3rd time lucky?

IWantToBeFree_2

As the title of my diary suggests, this is the 3rd time of giving this debt busting malarky a real go. I had my first lightbulb moment back in January 2008, and since then we have been on/off the DFW due to buying our first house and getting married.

When we first started debt busting, we were earning £39,000 between us and didn't have masses of cash spare every month, however, we are now earning £55,000 between us and seem to have even less spare cash, its daft, and this is why I am starting a diary, as I feel it will stop my frivoulous spending and give me some focus!

I am going to post my SOA so you can all rip it to shreds.... Its not the best, but we do have a big surplus (if I don't waste it!) and we should really be able to tackle the debts without cancelling the Sky...

Here goes....

My Income: £1,648.78 (this is an estimate of my income, just had a payrise which I think will equate to approx £200 a month extra after tax)
OH Income: £1,390.28

Total Income: £3,039.06

Barclays loan: £274.37
Egg Loan: £102.54
Halifax loan: £192.23
CC's (minimum): £180
Mortgage: 521.19
Council Tax: £85.00
Home Insurance: £38.70
Life insurance: £11.39
Sofas: £54.77
Sky: £37.50
Internet: £7.34
Mobile phones: £94.66
Water rates: £23.00
TV licence: £11.95
Gas: £22.00
Electric: £28.00
BT Phone bill: £16.50
Garage rent: £26.02
Cineworld passes: £23.98
Weight Watchers: £17.85
Littlewoods: £10.00


Total outgoings: £1,779.00

Surplus after standing orders/direct debits of £1,260.06


This is where a spending diary needs to kick in, the plan is always that we will have £100 a week to cover things like shopping, petrol, parking etc, £100 is more than enough but we need to be disaplined into sticking to it, and I am hoping that this thread is going help, as I plan to document everything we spend so that I can see how I am doing and everyone can shout at me if I am doing badly!

We should have around £800 left a month for debt repayments based on spending £100 a week.



Credit cards:
Virgin: £3,620.00
Tesco: £1,368.00
Barclays (1): £2,848.73
Barclays (2): £963.41
Halifax: £2,274.55

Total: £11,074.69


All the credit cards, aside from Barclays (2) are at 0%. Approx £400 of the spend on Barclays (2) is at 14.9% APR (the rest is at 0%). This is attracting between £3-£5 a month interest and the plan is that this is the first card that will be paid off in full as even though the interest is small, its still interest and we could still do without paying it.


The 0%'s run out between Feb and May next year, we aren't making any overpayments at the minute, instead the plan will be to put the surplus in our savings account and pay them off before they are interest bearing, I don't envisage us having £11k for early next year, so any that can't be paid, we will look to get new 0% cards (never really had problems getting credit, as you can probably see!)


We have an offset mortgage, so having money in our savings is really good for us as we save on our mortgage at 6.59%. This is important as we are looking to move within the next 2 years, so the savings don't only help us pay our debts and save for a deposit but also go a long way to reducing our mortgage so when we sell we aren't in negative equity. Our current savings balance is £1,251 but this is weddding gift money so it won't be spent on debt repayments.



Loans
Egg: £822.27
Halifax: £3,460.00
Barclays: £6,767.00

Total: £11,049.27


Egg loan runs to Feb 2010, Halifax to Nov 2010 and Barclays to Nov 2011.


Others

Sofa: £1,639.00
Littlewoods: £224.89
Littlewoods (sister): £239.74

Total: £2,103.63


Sofa's are on 0% from DFS and have about another 2 years to run, Littlewoods are both at 0% and the amount I owe to my sister doesn't fall due til April 2010 although I will probably pay her before then.


Grand total: £24,227.59


So that is me, the debt total is not something I am proud of and I really want to get it below £20k, as it has been that low in the last year or so, but we have had extra spending on credit cards etc.

We desparately want to move house, and now we are married, we want to have kids, but we know that we wouldn't be able to whilst we still have this level of debt as there is no way I could afford to bring home maternity pay.

I am currently ebaying stuff, I do online surveys, and various other online things to earn a couple of quid here and there but its not as much as it used to be.

Anyway, I look forward to 'meeting' everyone again, and hope I don't bore you too much on my journey!

Raini

Hi IWTBF :hello:

Good luck with DF journey - third times the charm!

Just a little note that the Cineworld cards have gone up to £13.50 each - well I assume everyone's have as ours have!

You sound really motivated which I guess is half the battle!

IWantToBeFree_2

This months DDs were £11.99 each, will keep an eye on the increase! We tied in for 12 months so I am hoping they don't put ours up, we don't justify the cost as it is, never mind them being more expensive!!

