Jazzie's Superfast Debtbusting Diary!

Jazzie99

Thought it was about time I started my diary as I've been tackling my debts since May 09. The reason I have put 'superfast' in the heading is because I am determined to pay off our £30k debt superquick. Debt free date is January 2011 - hopefully sooner!

A bit of history:-
1) Married, mum of 2 boys (both under 4);
2) Hubby and I have created our debt mainly through over spending over the last 10 years or so.
3) Both of us work in the central london and have fairly good wages.
4) My debts are:
- Loan, £10,355
- CC1, £6,181
- CC2, £7,347
- CC3, £700
- Overdraft, £800
- Loan from Friend, £5,000 = Overall Debt £30,098

I havent done a SOA as I'm on maternity leave and incoming money is flucuating each month. I am tackling the loan first - as you can see from my signature I have already made some progress In 3 months we have repaid £5,500ish so outstanding debt to date is: £24,602.......

Jazzie99

I've been doing the following to help with the debt busting:-

- reduced childcare from £650pm to £0 (as I'm on mat leave)
- bought no clothes/luxuries
- stopped shopping in waitrose (except for meat - sorry!)
- buying shop own brands
- ebaying like made
- scratchcards, clicking, valued opinions
- bonus from work £3k - woo hoo!
- having coffee at mine with friends rather than cafe's
- putting away small change.
- I've also become a serial pad'er!!!!

catspaw

Hi welcome to the diarys, good luck

Jazzie99

Thanks Catspaw!

Well August is going to be a hard month! I've got my 11 year old niece staying with me for two weeks; we're going to legoland tomorrow but after that its cheap/free days out to the park etc!

I've got loads of things ending on ebay tonight so looking forward to see how much I make. Unfortunately, most of it is to help me stay in the black this month - none of it will go on debt :mad: Oh well ....

I've been asked by a friend if I would look after her son for two weeks at the end of August - I'm tempted to say yes because of the money but I dont know if I can handle my two plus another 3 year old ! Will have to sleep on that one....

Lemon_Tree

hi and welcome to the boards, your debt isn't too much different to mine and i'm aiming for 2011 as well but i think at the moment the earliest i can make it is November. Which i'm working on improving but was much worse as before it was 2013 -20 if i let everything run it's natural course. You've made some really good headway so far. I'm aiming at averaging £900 each month, how much longer do you have on maternity leave?

Jazzie99

Hi Lemon Tree,

WOW your really doing well with paying off your debt. What are you doing to help pay it off early? My mat leave ends in October, although I'm taking advantage of my accured holiday and I wont be physically going back until end of November. This means I'll save on childcare fees (a whooping £700 a month!), plus MIL is looking after the kids in November and December! All savings going to debt!!!

Having said that, I'm having a bad month ... I'm not in the red yet but I've got a feeling I might have to use the EVIL CREDIT CARD!! :mad::mad:

Lemon_Tree

hi, i'm quite lucky that i have a decent wage, in the early days of my DF travels i was paying this back on my own income and my first major achievement was to start living within my means. I never had a very excessive lifestyle but i have scaled it back even more for the time that i'm trying to get DF. My life changed radically in the last couple of years, i've met and married a wonderful man (paid for with cash ) and his income coming in has freed up some of mine which means i'm able to pay off more each month. We also do car boots and i do the scratch cards which is slow but easy money.
Something i've done this year is put away into savings all the amounts at the bottom of receipts which say 'you've saved' and so far i've put aside 200 - 300 which i'm amazed about. It's money i would have normally spent and has very quickly built up.
sorry to have bored you, it's strange thinking how i've got this far and how i've been able to take the debt payments up to the next level.
You sound like you can make good headroads into your debt whilst on maternity with the childcare fees you're saving. you say you're having a bad month... i've been reading on here of hypno's challenge to take £20 and to see how long it can last, that's seems like a good challenge to me.

Jazzie99

Well its been a busy and an expensive week as we're on holiday. Have'nt gone abroad this year, just spending time with family in Cardiff and planning day trips back home. Sold loads of stuff on ebay, made £200 ... again, I've not been able to put this towards debt as its the holidays, and we're spending more than usual.

The good thing is we havent touched the credit cards!!! :j

Jazzie99

Come on Jazzie, you've been a bit cr*p at this 'keeping a diary' lark!!!!

Well to update, I've made another overpayment to my loan of £750 so that takes the total down to £5,190. I cant believe I've managed to pay half of it off in 4 months (pats myself on the back)!

I've just sent off a letter to my employers letting them know I'm returning to work in October ........... although the good news is I'm using my annual leave and my first day isnt until mid-November :cool:

Percentage of debt paid off to date: 22.87%
Padded to date: £4,002 (started May 09)
August £6 a day challenge: Completed, total £218! Mainly thanks to ebaying :j

Going to have a run round the house tonight and see if I can find more things to ebay. I havent even started on the kids clothes!

Jazzie99

Havent been very good at diary keeping !!

Well update is that we have finished paying the loan ..... Yippee!! Paid off exactly 26 months early. Next debt to tackle is my Virgin Credit Card, hoping to pay that off by April 2010.

Going back to work in 2 weeks time :(

Percentage of debt paid off to date: 41.03%
Padded to date: £8,910 (started May 09)
October challenge: Completed, total £136.

Jazzie99

Havent posted here for a while but still debt busting. Now that I'm back at work from maternity leave and have a steady income coming in, I thought I would do my SOA.
At the moment we are tackling my Virgin Credit Card, have just below £3k left on it now. We're paying around £900 a month to it so I expect it to be gone by March 2010. Next will be hubby's Virgin Card!


Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1430 (part time)
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2210
Benefits................................ 132
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 3772

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1071
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 141
Electricity............................. 36
Gas..................................... 25
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 43
Telephone (land line)................... 29 (includes broadband)
Mobile phone............................ 35 (two mobiles)
TV Licence.............................. 11.92
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 320 (includes nappies, wipes and baby milk)
Clothing................................ 15
Petrol/diesel........................... 20
Road tax................................ 17
Car Insurance........................... 30
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 180 (tube)
Childcare/nursery....................... 561 (part-time nursery and after school care)
Other child related expenses............ 30 (school dinners etc)
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 15
Contents insurance...................... 15
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 10
Haircuts................................ 15
Entertainment........................... 60
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2449.92


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 2000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 126000...(1071).....5.98
Total secured & HP debts...... 126000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Virgin.........................7067......0.........0
Virgin.........................2971......0.........0
Lloyds.........................6300......0.........3.2
Total unsecured debts..........16338.....0.........-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 3,772
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,449.92
Available for debt repayments........... 1,322.08
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 900
Amount left after debt repayments....... 422.08

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 2,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -126,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -16,338
Net Assets.............................. -140,338

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using Firefox browser.