How do you all do it...

Lydia.42

I was thinking the same as Gypsy, until this week when we started getting figures together again.

OH and I had our lightbulb moment in December 05. Since then we have been shuffling - amazing how long it takes to shuffle when you have lots of cards, etc. Things have finally settled down this month, and i hope to get all the figures by next week, when last of the cc statements comes in.

I have our original December debts on a spreadsheet, along with aprs and limits, etc. I have started to get March's figures together on the spreadsheet too (it was too confusing to try and do whilst shuffling! ). Already i can see how much better we are doing. What's really helped us was putting everything into our joint account - instead of running single accounts too, and looking at the whole picture. Also 2 months of no council tax has been bliss - all put straight onto cc's Previously this would have been frittered away.

We are now waiting for end of March when i can put in a claim for 2005-2006 mileage allowance, and OH should get his back-pay. They owe him over 18 months at the moment, as well as 84 hours of holiday. Although the back pay thing has been a major pain in the butt (wont go into the details now), if he had the rise all those months ago, we would have wasted it all . The plan is to put all but a small amount onto his MBNA card and hopefully clear that completely. Just waiting to see how much he gets after the tax man has taken his feed!!

It's suprising how much you do pay in minimum payments as Nabowla said. These barely cover the interest, so it's amazing how the balance starts to come down when you start over paying - something OH and i had never done :mad:

L

ms_london

scheming_gypsy wrote:

Everybody who's had their lightbulb moment seems to have their debt breakdowns on their sig. How much are you managing to knock them down so fast each month?
I'm trying to get my debts down as well but can't understand how some of you are having sigs with drops of about £800 a month. How are you managing to cut down so much?

Last January my debt stood at £10,000 and I made the decision that I wanted to clear it before December 2005 - I had a full time job, not particularly well paid (a lot less than your salary) so I took on a p/t job too. I was throwing £900 a month at my debts, £179.88 the monthly repayment and the rest as an overpayment!! This left me enough for my rent, flat bills (council tax, water, gas, elec, phone), my mobile, gym & then £50 a week for social money & food (and basically anything else I wanted/needed).. I also managed to save for a 2 week holiday in Sep, and in the end, managed to pay my debt off at the end of Oct 2005 (see signature!).

I wanted to pay my debt off asap as I wanted to go travelling and now that I am debt free I am saving just as hard (well, harder infact) for my trip to Oz in Aug.

As I say, I am not on a great salary (although I have just taken another sat job), but all of my outgoings are down to the bare minimum (mobile £20 a month) and I live in a flat with the cheapest rent I could find in the area.

As another poster says, it is all relative - but right now my aim is to save as much as I can for Aug!!

I do flatshare though so I know if I had my own flat then I wouldnt have as much disposable income.

Roll on 3rd Aug. Whoo!!

xx

fairylights_2

I've always been amazed how much people have to pay debts off with too. Our household income is really low. OH works f/t, I work a bit around the kids, but not a huge amount - I know if I put nose to grindstone I could earn a lot more but then it would disappear to childcarers, so no benefit in going and getting a proper job. So we've been paying £250 a month off for AGES and then any extra we get - ebay, amazon, car boots, bogof savings (that stopped me buying bogofs if I didn't really need them). A lot of my earnings have gone straight to the debt, and we're only able to make this big payment this month because of OHs bonus. Which in future years can be spent on nice things like a family holiday - or overpaying a mortgage when we get that far!

Try not to get down that you can't pay more than everyone else - so long as your budget is live-able FOR YOU, then that's all you can hope for.

scheming_gypsy

Simple Life Bloke and Skintchick..

I'm not doing my SOA cos mine's manageable i was just wondering how people managed to pay so much money off theirs each month.

My debt is on 0% cc so there's not much point in taking my money out of the share save scheme and paying extra off. My sharesave's are at £4 odd and £9 odd. Shares are expected to hit £20 by the end of this year so there's no chance i'm losing out.

The starbucks was an example of something that i can't remember without reading back through. We've got a vending machine for normal coffee and that which i use and get about 6 free drinks from it a day if i used all my 'credits'. Also got a free water machine and i drink about 2 - 3 litres of water a day.
Flask of hot water = not a chance. It'll never happen, ever !!

ms_london wrote:

Roll on 3rd Aug. Whoo!!

xx

My birthday so you better treat me seeing as you'll be debt free.

skintchick wrote:

I'm not sure that sticking it all on your mortgage is a good idea - we tend to be against consolidation on this board.

although it is consolidation the master plan is to add it to the mortgage and drop my mortgage term seeing as i'll have more available cash..
My mortgage is for about £74k and at the end of the 30 years (i'm only 30 myself (although some bird told me i looked 23 last night)) i'd have paid about £160k. If i add my debt to my mortgage and drop my term i'll probably save a hell of a lot in the long run.

skintchick

scheming_gypsy wrote:

although it is consolidation the master plan is to add it to the mortgage and drop my mortgage term seeing as i'll have more available cash..

I see - yeah that could work.

scheming_gypsy wrote:

(i'm only 30 myself (although some bird told me i looked 23 last night)) .

I'm 31 and was told last night that I looked 26!! By a young lad of about 19 too! Well chuffed.

scheming_gypsy

can't beat it when people say you look a lot younger. Yes i'm going off topic but it's my topic so i can do what i want

southernscouser

Well I don't pay alot more than the minimum payments but they alone are around £730-£740! :eek:

I make sure I pay a minmum of £750 though! Not alot more but it all adds up!

Bloke_with_a_simple_life

So Gypsy ... the answer to your question is I suppose, people have different ways to pay off their debts, and different prioirties which drive how and when they can repay. That's how some people drive their debts down quicker than others!

Good to see you don't need help Gypsy - I presume you did!!

scheming_gypsy

yeah kind of, but mainly how are they managing to find an extra £800 a month since their lightbulb moment. That's a hell of a lot of takeaways etc etc for that extra amount.

I probably do need help, but as i have my master plan and payments are a lot less than my income i'm safe... for now.. lol

James240

hiya SG

ive re-evaluated my spending habits and also the amount of money ive been wasting down the pub, plus im doing allt he overtime under the sun at the moment because im just so desperate to clear this loan.

You can have a look at my debt diary in how ive cut things back this is when i first started.....


http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=148510


and this is what ive got them down to so far see post ~124

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=148510&page=13&pp=10



Hopefully i will make further inroads when i get paid at the end of march