Linds' Clear Debt By Graduation Diary

Linds88

Hi all,

I am pretty much completely new here, though I've been reading all you guys' threads for a while to get a feel for the place. I'm 21 and studying for a law degree, and I currently have two smallish debts I want to get rid of, ideally before I graduate in July 2010 with my degree. I know my student loan counts as a debt as well, but it doesn't enter repayment until April 2011, so there's nothing I can do about it until then, so until then I'm not counting it for the purposes of debt-busting

My two debts are my Natwest student credit card: £214.94 and my interest free student overdraft on my student account: £1,497.72.

My Budget/Outgoings
I'm lucky in that when I went to uni, my parents agreed to pay my car insurance and phone bill for me for the 3 years that I was gone. They give me no other money though. I pay for my own petrol. I also do not have to pay rent as long as I am studying (I will have to begin paying rent in July, hence why I want to get this debt paid off). Therefore I have relatively few essential outgoings- my only major expenditures at the moment are petrol for my car (around £40 a month) and train tickets to work (not covered by my season ticket, around £25 a month).

My Current Situation
I'm currently a full-time student, so can only work part-time. I work 16 hours a week as a Christmas temp in a shop (bringing in about £350 a month) and also have another part time job working from home. This is paid only on the work I do though, and I dictate my own hours, so it is currently down to very little while I focus on my temp job which is more regular hours. Ordinarily when I am not doing my temp job, it brings in about £250 a month.

I get student loan of £821 a term, which increases to £846 for the last payment in April. Of the January payment, around £780 goes on a train season ticket (I commute to uni) and the rest will be paid off a debt.

The last payment of £846 I will only need to use a maximum of £200 of for train travel, since I will only be going to uni 4 or 5 times for exams. The remaining £600+ will be paid off my overdraft once I receive the payment- so I'm considering my overdraft more of a £900 debt than a £1500 one.

My Current Plan

I'm planning to attack the Natwest CC first, as it has interest obviously, whereas the overdraft does not. The way I'm currently paying off my CC is obviously paying the minimum payment, plus any extra in my current account at the end of each week (e.g. rounding £12.54 down to £10 and paying the £2.54 off my card) and at the end of the month, paying off my card any money left over in my current account from my wages before I get paid again. I know I need to have a better plan than this, but it will work okay for this month until I've bought all my Christmas presents!

For the overdraft, since it is 0%, I'm placing what I want to pay off it into my ISA, and I will pay it off in a lump sum once I have enough so hopefully I can make a bit of interest along the way! I'm also owed £100 from O2, which is being given to me as credit on my bill, so the money that my mum gives me for my phone bill each month I pay off my overdraft (I know I could pay it off the credit card, but it came out of my overdraft so I'd rather put it back on there)

I'm aware I need a little more of a plan than this, but I'm in the early stages of working out how I want to pay things off at the moment.

I take out my budgetted money for the week in cash- any change less than a £1 coin that I receive back from buying things goes in a sealed pot which I will break open in July and pay off something

__________

This diary is just to record my spendings and keep track of what I've paid off really Support and advice is much welcomed, thank you lovelies!

Odette

Well congrats for making the first step :beer:.
I did a very similar thing except after I left and it was only OD debt so no interest. I found it alot easier when I set a goal for myself, on achieving that goal it feels amazing.

Good luck!

Linds88

Okay, so since I got paid on the 25th:

I had £331 in my current account.
I moved £100 into my ISA (£231).
I spent £4.55 on food (oops) (£226.45)
I paid £6.40 off my credit card (£220.05)
I withdrew £40 cash as spending money for the next two weeks, until 9th December (£180.05)
And I've just ordered my sister's Christmas present- £12.99 (but I should be getting Quidco cashback of 6%- every little helps!) (£167.06)

That brings me up to today!

When all the card transactions show on my current account, I'll probably pay the £7.06 off my credit card, and use the £60 for the remainder of my Christmas presents. I do get paid on the 23rd Dec though, so if I need to spend more on repayments I can always get some presents last minute

Spending from my weekly cash today was:

£7.75 in Boots for bleach and a tinting brush to do my ever-growing roots! Much cheaper than going to the hairdressers, how MSE
I have £12 left, and 25p is going in my sealed pot

I still have £40 in my petrol budget, but that'll change tomorrow as I desperately need some before I go to work!

