How I'm taking control of my £164,893 debt

gallygirl

If you're planning on this I suggest you try mysupermarket.co.uk - it will compare prices with Asda etc.

Funny, no great savings per item, but it soon adds up. Still, with their record profits announced today I don't think Tesco's will really miss you

pavlovs_dog

gingernutbizkit wrote: »

Hey all,

thought i would update about my NR loan repayment. If you remember the goal is to pay it off (around £8500) by May 1st and here is how I'm doing so far.

£4000 from transferring from 0% CC (2.98% fee)
£2500 from monthly savings
£1300 due to be paid on 28th
£416 if I don't have to pay the direct debit

Approx £300 short which can be made up by my 0% overdraft facility.

So that's half transferred to a better % rate and the rest paid off.

:j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

is the sum they offered you a full and final settlement figure? if not, could you 'haggle' a bit to see if you can get it knocked down a bit? ( i don't know how these things work i'm merely thinking aloud but as the saying goes 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' )

gingernutbizkit

thanks, but it was a settlement figure unfortunately so I don't think I'll be able to haggle at all

GG - I'll check out mysupermarket, thanks x

gingernutbizkit

Had a shopping delivery arrive from Asda yesterday. Spent £125 but got LOADS.... enough to easily last the month with just a little top up of fruit and veg. I used mysupermarket as recommended and saved over £40 in comparison to my usual tesco shop. I've also done a meat delivery online shop which should arrive tomorrow.

Now I'm going to be reading up on the OS board for some ideas about stretching the food over as many meals as poss. I've already made some tortilla wraps. I've got some left over bolognese from sunday. I plan to bulk it out with some lentils and carrot and swede and then make a couple of lasagne.
I cooked a roast chicken yesterday so I'm hoping to get a couple of meals out of it.... maybe a curry tonight and chicken chow mein for wednesday.

Off to find some other baking recipes.

so_here_we_are

Having read the below, i just want to say good luck and you have given me a inspiration

gingernutbizkit wrote: »

Hi all,

I have been using this site for some time now but really spent a lot of time half-heartedly following the ideas and advice given. I start my money diet but never last longer than a few days. This time I'm going to be realistic - I'm often amazed by some of the people on MSE but I can not be as frugal as some of them are and trying to do so only makes me feel like a failure.

To start with I am going to outline my total debt (inc. Mortgage) and aim to pay off one debt at a time. Once one is gone then I will use the extra money to go to the next debt. I will pay off my loans/overdrafts in order of interest rate and keep my mortgage payments bubbling over.

This takes my debt free date from March 2032 (date my 25 year mortgage should end) to March 2022. The interest over that period will cost me £81,442.

Here's the debt details for you all.....

Mortgage £150,000 @ 6.2% - interest only but can repay 10% pa. Next renewal date March 2010.

Northern Rock £9840 @ 5.8%

Car Loan £3753 @ 0%

Alliance and Leicester Overdraft £1000 @ 0%

Lloyds Overdraft £300 @ 0% - Keen to pay this off first though as keeping the account open costs me £15pcm.

I also have £5600 in a cash ISA at 6.3% which I aim to add to at the start of the next financial year.

By the start of 2009 I may be in a better financial position and be able to make extra payments. i will also have more time on my hands and although i can not get another job I might be able to do the odd agency shift, surveys, mystery shopping etc..... again I don't want to commit to anything I'm not really going to do

Ging x

gingernutbizkit

Thank you SHWA - I have found a lot of inspiration from other people on this forum so it's nice to know that my humble little diary is inspiring someone else. :beer:

Ok, so today I have some good news and some bad news.

The good first:

:j:j:jI HAVE PAID OFF MY NORTHERN ROCK LOAN :j:j:j

It was so exciting to be able to ring them up and tell them that I can pay it off in full and it'll be so nice to not have to pay that direct debit every month... also means I can put the £400 towards [STRIKE]shoes[/STRIKE] our other debts :T

The other good news is that when we rang up a month ago we were told that if we pay by today we would settle for £8241.47..... when I rang up today we were told that they had got the figure wrong and we ONLY! owed them £7426.21. Meaning we had over £800 less to pay than we thought .

But the bad news is.....
we have been preparing for original figure. We managed to save about £1800 ourselves but tranferred £6500 to 0% cards (2.98% admin fee). We obviously wouldn't have transferred so much if we had known our real figure. :mad:

Oh well, at least it's gone I guess. Just got to go and cancel the direct debit as I don't trust Northern Rock to do it :rolleyes:

Ging x

rainbow81

Hi Ginge

I just read your diary from the start and it made me chuckle.

A BIG congratulations on paying off the NR loan! Woohoo! :T

I know it's not very money saving but have you got any plans to treat yourselves for achieving your goal? You do deserve one after all your hard work ... I'm not saying spend a fortune by any means.

Anyway, well done again. I too need to address my grocery spends, I'm so unorganised, I've got a house full of food but nothing to eat!

gingernutbizkit

rainbow81 wrote: »

Hi Ginge

I just read your diary from the start and it made me chuckle.

A BIG congratulations on paying off the NR loan! Woohoo! :T

I know it's not very money saving but have you got any plans to treat yourselves for achieving your goal? You do deserve one after all your hard work ... I'm not saying spend a fortune by any means.

Anyway, well done again. I too need to address my grocery spends, I'm so unorganised, I've got a house full of food but nothing to eat!

Thank you!!! I didn't have any plans to celebrate..... but you're probably right if we don't celebrate what we have achieved we're only going to be negatively focused on how much more we have to pay. I'll have to think about this one!

I'm with you on the grocery spends except I have a house full of food but nothing I WANT to eat :rotfl:. The big thing for me at the moment is to stop the constant little trips for milk/bread that end up costing £20

gingernutbizkit

Grocery money is now going much better. Sonce I did my big shop with Asda I have only had smaller shops for fresh..... in fact it was two weeks before I had to shop at all . I had friends over for a meal last night and they were all talking about how much they spend on groceries. They were averaging £150-200 per week plus eating out :eek:. I proudly told them that we are now usually around £50 per week for the four of us with hopes to get that down if we can. No-one believed me .

On more debt related news...... I have had a letter from Northern Rock to confirm that my debt to them is paid off and I think

:j:j:jI have paid off my car loan!!!!:j:j:j

The direct debit has been cancelled by the company and so I checked my paperwork. I thought I bought the car in july but i actually bought it in May so I'm two months ahead of myself

Ging x

gingernutbizkit

Had a little play around with my snowball and I have now knocked another year off my debt free date. It's now June 2016.... still a long way off my goal of 2012 but much better than my original 2032

Not bad for 8 months work!!!!!!