Kaz's Get Rid of Debt Diary

kaz665

Well I’ve been lurking on here for ages and really enjoy reading everyone’s diaries but now it’s time to start my own – arghhhhhh scary!:eek::eek::eek:

OK a bit a bit about me first – I’m 35 and live with my DH, DS aged 11 and two crazy cocker spaniels which I love to pieces.:D

Although my situation isn’t half as serious as many in here, since we moved house nearly two years ago (our first house), we have accumulated quite a bit of debt and been struggling to make a dent in what we owe whilst trying to do the place up at the same time. Ideally, I would like have all our outstanding debts cleared by early next year (apart from the mortgage) which will enable us to start afresh and budget properly for work we need doing without being in over our heads. When I say work needing doing, the list is endless – new kitchen, bathroom, double glazing plus decorating in several rooms and one day I would love to have my own car (have got a Mini in mind). The other thing is that in 4 years my husband is due to get a big pay out from leaving the armed forces and it would be nice to spend some of that on clearing some of the mortgage and having a holiday, rather than having to put it all towards debts.

The problem is I’m one of those people who wants everything done straight away and I’m a bloody perfectionist!!!:o Don’t get me wrong I’m not against anything being reused or second hand but it has got to look right as I don’t want to compromise on what I like and in reality I know it’ll take a few years to get the place up to scratch and remove all the lovely anagylpta wallpaper!!!

I’ve managed to cut our shopping bill and direct debits down to the minimum so am not gonna put a statement of account on here as such but will look out the figures on exactly what we do owe as it would be nice to see them go down (and be given a shove in the right direction if this doesn’t happen)and I'm also planning to keep a spending diary.

Oh yes I’d also like to lose about 2 stone, find a new job and loads of other things but being as this message is getting a bit long I’ll leave that for next time.

So basically this diary is all about sorting myself out, not making any more excuses and getting on with things to start living my life and having FUN!!! :T:T:T

Who’s gonna come along for the ride and give me a bit of moral support????

beanielou

Im joining the moral support club
Keep posting!

yukkibear

I'll jump in for the ride with you. You sound a lot like me, except I don't have a huge amount of debt, but do have some. I want everything NOW, and it frustrates me when I can't. We also have a fair bit we want to do to the house etc, but it'll all have to be done in small bits over the next lifetime lol.

What ideas do you have to make the extra cash to pay off your debts? Have you looked at the daily scratchcard etc?

kaz665

Thanks for your messages of support yukkibear and beanielou :beer: it's lovely that someone has taken the time to read this and please feel free to let me know how you are doing with your cutting down/reducing debts as well (I honestly don’t mind who hijacks my thread!!)

Ok here goes the boring (but essential bit):eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Lloyds Credit Card £2284.19 on 0% until Sept 09
Homebase owe £1123.36 of which £460 is 0% until 6 May 09 and the rest 0% until Oct 09
Overdrafts currently £1900 and £478 (this includes money budgeted for shopping until the end of the month.)
Egg Card £889.58 probably some extortionate APR!! (16.9%)

Total £6675.13

In addition to this we have two loans which we have to pay out £382.69 and £92.96. The first of these finishes in Dec 09 and the second in Feb 10. For the purposes of calculating paying things off I am going to ignore these as they come out by dd each month and are paid no problems.

So basically after direct debits including mortgage we have about £900 to pay for food, any car costs, pressies, haircuts etc and the remainder to go towards debts stated above. The reason I can’t work out my statement too exactly is because the work I do although regular is considered relief and therefore I put in timesheets for the hours owed and these may vary slightly month to month.

I reckon we can easily get by on an average of £400 per month, which leaves £500 to pay stuff off. This would mean approx 13 months to pay this lot off but if I could make some extra cash/cut back more maybe I could shave this to 9 months and be debt free by the end of the year?

Stuff like the gas, electric and insurances I check regularly to ensure that I am getting the best deal and have just change my mobile contract to less than £10 per month so I know there is nothing to shave off these. Aside from cutting down on food shopping (and other general shopping including decorating stuff) the only other way is to try and make some extra cash.


On the plus side I have just forked out for 6 months road tax and hopefully we are due a child tax rebate of £400 ish and also about £100 from Quidco. Our mortgage will also go down in the summer so any ‘extra’ will be used to pay these off.

OMG how much have I just written and I haven’t even started on my studying plans, ideas for a new job, dieting and getting fit so you’ve got all that excitement to come!!!


