Where I am now?

mynameiscatherine

Wow, congratulations!

savingholmes

Congratulations and thanks for the encouragement!

leo1976

Also wanted to say congratulations on how far you have come:o Congrats!

bathgatebuyer

Hopefully I should be debt-free by Dec 09 - just in time for Xmas. I've promised myself a new bathroom shortly therafter which will be saved for rather than on credit.

If I'm successful with some of my present reclaims, best case scenario, all the debt will be gone by May / June, but without that success nearer Dec. I'm pretty confident about the Egg reclaims as it seems to follow a fairly formulaic approach (that is, if I write often enough, I should get my charges back), but I'm less confident with the Sainburys PPI or Natwest charges matters. If the Sainsburys reclaim of PPI is successful, then that would be £800 off the balance of that card and £800 closer to being debt-free. There should be a decision on that soon as the adjudicator apparently has all the info they need and are about to make a decision or contact me for more info going by their letter I received yesterday. Soooo, should find out one way or another fairly soon.

Also, my target date for being debt-free doesn't include anything like a pay rise or bonus as I'm erring on the side of caution in this economic climate! Even if a pay rise is an extra £10 or £20 a month (which would be about 0.1% - and I think there's been an allowance of nearer to 2% in our dept budget which after tax is £40 a month), that will all go towards eradicating the last of this debt. To be honest, I'm glad to have a job at the moment having seen what others are going through right now - and having been out of work myself before - so even without any bonus / pay increase, being debt-free in time for 2010 should be achievable.

beanielou

Fantasic bathgate.
Keep going!

urg123

A brilliant and motivational story - I have been kicking myself for my weakness. I've nevery had great will power. Stories like yours are keeping me focused and help me to remember that I must have learned to be 'easy' with money and so now I must learn to be 'harder' with money.

I wish you well with the last push - keep posting.

URG xx

Emma_please_stop_spending

Well done! You've done a great job!

:beer:

Pippilongstocking

Well done there, great to read xxxx Clever old you.

bathgatebuyer

Another wee update, managed to get mysef out of a completely irrelevant life insurance policy which I am tied into when I last remortgaged. My broker had told me she was fee-free, asked me to sign loads of papers, and that was me tied into 48 monthly payments of £25 a month as a condition of them being fee free. Was I told of this at the time? Noooooo! I only found out when I went to cancel and was told that I would then be liable for a £1000 arrangement fee to the broker. At the time I had 4 x salary cover with my previous employer, and I have the same deal again with my present employer (who is an insurer!) and this is more than enough to cover my mortgage.

Anyhoo, complained and they've agreed that I can cancel the policy and not need to pay the broker a fee (they made £700 commission from the insurer).

So, £25 a month better off and it means a saving of just under £600 over the next few years. Thoroughly delighted.

Have sent off my request to Egg for a refund of my charges totallig £380 and they have 14 days to respond. I have told them that I have already been through the court process before with Sainsburys and have advised that I would happily do the same again with Egg. Hopefully they'll dispense with the 'no you're not getting it' x 3 letters that they seem to have to do until the eventually payout. A credit would take 3 months off of the time taken to pay off this balance. Will also be increasing the direct debits I make into this account by £25 (which is the saving from the Life cover) to help pay it off quicker too.

andan

Hi bathgate buyer, only just seen your thread. Its nice to see how far you've come and how far your debt has come down, it must be a great feeling. You certainly know how to kick some @rse!

Best of luck with all that is remaining.

So does that extra £25 a month help with moving your debt free date forward?