Need to focus - Clear MBNA by 31/12/08

skintmam

I'm more of a lurker than a poster. I join in a few of the challenges, mainly £10 a day (which I'm quite good at:D ) and the grocery challenge (which I'm not good at!:rolleyes: )

I seem to be plodding along - the debt is definately going down but I know with a little bit more focus it could come down a lot quicker. My DH and I are both determined to get ourselves out of this mess sooner rather than later - originally wanted to be debt free before my 40th - which is Dec 2011 - but after juggling figures around inthe snowball calculator then we could be debt free by november 2010 which doesn't seem that far away - but we have to work our **** off and it's going to be pretty hard going - but we think its worth the effort so we can get on and enjoy life again.

going to keep this diary to try and keep me on track. two things i really need to focus on are:

1. my grocery shopping, i have a habit of popping into Mr T's for bread & milk and coming out with a trolley load.

2. my MBNA 0% comes to an end in Jan 09. current balance is £6937.78 - I have a barclay card with £5000 limit (currently empty) and Mint card £2550 limit (currently empty) so I could transfer to the 2 cards if needed. but as i need to focus on getting this debt down I want to try and clear as much of it as I can and transfer it just to barclays. think I need to get it down to about £4700 (havent worked out exactly) which will leave space for the fees etc.
so that's £2237.78 to pay by end of December:eek: .

the plan then is to transfer my 1 loan currently (10.9%) onto MBNA (assuming they offer me another BT deal) and then all my debt (other than my massive barclays loan :mad: will be interest free:D )

ok, enough of my ramblings just always seems better when it's down on paper!

feel free to comment/encourage - not sure if my logic of swapping cards is correct - have never done it before and maybe that's why i got in such a mess!

hypno06

The balance transfer ideas look good to me.....as for getting that MBNA down to transfer it, that means paying off £125 a week between now and the end of the year. If you are already doing the £10 a day challenge, you are over half way there every week already, so it is a case of upping your game a little but it is not so much that it is unachievable.

Good luck - with determination you CAN do this - you will get out what you put in.

amyandjon

morning good luck with the dfw journey gosh 2010 how nice to be debt free by then just 2 and a bit years i prefer to look at months i feel it sounds less time than years thats just me .....i look forward to reading your diary hehe xx

skintmam

there are 5 pay days between now and 31st dec, so I need to pay at least £447.40 a month. this month is fine - DH had his annual bonus so can easily pay £500 straight off it - but want to aim for at least another £350. up until a few months ago I was easily making this on ebay (until I burnt myself out!) have also got a few bags of ironing lined up, its not regular but should make at least £50 this month.

skintmam

morning, got paid today for my old job , was expecting £100 but actually got paid £181!! , also been paid £51 mystery shop, £50 transferred from ebay. also had about £20 left in my account.

I am going to ring and pay my car loan today £179 as GE money have messsed up my direct debit :mad: and have just paid my avon account. £67.06 and then I'm closing it! i'm struggling to make any money from it, mainly because I haven't got the time to put any really effort into it.

so I am going to make my 1st payment of £50 off MBNA . which feels really good as me & DH don't actually get paid until tommorrow!

just checked quidco - showing as £95 received so fingers crossed that should hit my account next week as well.

does anybody else get excited on payday? can't wait to see the figures going down on my snowball calculator think I'm a saddo!

doodledo_2

Well done on the £50 payment to MBNA and before payday too, even better :T .

Yes I too am a saddo who gets excited on paydays. I love making my overpayments but not to keen on the balance in my account afterwards lol.

ixwood

Do you know where all the debt was spent?

It's a huge amount and unless you've identified where it went and have resolved the issues, it'll be a struggle.

skintmam

ixwood wrote: »

Do you know where all the debt was spent?

It's a huge amount and unless you've identified where it went and have resolved the issues, it'll be a struggle.

Hi Ixwood, yes it went on living way above my means :rolleyes: I split up with my ex partner and enjoyed the single life a little bit too much - fab holidays, nice cars, clothes, lots of eating out etc. I have since met a wonderful man and got married, i have a 9 yr old ds from prev relationship and we have a 9 mth old dd. he also had debt from a messy divorce. but together we are tackling it head on.

Have changed our lifestyle considerably, we sold his car and bought an old banger, I changed my convertable for a very sensible pug 206, our holiday this year is a wkend in devon with sun holidays (total cost £65), we budget, have managed to transfer all CC debt to 0%, have changed bank accounts to get 0% overdraft, I ebay, I mystery shop, use quidco, I work 22.5 hours a week & also do ironing and clean. husband works nights so we don't have to pay childminder.. the list is endless... it has been really hard work getting to this position but we no longer get charges for late paymetns or going over our overdraft limit so anything that we pay off gets taken straight off the debt.

I'm very lucky as me & DH both have the same attitude to paying the debt off - the quicker its gone, the quicker we can get on with enjoying our lives.
if we carry on as we are we will be debt free in just over 2 years - but that doesn't include our loan - currently around £18.5k outstanding, we are unable to overpay, but once we have cleared everything else the plan is to save in a high interest account until we have enough to pay it off in full.

that turned into a bit of an essay - but once I startI can't stop!

Piquant_2

Hi Skintmam

Good luck with clearing the debts, looking forward to reading your diary and picking up lots of tips on making that extra £10 a day!

ixwood

Great stuff. The change in attitude is impressive.

Sounds like you'll have it beat in no time!!

skintmam

just checked my bank and I still have £9 in there don't want it getting swallowed up by next months bills so have just transferred it to MBNA.

so only £2178 to go !!:eek: hoping to pay another £500 straight off it tommorow as my dh is getting paid his annual bonus, so that should make it a less scary amount.

have also just picked up a bag of ironing off my SIL - (another £10 for the kitty!) and my plan for the weekend is to list 50 items on ebay - but just thinking about it fills me with dread