steph123steph diary...Journey to debt free and beyhond!!

steph123steph

Well thought Id pop back in and make an update to self :-) !!!

Ive sold quite a few items on ebay this week, and we managed to make ourselves £145 after Ebays astonomical 10% fee and Paypals astronimical 3.4% fee!!! Not a bad turnaround but must say im not impressed with the charges!! I still have quite a few items up for sale (including me wedding dress!!) But I suppose theres no where else for me to get rid unless you can advise? :-)

With the money we have earned so far we have decided to use it as follows!

£50 towards the yearly MOT/Service and tax etc etc of our car! (not a scratch on the cost but wed already put aside towards this thankfully!

£35 to treat ourselves to a meal tomorrow. We have a voucher for La Tasca, for 50% off and I love love love it! So going to go there and hopefully come home with a few pennies left :-)

£30 which I paid off my mortgage!! Wahooo!!!
£30 into the christmas pot towards all the christmas presents we have to buy!

:-) I must say my house looks like a bomb has hit it with all these packages all over the place but Im hoping to declutter by christmas, and of course the cash back is a bonus :-)

xxx

steph123steph

Mixed... My debt mainly consists of intrest free ammounts, catalogue debt which wont go up with time and also a couch from DFS almost 2000 which recently kicked in, so I am reluctant to pay them off any faster than needs be :-) My savings are all over the place atm to be honest. Its not one of my strong points. I have some in my ISA, some in a 1st reserve, some in my kitchen draw.... I need to sit down and have a proper think about where I want this money to go. I was considering a 5 year bond, but then thought that might defead the object of me having a fall back and then effectivly losing it for the sake of a couple of quid? argh, so much to think about?!

steph123steph

Yea it actually is, I think its 9% intrest, but becuase we refinanced it less than a year ago they have told us they would add 2 months intrest onto the balance, way around saying there are charges I suppose! But, I dont want to let that much money go anyways. I saved for my fallback because I can never guess where the future is taking me, and I would hate to be in a situation where I had no savings and no job.... And also, When we plan to have another baby, I have to consider the fact that I will be taking a drop in my salary for the whole year whilsy on SMP so I would need to have something to make up the difference so my family dont suffer :-)

I am making small overpayments on my debt, so I will pay them off sooner than agreed meaning I will have more disposible income AND my savings.

But if I pay the loan off in full, Id only have the same ammount of disposible income each month, and no savings.

Its quite annoying to consider that my savings are only half my debt so I as good as have no savings..... hmmm

On a plus side! We filled out my husbands tax return this week online and he has a rebate due of £700!! Great news :-D Havnt sent is yet as I want to triple cheke all the figures, but cant decide wether to put it through this weekend and spend the rebate on christmas... or put it in by January so we can have it for something else....

steph123steph

Oh yea, I didnt even consider that! Jeez lending money from the bank is a drag, Im NEVER lending again....aside from my mortgage haha, The only time I will lend in future, is if I am about to be thrown out of my home and I have exhausted all my savings, and my family haha. Trying to be optimistic when stuck with debt is hard.

That is a good idea about paying off some and keeping some aside. I guess I go straight to the mortgage as I know its my biggest debt. I do want to save myself the most money of course. But Im also in a race to build up some good equity in my home again. It's a never ending cycle..

My nan has retired today, her 65th birthday. SHe has a lovely lump sum, a lovely annual salary and absolutly no debt whatsover.... I soooo want this to be me :-) I think Im going to go reshuffle my priorities again...

I may put my savings into a new ISA, shop around for the best, that way it is accesible anytime should I need it, and I will receive intrest monthly also.

Ive just paid £10 off my loan as you got me thinking about the rate! My normal direct debit does out tomorrow, and I will make another small overpayment on the 1st november! x

steph123steph

Its £5230 on the loan without my DD tomorrow, I think there is roughly 50 payments left.... ! Becuase I over pay by transfer I trust it clears and lost track of exactly how long should of been left :-) Must dig the paperwork out!!... Now I dont know exactly how this works, becuase that balance obviously goes up when they charge the monthly intrest, I dont really know how much affect my overpayments are having on the loan ? Im very open to advice :-D

steph123steph

arghhh Just realised the time and Im up at 6am tomorrow!!! eeek!!! Off to bed I pop but I will call back tomorrow to continue, nighty night xx

getmore4less

Have you done a proper budget for the year(and longer)

http://www.makesenseofcards.co.uk/soacalc.html

this will help clarify how much you have left over taking all expected expenses into account.

I think a full list of your debts with the rates term payments and if you can make overpayments on any of the loans would help clarify the best debt plan.

Finding out those that will take overpayments and reduce interest is important.
Also find out any settlement terms even a 2 month hit on interest might be worth taking if the rate is high. Sometimes you can overpay one month to reduce the debt without penalty then pay off the smaller full amount reducing the penalty.

Read up about snowballing.

Good idea to have a decent emergency fund.

steph123steph

I have a budget, written down on paper :-)
But I havnt actaully wrote down the balance of each individual debt with the applicable intrest rate etc, Im off to do that now :-)

Get my finances in working order very quickly! xx

getmore4less

steph123steph wrote: »

I have a budget, written down on paper :-)
But I havnt actaully wrote down the balance of each individual debt with the applicable intrest rate etc, Im off to do that now :-)

Get my finances in working order very quickly! xx

Budget, it doesn't matter how you do it as long as it is realistic and covers at least a years income/outgoings and any medium term known expences

it was the distribution of the ebay money that hinted that not all expences might be in the plan yet, allthough with savings pots getting ahead of plan is good.

The handy thing about using a tool is it does the adding up and so adjustments are easy to do. writing stuff down does focus the mind.

steph123steph

Yea I knew ebay charged but thought paypal was covered by this, clearly not! I will be wary in future but like you say theres probably lots of things I havnt got in my plan that I should :-) Im still getting to grips with everything. Better late than never tho hehe x