Raini

I doubt that yours will go up before that then. TBH the increase made us go more, to make sure we were getting the value, although they still do OK out of us with the pop & popcorn! :rolleyes:

IWantToBeFree_2

Hi All

Nothing much exciting to report today, off work ill at the minute and its doing my head in, hoping to go back tomorrow if I feel well enough!

Been to Weight Watchers today for first time in 5 weeks, due to wedding and honeymoon, amazed that in all that time I have only put 1.5lb on, some kind of miracle considering I have had 2 week of all inclusive food in there (3 cooked meals a day!).

Managed not to spend anything whilst I was there, picked up 2 packs of bars and a magazine, would have been about £6 however the normal leader wasn't there so they didn't have the card machine and I had no cash on me! So thats £6 saved cos I didn't really need the bars and only picked up the magazine on impulse.

Get paid tomorrow, its the first pay day with my new wage, and also got a bonus to be paid, so it will be interesting to see how much I get after tax and student loan. Pay rise is £375 gross and the bonus is £700 gross, I should lose 20% in tax, 11% in NI, 9% in SL payments and 2% in pension payments so works out at about £600 extra hopefully!

IWantToBeFree_2

As I mentioned yesterday, been feeling rubbish, been on the phone to the NHS cos I couldn't get in at the doctors and they have perscribed me some Tamiflu! Nooooooooooooooooooo!

david_hellier

IWantToBeFree wrote: »

As the title of my diary suggests, this is the 3rd time of giving this debt busting malarky a real go. I had my first lightbulb moment back in January 2008, and since then we have been on/off the DFW due to buying our first house and getting married.

When we first started debt busting, we were earning £39,000 between us and didn't have masses of cash spare every month, however, we are now earning £55,000 between us and seem to have even less spare cash, its daft, and this is why I am starting a diary, as I feel it will stop my frivoulous spending and give me some focus!

I am going to post my SOA so you can all rip it to shreds.... Its not the best, but we do have a big surplus (if I don't waste it!) and we should really be able to tackle the debts without cancelling the Sky...

Here goes....

My Income: £1,648.78 (this is an estimate of my income, just had a payrise which I think will equate to approx £200 a month extra after tax)
OH Income: £1,390.28

Total Income: £3,039.06

Barclays loan: £274.37
Egg Loan: £102.54
Halifax loan: £192.23
CC's (minimum): £180
Mortgage: 521.19
Council Tax: £85.00
Home Insurance: £38.70
Life insurance: £11.39
Sofas: £54.77
Sky: £37.50
Internet: £7.34
Mobile phones: £94.66
Water rates: £23.00
TV licence: £11.95
Gas: £22.00
Electric: £28.00
BT Phone bill: £16.50
Garage rent: £26.02
Cineworld passes: £23.98
Weight Watchers: £17.85
Littlewoods: £10.00


Total outgoings: £1,779.00

Surplus after standing orders/direct debits of £1,260.06


This is where a spending diary needs to kick in, the plan is always that we will have £100 a week to cover things like shopping, petrol, parking etc, £100 is more than enough but we need to be disaplined into sticking to it, and I am hoping that this thread is going help, as I plan to document everything we spend so that I can see how I am doing and everyone can shout at me if I am doing badly!

We should have around £800 left a month for debt repayments based on spending £100 a week.



Credit cards:
Virgin: £3,620.00
Tesco: £1,368.00
Barclays (1): £2,848.73
Barclays (2): £963.41
Halifax: £2,274.55

Total: £11,074.69


All the credit cards, aside from Barclays (2) are at 0%. Approx £400 of the spend on Barclays (2) is at 14.9% APR (the rest is at 0%). This is attracting between £3-£5 a month interest and the plan is that this is the first card that will be paid off in full as even though the interest is small, its still interest and we could still do without paying it.


The 0%'s run out between Feb and May next year, we aren't making any overpayments at the minute, instead the plan will be to put the surplus in our savings account and pay them off before they are interest bearing, I don't envisage us having £11k for early next year, so any that can't be paid, we will look to get new 0% cards (never really had problems getting credit, as you can probably see!)


We have an offset mortgage, so having money in our savings is really good for us as we save on our mortgage at 6.59%. This is important as we are looking to move within the next 2 years, so the savings don't only help us pay our debts and save for a deposit but also go a long way to reducing our mortgage so when we sell we aren't in negative equity. Our current savings balance is £1,251 but this is weddding gift money so it won't be spent on debt repayments.



