Earthdancer's Dump the Debt Diary 2009

earthdancer

Oh, and feeling like a mean mummy this month too... The cost of the game (£30) that I allowed DS to buy earlier in the month has been reclaimed from his piggy bank. Well, if I don't start to teach them the value of money soon, they could end up with far worse debt problems than we have in the future!

Also cleared out wardrobe at the weekend and found loads more clothes, many still with tags, that can be listed on ebay. Money raised will go towards next month's debt repayments and space reclaimed means room feels slightly less cluttered.

earthdancer

WooHoo :T Just couldn't wait until tomorrow to post my end of March update - I'm so pleased with this month's debt busting :j

With careful budgeting and throwing all extra cash at the plastic, we have managed to reduce our overall debt by £580.27 this month!!! That's up £120 on the previous two months. Of course we are still only in the early days of making serious efforts to repay, but so far, so good.

We also met our savings and ebay sales targets for the month, which will allow us to pay off a little more next month, or it will be put towards some expenses we know will be coming up. Having our house valued on Friday with a view to putting it on the market and I've been told we have to pay for a HIP up front from 6th April so I'm expecting that to cost around £250. Also not sure what the estate agents costs are likely to be, or where we'll find that spare cash Bit worried about that but will hopefully know more after speaking with the agent on Friday.

savingholmes

Hi Earthdancer you sound like you've put a lot of energy and effort into debt busting... Just wanted to wish you all the best.... Debtwise - we've been where you are but are now finally sub £10K (only just LOL) so I just wanted to encourage you that eventually you will be sub £20K and then sub £10K and then hopefully £0!

My OH isn't really on side either... he says he is but I just found a CC bill - he spent £105 this month of which about £34 was justified. Gave him the proverbial kick up the ..... at the weekend and in theory we are going to go back to £5 (total) "free" spend a week each (pocket money)! We have managed on that before so hopefully we can again...

Anyway - best of luck!

earthdancer

Well, as the title suggests, it's been a strange old month on the debt busting front for us so far. We decided at the end of last month to look into putting the house on the market. There are a couple of properties we want to look at, but we wanted to be sure that they were within our budget before we fell in love with them, so off to the mortgage advisor we went. They did all the sums, and the end result was that they are quite happy to lend us the money we need - yippee!

All well and good, but this house needs some serious tidying up, and all that costs a bit of money. The cheap paint we bought was a bit of false economy because it was so thin we needed 4 coats on one room! We've also had to buy the boys bunk beds to 'create the illusion of space' in their room and we need new taps in the bathroom because the existing ones are beyond repair. Expensive business, this house selling lol We've had one free valuation so far of £170K and another valuer coming round on Thursday.

I don't normally class our mortgage as 'debt' for the purposes of this debt busting exercise, but once our current fixed term rate ends in May we have opted to revert to the BMR until we need to arrange our new mortgage. We are keeping our DD the same however, so effectively we'll be overpaying by £80 per month. Not a lot I know, but it all helps.

I've also swapped my credit card debt for an interest free loan from my parents. It IS a loan, and we're making the same repayment back to them as we were to the credit card companies, but at least the debt will be going down now, and at a quicker rate. Not sure if people will think this is a bit of an 'easy option' or 'cop out' in our debt-busting, but they did offer on the basis that they'd earn far less interest on the money than I was being charged for having the debt.

I've listed a load of toys on ebay this evening but not sure how they'll do. I'm also continuing to save my £2 coins and loose change towards paying a little bit more off the total, and I'm trying to have more no spend days, but not doing very well with that at the moment.

I'll post a full monthly update at the end of the month

earthdancer

Another good month for us. Overall we have shaved an impressive £890 off our debt this month! :beer: Some of this was due to swapping our credit card debt for an interest free loan from my parents, but most of it was due to careful budgeting and £90 of ebay sales, putting the money saved towards the cards. We will repay the loan at a regular £200 per month until we sell our house, at which time we'll repay the outstanding balance. What has please me the most though, is that we finished the month in the black - YAY!! Only £13.99, but it means for the first time in ages we're starting a month in positive figures :T

My savings pots are feeling nice and heavy so I really need to bank some of those £2 coins and loose change so I can send some overpayments towards my outstanding loan. I was warned by the NR that it won't reduce the amount I owe overall, but it will mean I pay it off quicker, which has to be good. Current ebay sales are standing at £66 with 3 days to go, and I have a small mountain of things to list. I've also sold a few things on the notice board at work, giving me a further £13. Decluttering the house in order to sell is a fantastic way of making a few pennies :rotfl:

Plan for May 2009:
- Finish the month in the black again
- Make £75 from ebay sales
- Pay for HIP from 'ready money' not credit card
- Pay loose change savings into the bank and use it against loan
- Try for 10 NSDs over the month

ED