Linds88

Morning I've just got up and am sat in front of Jeremy Kyle (:P) I don't start work until 12 today, so I have a few things I can get done:

Get petrol for car (£20)
Try and find some things for eBay (though I had a massive declutter about a year ago and haven't bought a lot since then...I'll try!)
Sign up for DooYoo? (though I'm still not sure how it works)
Tidy my room!
Find some lunch for before work since I don't have a break today, probably a tin of soup.
Package up my netbook for repair, since the battery won't charge (and I've only had it 2 months!)

I'm aiming not to spend anything out of my £12 left today, I just have to get some petrol out of the petrol budget and pay for my train ticket to work (which is £2 if I can get a space at the station, or £4 if I can't). I then have to pick my OH up from the station later because he's coming home from uni for the weekend, but I'll probably eat at home before that so I don't have to go to Tesco when I get to his (his dad NEVER buys any food...long story).

Linds88

So this is where I'm up to:

Linds88 wrote: »

[STRIKE]Get petrol for car (£20)[/STRIKE]
Try and find some things for eBay (though I had a massive declutter about a year ago and haven't bought a lot since then...I'll try!) (I didn't get as far as this but I have got some of my Lush stash out to maybe list on a swapping site later...)
Sign up for DooYoo? (though I'm still not sure how it works)
[STRIKE]Tidy my room![/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Find some lunch for before work since I don't have a break today, probably a tin of soup.[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Package up my netbook for repair, since the battery won't charge (and I've only had it 2 months!)[/STRIKE]

I also want to try and get up to payment on my other work from home job over the weekend- £20 is the minimum payout and I think I have about £13. If I make it I will pay that straight off my CC.

I have £20 left in my petrol budget

Tete_en_l'Air

Hi Linds, just spotted you on Cinny's thread and thought I'd pop over to meet you! You have about the same amount of debt I did when I was in final year uni, but well done for being so proactive about sorting it early - I never did and it doubled over the next year and took a further two to pay off!

Just a quick query about the ISA - are you not able to hold off on payments to this, at least til you pay off your CC? That £100 would have almost halved the balance..

Linds88

Ordinarily I would pay the £100 off my CC, but because it's Xmas present buying month I'm leaving it in there just in case for now. My aim is to pay it off my CC when I have bought all my Xmas presents, but I just wanted to separate it off so it wasn't just sat in my current account tempting me to spend it, in case I needed it for emergencies.

Cinny91

Hi Linds!!

Linds88 wrote: »

Sign up for DooYoo? (though I'm still not sure how it works)

If you sign up let me know your username and I'll add you to my friends so can rate your reviews for extra points. If you have any DooYoo questions I'll try and answer them for you!

Ooo to the Lush stash though, hopefully you'll be able to swap it for something useful (or a cheeky christmas present for someone?!)

Good luck with clearing your debts, seems like you've got everything under control!

coldstreamalways

And an ISA as well, you're doing so well. Millions of students won't have saved a penny and won't even be thinking about their debts. Well done and good luck!

Linds88

I'm back from work- and I managed to get a space at the station, meaning I only spent £2 out of my work travel budget, rather than £4. Maybe I should pay the other £2 off my CC? I keep trying to find ways to make small payments Now just to persuade my boyfriend to take me to work tomorrow rather than making me catch the train...(not going to happen).

I got a nice little surprise when I got home from work as well- I'd picked up some bits for my mum's friend the other day so she didn't have to pop into town herself, and she bought me a massive bar of Green & Blacks Butterscotch chocolate to say thanks! That's my treats for the weekend sorted

Linds88

Evening,

I'm currently laid in bed while my OH plays Xbox with his brother to be honest, I'm glad of the me time since I was at work today and we were besieged by Christmas shoppers- I was practically chained to a till for 5 hours! Today was another non (other than essential spends) spending day, all I spent was the £2.70 to get the train to work, which is the cheapest way I can possibly get there, especially since I have a 16-25 Railcard. I didn't even spend any money on dinner as my mum treated us to a Chinese takeaway!

Tomorrow I think OH and I might pop to town so I can try and finish up my Christmas shopping- I'm going to make him park in the free parking area BUT I might treat myself to a Pizza Hut lunch as I've had such a hard week at uni and work and I have a 50% off your bill voucher that expires tomorrow, making it no more expensive than grabbing a sandwich and coffee- it should only be about a fiver each with the voucher. We'll see.!

OH has also told me what he wants for Christmas and it's quite a bit under the £40 I'd budgeted for him (I also think he'd rather me pay off my debts than buy him presents, bless him) so when I order that I'll probably pay the remainder off my CC.

Finally, I found a penny in an odd pocket of my purse yesterday which I am going to add to my sealed pot a bit sad, I know. !