Miss Optimistic's Diary to stay focused & stay organised!

Cat_Addict

You've made a great start just by coming on here and it sounds like you are so motivated and also determined to count the good stuff in life (usually the simple stuff LOL). I can see you doing really well and will be following your diary.

Lemon_Tree

hi welcome to the boards, you've done well to be able to clear one card so quickly, it helps keep up moral, and from what i've learnt from Taxi, lots of regular littlish payments soon add up and make great changes.

taxi73

Hi and welcome..what a great start and a positive attitude will get you a long way.Just keep plugging away a bit here and a bit there and you'll be surprised how quick it goes down.
Maybe you could post your statement of affairs on here and we can help cut some of your bills down.Freeing up some more money x
Thanks Lemontree you are so sweet.x

MissOptimistic

Aw thanks everyone! - I can post a S.O.A. but I don't know how accurate it will be (and thats half the problem). My husband and I run our own business and generally speaking we take 25% of whatever the weeks takings are as a wage. 50% pays for the cost of the stock and the other 25% is towards rent and rates.
Suffice to say, a lot of the time we have taken far more than 25% which has meant that when it has come to paying suppliers we have not had the money and have had to use our credit cards to top up the business account. A big vicious circle because if it wasn't for the debt, our personal expenses wouldn't be anywhere near as high.
At present, the SOA is showing a big shortfall every month if I put in a figure we should be taking out of the business each week, but as I said, we often take more to make the books balance and then pay for it at a later date.
Any suggestions on how we can do a realistic SOA much appreciated!

MissOptimistic

Just wondered if anyone had done the Vanquis Visa card through Quidco, I have no intention of using it with rate like that, but they pay £20 for an accepted application - wondered if anyone else had applied just to get the cashback?

dancingfairy

It still might be worth posting an SOA though - even if the amount coming in varies as there might be areas you can cut down on eg food /utilites etc.
What about starting a spending diary as well so you can see where the money is going?
df x

MissOptimistic

Woke up this morning to an amazon sale (£2.87) and a green metropolis sale (£3.00) - Not bad money to make while I'm asleep! - I didn't get round to listing the other 4 things on ebay yesterday, I got everything ready and then when I turned the camera on my battery was dead, so thats my priority for today.

MissOptimistic

I have realised that where I have gone wrong in the past is to look at the big picture and panic big time (followed by a period of being really down) so I've decided to try not to do that - instead I am going to look at each debt individually and to calculate how much each debt by itself is coming down (does that make sense?) Break it down into small manageable chunks.
What made me realise this was last night when i was playing with Martins 'Minimum Repayment' calculator, We have £19,000 on a barclaycard and can only pay the minimum payment at present which is £435 per month. Basically it said
"If you only pay the minimum payment, you will be dead before the debt is paid off"
I was about to panic again and sink into the depths of depression but then I remembered that tomorrow, when my child benefit goes in, the smallest of my debts, the NEXT account will be gone, leaving me free to concentrate on the next one

Lemon_Tree

that's a great policy, at the moment you can't do much about the large debts but ifyou clear the small or expensive debts you can then take that money to pay the larger debts.
I have a couple of loans i can't repay early so i'm trying to concentrate on my overdraft as it's something i can see and make a difference to. It keeps me going.

hypno06

If you haven't done so already, put your debt numbers in the snowball calculator at www.whatsthecost.com - it will help you see how much difference paying off that extra few £££ can make, and acts as a real motivator for you to make or save those £££ so that you can update the snowball!!