SOA - Can it be tweaked.

TotallyBroke

I've only just looked at this thread and everything seems to have gone up. The 1st soa you were surviving with only paying £10 for new clothes. Why do you need to now spend £20? Your food shopping has now gone up by £20 why is that? Your entertainment budget has gone up! you now have a holiday fund. Your contents insurance has gone up.

Most people post on ways to cut down but you seem to have upped everything.

Jvic28

Yeh, I've completely over estimated on everything. To be honest, I was going over on groceries anyway but the rest have been upped in the spirit of wishful thinking.

I very much doubt I will spend £20 a month on clothes as I have bought new clothes for 2 months and then it was only £4 on a pair of tracksuit bottoms. I'm obviously hoping I won't spend all of this and will use the remainder to pay of my debts.

Unfortunately there's nothing I can do about my contents insurance going up. Thats what it costs me this year and thats that. I wish it wasn't that way but it is.

I have a holiday fund now as I was very naughty in the summer and spent money on holidays which should have gone towards my mortgage (my boyfriend paid for the holiday but I spent more than I should have) so I thought it would be sinsible to put some money aside this year.

Jvic28

I'd also like to add that my pay has increased slightly along with my payments to CCCS.

Jesthar

Hey, Jvic

You seem to have nice healthy monthly surplus on paper, even with your increased allowances, so how about paying some extra off that wretched Capital One card every month? That interest rate is horrific, and every extra pound you can pay of that will save you quite a bit in interest and therefore let you clear it several months sooner. You don't have to set it up as a regular thing, just make an extra payment of whatever you can afford whenever you can.

~Jes

Jvic28

Thanks Jes, thats the idea. Hopefully I can start throwing some cash at that now.

Jvic28

:j

I'm so grateful to my wonderful boyfriend. Last night he took out a credit card with 0% balance transfers for 16 months. He called them and they gave him a £3900 limit straight away which is way more than required. Thank god one of us has good credit. The minimum payment is only £25 a month but given what I was paying, if I keep it at that rate I should be able to clear the debt much quicker.

Jellybean_2105

Thats good then should certainly help you pay off the card a little quicker without all that interest!!

Just make sure you cut the card up, so you can't spend on it as purchases are unlikely to be 0% interest for long if at all!!

Jvic28

Purchases are at 0% for 6 months.

I've been really irresponsible with credit in the past so when my boyfriend asked about me being an emergency card holder I said no.

I think he may keep the card for himself though which is fair enough. He's extremely responsible and has a £6000 limit on his other card with on £50 used. With a baby on the way I think he may use it to by some kit for the flat and pay it off in the 6 months.

I however, will not be touching it.

Jellybean_2105

Jvic28 wrote: »

With a baby on the way I think he may use it to by some kit for the flat and pay it off in the 6 months.

Any retail purchases that you make on the card will be paid off last so although you may think you have paid it off in 6 months, it will infact still be there as you will have been paying off the balance transfer - you can not chose what your payments go towards. You will then be charged interest on this amount until its fully repaid.

You will be better telling your boyfriend to spend on his other card and transfer the balance to keep the card interest free for the whole 16 months.

I got stung with this a while back so just wanted to make you aware

have a look at this if you need it explained a bit better.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cards/balance-transfer-credit-cards#never

Jvic28

Thanks. Thats worth keeping in mind. I had read that but not thought that much into it. My boyfriend hates using credit anyway so I doubt he will but if he does we''l have to look into the best way around things.