Fizz's Debt Free Diary

fizz190

Hello all :hello:

Following on from my advice request (thanks to those who helped!), I have decided to start a diary to help me to maximise my debt repayments.

I have already committed an extra £75 a month to my debts, but I am sure that there are many luxuries I can do without in order to speed this process along.

I haven't done an SOA, but here's a brief overview of my essential spending

Salary £1750 (currently £1850, but waiting for student loans to catch up with a change of job!)

Rent £520 (includes water, council tax, gas and electric)
Home contents £33
Mobile £35 (18 month contract)
Mobile internet £7.50
Travelcard £110

Unsecured Debt (figures as of sept 08):
Monument £2500 £175 (20%+)
Vanquis £250 £25 (48%)
HSBC Loan £? £50 (5%ish)
Barclaycard £360 £7 (interest frozen)
Natwest £742 £125 (interest frozen)
Next £287 £6 (interest frozen)
Capital One £134 £23 (interest frozen)
GUS £212 £27 (interest frozen)

Total Income £1750
Total Expenditure £1143.50 (excl food, social etc)

This leaves £606.50 for everything else.


In terms of my debt, I have already increased my standing order on my Monument card to £175 per month. After interest , this will clear £100 per month and so clear the debt within 2 years. In August 09 (as per below) I will up the payments to ensure that this is clear by June 2010 (my 30th birthday)

Natwest will be cleared by March 09
Capital 1 will be cleared by March 09
GUS will be cleared by May 09
HSBC loan finishes in August 09

By the time Natwest and Cap 1 finish in March, my Vanquis debt will be about £150, so I will use the money freed by these 2 (150) to clear this.

At that point I will decide whether to pay off Barclaycard and Next or whether to leave them be.

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I am sure that I can cut some more corners on my spending in order to plough more money into my debts:

At the moment, my bf and I spend a stupid amount on food, mainly through laziness and lack of planning. I blame him for this (;) ) as when I lived alone (and was earning a lot less) I was fanatical about budgeting my food spending, averaging about £12 per week. This has all gone out of the window now, with extravagences including using the local fancy butcher because I can't be bothered to go to tesco (and consequently spending £10 on 2 small rump steaks!)

I have already tackled this problem by suggesting we do a weekly shop online to a fixed budget and then only buying things like milk between shops. He's agreed to this in principle, and I'm going to try and enforce a £50 limit per week (£25 each).

This would leave me with £500 'fun money' a month. This seems like a lot, but I seem to get through money without even noticing it... I'm sure I have a hole in my pocket!!

Having looked at some of the challenges on the board, I think I'm going to try to go a month without any unnecessary spending. This will hopefully remind me of my previous thrifty ways, and help me to focus on how I can cut back. Any money saved will go towards christmas (a terrifying time for me, money wise) and debt. Hopefully I'll be left with a full £500, in which case I'll put £400 towards christmas and £100 on my monument card.

Thankfully my bf just bought a Wii so at least I'll have plenty to amuse myself with!! I'll start next pay day (24/10).

Any comments, encouragement or criticism welcome!!

Fizz x

[Deleted User]

Hi Fizz190,

Welcome to the boards, everyone is friendly here and helpful.

Good luck with your journey, I'm sure you'll do it.

Tea
x

Smamfer

Good luck with it all.. When you can see a date and a light at the end of the tunnel things seem that bit better,
Good luck with training the OH as well.. these men need taming... says she who remains single lol


One thing i did notice is that is says home contents is £33 a month.. is just just house insurance?? If so thats really high obviously depending on your area. My last one i did through MbM and got a great 50 cashback and it was only £8 a month.

All in all good luck

fizz190

Thanks guys.

The home contents is high for several reasons:

1) I live in an ex local authority flat in North London (nuff said!)
2) I have taken out premium cover to include my laptop against accidental damage (already had one claim paid when I trod on it!)
3) I have £0 excess - this is a (probably unnecessary) precaution so that I know that, whatever happens, I can replace things at no expense. Actually only adds about £5 a month.

I have only just renewed so am assuming I'm stuck with it until next year, but will have a look to see if I can get a similar level of cover for less.

Cheers

fizz190

Well, now I've found something very interesting indeed!

(Excuse me chatting away to myself!)

I just found a link to the snowballer, and it has calculated a way to get me debt free in a year!

It's giving me brain ache just thinking about it but if I keep rejigging the payments I can afford to make (a total of £438 pm) I would have Vanquis clear by Feb and Monument by Sept. The rest would pretty much stay as I had originally planned, but with all the money freed from things ending being immediately ploughed into other debts.

It would mean that it would take a little longer for me to feel the benefits in my purse, but it would give me something solid and definite to work towards.

Has anyone else used this method?

May have to change my signature again!!

Fizz

fizz190

Right,

I've spent the past few days thinking of nothing but money, and how to get my head back around being a bit more sensible with my cash.

Since last posting the following events have occured:

1) Got sent a £5 M&S gift voucher from getting a home insurance quote AGES ago as advised by Martin. Had forgotten all about it so nice surprise. Trying to think how to spend it most wisely though, so as to save me cash elsewhere.