Loans
Egg: £822.27
Halifax: £3,460.00
Barclays: £6,767.00

Total: £11,049.27


Egg loan runs to Feb 2010, Halifax to Nov 2010 and Barclays to Nov 2011.


Others

Sofa: £1,639.00
Littlewoods: £224.89
Littlewoods (sister): £239.74

Total: £2,103.63


Sofa's are on 0% from DFS and have about another 2 years to run, Littlewoods are both at 0% and the amount I owe to my sister doesn't fall due til April 2010 although I will probably pay her before then.


Grand total: £24,227.59


So that is me, the debt total is not something I am proud of and I really want to get it below £20k, as it has been that low in the last year or so, but we have had extra spending on credit cards etc.

We desparately want to move house, and now we are married, we want to have kids, but we know that we wouldn't be able to whilst we still have this level of debt as there is no way I could afford to bring home maternity pay.

I am currently ebaying stuff, I do online surveys, and various other online things to earn a couple of quid here and there but its not as much as it used to be.

Anyway, I look forward to 'meeting' everyone again, and hope I don't bore you too much on my journey!

Another way of using a spending diary is to allocate a weekly amount to yourself per week, from your budget after all essentials have been deducted. Using receipts, deduct as you spend through the week. Try to get to the end of the week leaving some over to carry forward to the next week. This has the effect of keeping your overdraft down and avoids overspend.

Fire_Fox

Do you realise you are spending £170 a month or over £2000 a year on telecoms? Do you really need Sky and a Cineworld pass at £62 a month or £750 a year? That's not including drinks and popcorn ... There is a code on one of the boards for three months free DVD rental from Lovefilm and the cheapest package (two DVDs a month) is only £4 and the most expensive (unlimited, three DVDs at a time) £16 a month. Also there is an Orange SIM with £5 credit on the Freebies board which means you can use Orange Wednesdays without even paying for the text.

IWantToBeFree_2

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Do you realise you are spending £170 a month or over £2000 a year on telecoms? Do you really need Sky and a Cineworld pass at £62 a month or £750 a year? That's not including drinks and popcorn ... There is a code on one of the boards for three months free DVD rental from Lovefilm and the cheapest package (two DVDs a month) is only £4 and the most expensive (unlimited, three DVDs at a time) £16 a month. Also there is an Orange SIM with £5 credit on the Freebies board which means you can use Orange Wednesdays without even paying for the text.

We don't have drinks and popcorn at the cinema but I see your point! We don't go out a lot, so having the Sky and the Cinema passes is our way of treating ourselves, If we went out a couple of times a month we would spend more than £62 a month... I know a lot of people cut stuff like this back when they are debtbusting, but I want to try and do it without massively restricting us, I find that when you cut out everything that is in the slightest bit fun, you end up resenting what you are doing, and fall off the wagon spectaculary. I know if we didn't have the cinema passes, or the Sky, we would be debt free quicker, but we would also be bloody miserable.

To be honest, Sky isn't much of an option for us anyway, we live pretty much in a signal blackspot, we couldn't get freeview, and the normal TV reception is awful meaning it was Sky or nothing, I know we could have took a lower package but we are both sporting nuts, so took the Sports as well.

The telecomms is high due to me currently running 2 phone contracts, stupid I know... One of them is cancelled this month which will cut £20 off the monthly spend for mobiles. Not much in the grand scheme of things but it is something.

We are in a 'lucky' position whereby our debts are manageable compared to our salaries, we don't struggle to meet payments, we don't have baliffs knocking at our doors, it means we can have the little luxuaries in life such as Sky... I know its not so much common place on here, but I would have thought that people would still respect what I am trying to do rather than judging me on what I spend....

On a side note, feeling REALLY rubbish due to the Tamiflu, and now getting a bit of cabin fever, been stuck in the house since Tuesday, and cant go back to work until Wednesday at the earliest :-(

Got paid yesterday, more than I expected, so transferred some of it straight over to the savings so it doesn't get spent. As I can't go anywhere or do anything, I expect that we will have a fair bit to put into the savings come the end of our month (when OH gets paid on 20th).

spartan59

I'm on my third time aswell!!! Just wishing you luck with your debt battle

spartan59

I agree with your above post, I am in a similar position. As in we can meet our payments and sort of manage our debts. I'm not happy with the debt but we can manage it, just!!!

I fully understand the amazing people on here but far too often people on here go to the extreme saying you should eat dust and not turn any lights on ever and if you even mention you have a tumble dryer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm trying to up my income as much as possible by ebay/amazon/daily clicks buying via cash back sites etc

Also growing my own veg at the mo, well trying!!