It is amazing how much better I feel already after offloading that lot.

beanielou

Having £500 a month to pay things off is a fab start.
Why dont you keep a spending diary to see where your spare money goes?
In two months you could wave bye bye to Egg

kaz665

Yep spending diary is definately a must and I'm gonna start properly as soon as pay day arrives at the end of the month. I'm gonna pay £460 off the Homebase first, otherwise I'll end up incurring interest charges for the amount which finishes in May and then it'll be the Egg Card that'll get a battering next.

I must confess it's not all doom and gloom as we've bought quite a bit recently and still have paving for the garden (being as my husband took up a load of concrete after getting somewhat over enthusiastic with a power washer!!:mad:) and bedroom furniture to come which I've already accounted for. As well as that I managed to bag myself a cool new phone when I rang Orange to reduce my contact and I only pay £9 something a month now including free minutes and texts .

On the house front to be honest now we've done the lounge, my sons room and our bedroom is done bar the skirting, the place is starting to feel a lot more respectable and I would be happy for the rest of the year to strip walls and do preparation for when we can afford to do the other areas.

The other thing that I've also worked out is that when our loans are paid, if the mortgage is reduced and when I'm not paying out £500 or more each month towards debts then we'll be over £1000 a month better off :T:T:Tand then there is definately no chance of us getting ourselves in this deep again.

So being as I'm gonna get on with a bit of reading for my OU study here's the plan for tomorrow:

- Go for a run (at least 15 mins) as Race for Life is in 4 weeks and I've only just started training.
- Eat sensibly (no junk food)
- Write up study notes for OU
- Take dogs out for walk in the woods for an hour (free exercise).
- Sort out new paving when it arrives (already prepped today and more free exercise).
- Tackle the ironing mountain
- No Spend Day
- Spend at least 30 mins looking for ways to up income (I do loads of ebaying, surveys etc as standard but I will try and up the anti with this)
- Spend some time with DS after school (yes they go back tom in Scotland!)

beanielou

Ours dont go back til a week on Wed.
Dident realise there was so much of ac difference in Scotland!

Scottishmummy

I'm gonna keep popping in here from time to time as although our debt is much larger than yours everything else is similar - home improvements weight loss etc. it could inspire me to start my own diary.

My DS still has another week off till next monday so different all over scotland too.

kaz665

Hi scottishmummy as I said earlier please feel free to use this thread as you wish and if that means putting some bits and pieces on here instead of starting your own diary that's fine - the more the merrrier I say!!

By the way we're up in the Highlands. Feels wrong really going back to school on Easter Monday whilst everyone else is still off enjoying themselves! Right better go and get sorted as just having a quick look in before jumping the shower. Today looks gorgeous and sunny again so that is motivating me to get loads done. I'll check in again in a bit.

Bye for now......

kaz665

Ok so yesterday's list of things to do didn't really go to plan with no exercise and diet plans out of the window as soon as DH brought out the apple pie :mad:. That's not to say it wasn't productive though as I managed to tidy out the spare room, hoover and dust throughout and even made lunch box sandwiches in the evening. I'm not gonna beat myself up about it too much just do better today!:D

Back in work now (I only do part time) and couldn't believe that I managed to strip and change two beds, put the washing on and have a quick tidy round before leaving the house at 8.20am. Just goes to show how being a bit more organised in the evening leaves loads of time to get little bit of housework done.

On the spending side of things (after all that's what we're here for!!) spent just under £4 on some makeup I'd seen on one of the boards here. Yeah I know I said NSD but it will get used and as it's coming from the USA it may take a bit. DH also had to go and get a couple of extra large slabs to finish off the garden so that was another £10.99.

Must go to the supermarket after work as running out of milk, squash and a few other bits so I will be taking a list and sticking to it!! :rolleyes:

Have got £150 to last until the end of the month plus a couple of pounds in my wallet so that is it and I will need to get some fuel next week too.

Also gonna pop into the gym this afternoon and book a session for Thursday as more likely to get some exercise done then and they've got about 3 treamills so can incorporate my run. No really bad stuff diet wise either so all going well today (who knows the muffin top may be a distant memory by reunion day in June!!:D )

Well must go as back to work in a moment and need to get this washing out whilst it's still sunny. How's everyone else doing??

yukkibear

Can I have some of your sunshine. I think your day didn;t sound too bad, you can't get to being perfect straight away.

I have just bought a new car :eek:, but my hand was forced as OH's was so old it finally gave up the ghost. I have got a small engine, cheap tax, blah blah now, so I just have to pay for it now.

Very wrong to be back at school yesterday, we're all still off till next week, and I'm not in work until tomorrow, so it's ebay ebay ebay for me this afternoon!