. Sigh.
Oh yes there's a fab free printables/downloads group as well ill try find the link at some point

£49 "saved" I didn't buy that adorable autumn leaves/pumpkins rockabilly 50s dress (sobs)
Have a fab evening , hope to chat soon x

Hi mummy2threeboys,
Thank you for your post. I didn’t realise those restaurants offered workshops - I’ll definitely be looking into this more. Most of the groups we go to are ones we pay for, but I’d love to arrange more free groups soon. You’ve given me lots of food for thought. We are members of the popart group and our maths subscription is organised through that. (DC1 currently does maths whizz).

It’s hard this time of year to think about debt when Christmas is coming up, but I’m sure when you do look into your finances there will be lots of people offering support. If you start your own diary let me know so I can cheer you on.xx

AdventureWanted · 18 October 2017 at 10:02PM

So, today has been very expensive, although budgeted for. I visited the half price toy sale at a large supermarket today and managed to not only survive the ordeal of gridlock and complete chaos down the toy aisles, but also buy 90% of the Christmas presents. Luckily (more like miraculously!) i have the money saved to pay for the gifts I got today. I was rather shocked at the total spend, as it didn’t seem like that many bits, but that’s the problem with toys nowadays, especially when you buy bits like Lego sets. Our extended family decided this year that we would only be buying gifts for the kids, which I’m very happy about, so that should save quite a lot of money (I have a rather large family).

Managed to make a small payment of £1.55 to CC1 yesterday and a gigantic 43p today! It’s nice to see CC1 reducing. I can’t wait to pay it off and have one less card, which hopefully i will be able to do by the end of next year. Paying the smallest debt and getting rid of it completely at some point will be brilliant, but I wish I had more money to throw at the debts to reduce the other CCs to below £10k on each. I like concentrating on CC1, but then I remember about the other 2 cards and it’s all very daunting again.

Anyway, that’s enough of my ramblings for the day. Now off to attempt sleep before DC3 wakes up again - teething sucks big time! So if this post doesn’t make any sense just remember I’m sleep deprived!!

AdventureWanted · 19 October 2017 at 4:52PM

Yesterday’s money saving expert email saying that the balance transfer 0% lengths are reducing has made us re-look at our finances. So we looked at all the figures this morning and it is all pretty depressing, although hopefully only really really dier for the short term. In all reality we won’t be able to pay off our March 0% balance (£2,523) or hardly any of the July balances (£13,000) on time. Also since DC3 was born 11 months ago I’ve really took my eyes off the ball and not been putting money aside for hubby’s self assessment, so at the end of Jan we will have a fairly hefty tax bill to pay. We have applied for a 36 month money transfer credit card to give us longer to pay off the debts. It’s most probably not the best decision in terms of the transfer fee we will incur earlier than needed, but it will stop me worrying quite so much about finding money to pay them off. Going forward I will be sorting out savings accounts for tax returns, emergency funds, etc and then any overtime DH does or additional funds will go towards paying off the additional debts asap. I could cry thinking that the credit card balance will be increasing and the figure will start with a 3 and not a 2, but hopefully in 6 months I can have it back in to the 20s, although it may only just be £29,999. In the last year when I didn’t have a set budget (make that everything was bought on CC without a second thought) we ended up paying at least £1k extra every month out of business account to clear that CC. Hopefully now we’ve got the budget under control, as soon as savings are sorted we could have that kind of money (or even half of that) as additional money to throw at the debts.

Have rounded down our bank account and transferred £2.43 to CC1.

Goals for the rest of the year
• £67.86 / £1.070 (0% bal ending in Jan)

Once the money transfer is complete I will update my balances on here, but in the meantime I will continue on trying to pay off the £1070 0% balance due at the end of Jan. In the future I never ever want to be in this situation ever again. I would like to think of myself as a responsible level headed person, but I am completely ashamed about getting ourselves in this situation.

AdventureWanted · 20 October 2017 at 10:03AM

Pad today of £2.14 to CC1. Is nice having the balance at a rounded number again.

CC1
0% ends Jan - £1,000.00
0% ends Jul - £3,120.00

Hoping to have the top figure in the low 600s by the end of November.

Going to spend the weekend looking through old clothes, furniture we no longer need, etc and listing them on gumtree and eBay. Any extra money made can go straight to debt. Also it will be nice to reduce the amount of junk in the house. Need to stop procrastinating and actually list bits.

jwil · 20 October 2017 at 3:33PM

Don't be ashamed. You aren't the first and you aren't the last. At least you are tackling it and not ignoring it!

AdventureWanted · 22 October 2017 at 1:12PM

jwil wrote: »

Don't be ashamed. You aren't the first and you aren't the last. At least you are tackling it and not ignoring it!

Thanks Jwil. It’s hard not to be disappointed with myself, but like you said I am tackling it and one day I will be debt free.

AdventureWanted · 22 October 2017 at 1:17PM

So the money transfer has gone through, so I’m going to list my updated debt balances below. I haven’t included the transfer fee yet, but will once I have my online account up and running to check the balance.

CC1
0% ending Jan 2018 - £975.00
0% ending Jul 2018 - £3,120.00

CC2
0% ending Jul 2018 - £7,403.00

CC3
0% ending Dec 2019 - £11,170.00

CC4
0% to Oct 2020 - £13,000.00

Total debt now £35,668 :eek:

AdventureWanted · 23 October 2017 at 5:06PM

The DD for CC3 came out today and was slightly less than i expected. Love it when the DDs have gone out and the balances reduce. Managed to pay an additional £5 off CC1 today and £1.41 off CC3.

0% balance ending in Jan now stands at £970. Determined to pay this off on time.

Had a look at the snowball calculator today, which was both incredibly depressing and also reasonably motivating. DFD currently stands at Dec 2021 :eek: (50 months away!). Definitely going to try and reduce this down. I’m hoping being frugal as well as overtime can get the DFD down. Would be great for it to coincide with the longest 0% date we have of 36 months, although that may be wishful thinking. But hey ho I think I’ll aim to shave 2 months off as goal number 1 and then see what happens from there.

Revised goals:
• pay £970 balance by Jan 2018
• Get grocery balance to consistently be £280 p/m
• get emergency fund to £600
• reduce DFD by 2 months (to 48 months away)

Adventure wanted, but first we must rid ourselves of debt

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