2) Have accosted the women giving out vouchers outside our local tesco on a daily basis. £3 off £10 spend is pretty good. Will abandon online shopping until these vouchers run out (have 4 already!)

4) Had a pesky charge on my GUS account - grr. But this has inspired me to apply for all charges details as am thinking could claim back and use money to repay the debt! I have added up over £100 already, and that's only going back to 2006 so probably have more. Investing a tenner in requesting that info.

5)The GUS revelation has made me think about my other debts as well. I'm sure Capital 1 and Monument have had a buck or two off me in the past. I think I'll invest another £20 out of next month's pay to get the details of those (I'm classing that as necessary spending!).

6) Have emailed the girls to let them know about my month off the spends. All have agreed to coming round to my house for a wii tournament. I think I can manage to convince them to supply the wine as I'm supplying the venue

7) Have joined up to a free karaoke website (sad I know!), so that'll be another free night in with friends next month.

On a slightly less money saving note, I have a lovely weekend away to look forward to this weekend - my 1st anniversary with my fella. We're going to Oxfordshire, and although the hotels aren't cheap, our entertainment is going to be free - walking the thames from Oxford to Abingdon. May even take a packed lunch!

That's enough for now I think!

Fizz

MrsPorridge

Hi Fizz,

Just popped in to say "hello". That's great news that you could well be debt free in a year.

I am fairly new here too and I have found that just by cutting out buying the odd bags of crisps, bars of chocolates and fancy coffees have really made a tremendous difference.

Have you looked at the payment a day challenge? That's another good way to motivate yourself instead of spending £2 on coffee you could knock that off a credit card.

The other challenge I am doing at the moment is the nsd or no spending day challenge. Now, for me, that really is a challenge. Several times I have stopped myself from spending even 30p on crisps by saying "No I want an NSD today". It all helps.

Anyways, good luck on your journey and I'll pop in from time to time to see how you are getting on.

fizz190

Thanks for the encouragement MrsPorridge!

I think the NSD challenge is the same as my no unneccessary spends month that I'm starting on pay day (any spare cash until then is to pay for my anniversary weekend). I'm quite intrigued to see how I'll get on with that!

I do think the payment a day challenge would be a good one to try too - I spent about £4 on coffee and a croissant yesterday - would be much better spent on debt!

I went through my cap1 statements yesterday and it looks like I could claim back £350 worth of charges for the past 3 years alone!! I'm now having a battle between my cautious (and slightly lazy) side, which thinks I should just claim this, and my money making side, which thinks I should pay the £10 to get details for the full 6 years. The cautious side is winning slightly as would be gutted to pay out a tenner and then not get anything back... hmmm.

Fizz

fizz190

Afternoon,

Spotted that Tesco had reduced Covent Garden Soups to £1 per carton so decided to snap a few up. Not the most DFW approach to food there is but they're great to have in the freezer at work for days when I simply can't be bothered to prepare lunch in advance (despite all my good intentions this happens fairly regularly, usually resulting in buying an overpriced, fat laden sandwich!)

On the theme of cheap soup - am planning to buy a cheap halloween pumpkin this weekend and make a mega batch of pumpkin and haricot bean soup (my fave and, coincidentally, one of the covent garden ones I bought today). so that'll be a few more lunches sorted.

I also discovered today that quidco do 2% cash back on thetrainline.com. I do up to 5 train journeys a month for work so can book them all through that and make a penny or 2 back!

Had a mini panic today when I thought that I was going to have to shell out £50 for a trip to leeds for work the day before payday (have to pay up front then claim back), but have managed to reschedule, phew!

BF is out tonight with footie lads, so planning a nice night in with spag bol leftovers, a cheap bottle of wine and some cheesy singing! How sad am I!

Fizz

fizz190

Quick update - for myself, really, more than anything!

Haven't been doing much DFW stuff recently, am mainly gearing up to my month of no spending which starts on Friday :eek: Am partly looking forward to it, partly dreading it!

My darling bf has just offered to pay for drinks on Friday night (a long standing payday tradition). I've basically told him that I'm happy to stay in as planned, but that if he can't do without a trip to the pub then he's welcome to pay

Actually, to be fair to myself, I've been doing a few small DFW bits that I haven't really paid attention too. Mainly things like meal planning and finding cheaper alternatives to favourites. Now it's getting cold I've taken great pleasure in cracking out the pulses to make lots of yummy soups. Extra cheap as I have loads in the cupboard! Best DFW food this week was a £4 piece of gammon which I boiled (retaining stock) and then glazed in the oven. Had a lovely meal out of that with potato and cabbage, then used the stock and leftover meat to make a massive split pea soup the next day, yum!

That's it for now!
Fizz

fizz190

Right, first no spending day over, woo!

Have amended my signature accordingly, and have also updated my debt situation to include this month's payments. Another £400 off, yay!

Did online shop last night and managed to stick within budget. Actually had a slight underspend which I will put towards lunches in the week.

Fizz