DC's journey to become debt free and saving for wedding

debt_cruncher

The debts are taking care of themselves at the minute. Two of them are 0% and if I paid the car loan off early I would only save £50. So I am just letting the loans run there course.

I count the the money which we need for the wedding as debt because it we don't have it all saved by the time we need to pay for it we will need to take out a loan for it. So I still see myself as debt busting.

debt_cruncher

I have opened another bookies account and placed the £50 qualifying bet. I should get the £50 free bet before the weekend. I have to pick OH up from work then we are going to the dreaded in laws with the 3 dogs who jump on you when you get to the door. Oh the joys. Only 4 more days at work left. I can't wait to get some time off.

debt_cruncher

Its been a while since I have updated. Since then the loans have reduced by monthly DD's and the savings is going very well. We have now passed the £2000 mark on the savings which I am very happy about. The savings total for this month alone is over £850 and I think this should be near £1000 come the end of the month. Most of this has come from OH wages, MB'ing and a few cutbacks. Our next aim is to have £4000 in savings by the end of the year. This should be doable if we keep doing what we are doing.

debt_cruncher

I can't believe how long it has been since I updated. Time flys by. I have updated my signature and the debts are decreasing and the savings are growing which is all good.

I am in a pickle at the minute I don't know if I should clear the debts with my savings and then start the new year debt free or if I should let them run there course. £378.05 of the debt is 0% and the rest is the car loan which is 3.19%. £2500 of my savings has an interest rate of £4.67% net and the rest is at £2.65% net. Another point to consider is that my job is not very secure at the minute and I should maybe keep the savings as an emergency fund in case I lose my job.

What do you guys think I should do?

DC

yukkibear

Hi DC, glad to hear you're well.

Personally I would pay off the debt becuase I like to look and see I'm debt free, but I can understand wanting to keep some savings just in case. How much of the wedding fund are you relying on NOW to pay off stuff for the wedding? Maybe use some of that? Pay off the interest parts of the debt and not the 0%?

debt_cruncher

Well if i lost my job the wedding savings would last me about 4 - 5 months, which leaves a bit of breathing space to find another job.

I would be scared to pay off the debts and then if I lost my job I would only have enough money to last 1 or 2 months.

The only things we have paid a deposit on for the wedding are the reception DJ and chair covers. If I lost my job we could cancel the wedding and just loss the deposits. I was going to look in the January sales for my dress and bridesmaids dresses but I may hold back now to see what happens in the new year regarding my job.

debt_cruncher

I have added £52.74 to the wedding fund today. Most of this came from bills being under budget for the month which is good. Went food shopping tonight and spent £34.44 and I only need bread and milk during week so well within £40 budget. I have been saving up the clubcard points to pay towards wedding rings but I noticed tonight on the recepit that 1300 points is missing. I hope that the computer sorts itself out.

debt_cruncher

I got to the bottom of the missing clubcard points they are being converted to vouchers and should arrive mid december so that will be another £50 towards the rings.

I had to open another savings account tonight as my ISA is nearly at the £3600 limit. So I went with AA at 3.15% gross. I will probably use this account to start saving for our new house. We are going to be building our next house in the next 5 years and I would like to have some money saved for fees etc.

On the money making front I sold a book on amazon so that will be a few pennies for the new savings account. I also got an email from quidco saying £50 is on its way to my account.

debt_cruncher

As we are at the start of a new month I would like to have achieved the following by the end of December:

1. Have £5000 in the wedding fund account
2. Have £500 in the emergency fund account
3. Have £100 in the new house account
4. Get the last few bits of xmas shopping done as cheaply as possible
5. Get the master bedroom painted.

yukkibear

Building your own house sounds great, what a way to have EVERYTHING you want in a house right at the start. Good luck with that.