Doomed...i think.

doodledo_2

Morning, well done on the survey amounts, what a nice find

baxgttdi

Morning, thankyou muchly I was pleased to say the least

baxgttdi

Well managed another £50 off the zopa loan today that's £100 for the month so far. I'm feeling god abut it and it wasn't that hard to do. In theory if I managed todo that every month I'd be clear of the loan 3 years early haha that would be great but I dunno if I'll manage that, anyways so far so good. Oh also made another £1 off a book and was given £70 by my dad , all adds to the total

baxgttdi

Well this is my first update for quite a while. Fo any1 wondering I'm still plodding away at it. Continued to make overpayments on the Zopa loan (everytime I felt like buying something I pay off £20 or £30 of my loan, up to £160 in overpayments now , with the regualar £111 payment as well that's £271 in a month (5th Dec) but tecnically since my first payment went this month I'm counting this all as 1 big month untill Feb's next payment. I'm wanting to have paid at least £333 by then . Obviously continued to pay my monthly car payments, haven't managed anythig extra on that as yet, but that's ok since it's such a big monthly bill anyways.

Over Xmas and new year (happ new year all by the way) I thought about the money I waste and what I can do to curb it a bit so I decided to buy a large tin (think those £500 tins that have "holiday fund" and such like on but 4x the same) and start collecting money in it. Re-thinking it through though I decided that 1,2,5,20 etc wasne't my problem it was my pound coins that I seemed to waste, a couple of quid here and there on well...nothing really, so that's what I'm collecting. It's a completely sealed tin as well so no way out other than a tin opener hehe. I purposely didn't keep count of how much is in there as it will tempt me to break into it more but I know I've put alot in over xmas even changing some xmas money into coins to store in it, and yesterday alone put £13 in it so estimating about £40 so far. I have no intention of checknig though and it will not be opened uptilll it's full, which according to the back in around £800 in 20p's etc so I'm estimating around £3000 (good grief that'll take ages lol) which will pay off either anything left on the Zopa loan or (I'm predicting it's gonna take 3 years) if I manage to keep paying off things at the rate I am at the moment (I WILL do it) it will be the start of an actual savings account lol.

Sorry this is a long post this is the last bit but...I also set myself a goal to end each month with ore than I had at the end of last month, which if going to plan would mean it gradually builds up. I kinda cheated and started this in Dec and managed it, all is going well so far this month too but there's a long way to go. The biggest help in this bit is the fact I used some of the Zopa money to clear my overdraught and give me a bit of a cushion. I know in theory anything I had should be used for the extra debt but because I was going over my overdraught so often I'm saving alot more through not having bank charges at £15 a day :O. Because I've started checking my balance alot more regulaarly and managing it better it's letting me make sure I'm on course to have more left than before and then any excess is going straight off the loan.

Anyways after a very long and rambling post, that's me for now

TotallyBroke

Hey well done, glad to see you are doing ok and making progress.

jamesd

Good move on the overdraft! Best to keep a nice comfortable credit balance to ensure that bills don't accidentally push you over your agreed overdraft limit and waste money that you can use to reduce the debts.

On the Zopa side, it's worth knowing that they will let you change the term of the loan to anything less than what it started at, so if you want to set a tighter target it's easy to go for it. You can also tell them that you want overpayments to reduce the term instead of the later monthly payments.

baxgttdi

Reakky? I wasn;t aware of that James thanks alot. Do you know how I go about doing that as that's exactly what I'm aiming to do.

jamesd

You'll need to phone or email them to ask them to set that up.

chevalier

well done on keeping focussed on the debt busting. And thank you for reminding me that i really must start doing surveys again....
chev

baxgttdi

jamesd - thanks again, I've now emailed Zopa and hopefully they'll set that up for me which is brilliant motivation for me, as in my opinion watching your final payment date approach is much better than seeing that you've taken 11p off your monthly debit lol.

chevalier - glad in a round-about kinda way I helped .

Just a quick update nothing major really but I managed to pay another £30 off the loan (yes!) which takes me to a nice even £300 for the month including regular payments which turned out to only be £109 meaning I've managed an extra £191 this month. I actually feel quite proud of myself for once! I know I can't keep that up (I'm gonna try like hell though!) but that would take my DFD down by 3 years to 2010...ah well we can dream .

As fro the ongoing "Giant Debt Busting Jar" as I now call it , I think I went a bit crazy with it last week. My realitives think I'm nuts as I keep begging them for all their pound coins. The only 2 really non MSE things I did were buy an expensive lunch at work 1 day :S and when in the pub put some of my spare change into a bandit /. It's not like I wasted alot but again I shouldn't be wasting anything when I am onm my super saving spree. I happened to get lucky with it and dropped the jackpot but somehow seems like a hollow victory, alot like finding the money in a gambling account did a few weeks back. Anyways I didn't really get anything from it as it gave me it all in pound coins lol! So on Thursday evening I stood for what felt like 3 hours (probably about 5 mins) putting all these pounds coins into the jar. Because it's obviously closed and I can['t see what's there I'm always doubtful it's not empty and there's a secret hole in the bottom it/s all falling out of hehe but the best thing I heard was for the first time when i was putting coins in the slot, I noticed that they fell on other coins instead of the bottom of the jar so woo another small victory . Anyways that's all for now I think, I'll keep plodding on.