Emma's mainly debt-related witterings (with probable tangents!)

Kayleighpea

Hi AuntyEm,

Glad to see you're keeping up with your diary - I went a bit AWOL from mine but am determined to get back into it and catch up on those I have subscribed to!

Can't offer any advice on the mortgage front unfortunately but I'm sure someone in the know will be along soon to offer a helping hand!

How is the GI diet working out for you? I am being pretty bad with my food at the mo and havent even been working it off down the gym either :rotfl:

Auntyem

Hi Kayleighpea, nice to see you back .

Hmm well the GI diet... as you can see from my sig, not much progress so far . Although I do feel a lot better so I am going to stick with it .

Have done some quick swotting up on the whole Northern Rock nightmare and I now feel better informed. I have been mislead by the seemingly not-too-bad 12% interest rate, while ignoring that the 33yr term means I will be paying hideously more than I need to in the long run. So overall I will pay back in excess of £49,000 for a loan which was originally for £12,000. :mad:

So clearly this insanity can not continue, and I need to find an alternative to this situation. The good points are, I have a decent credit rating and available credit, so I should be able to move this to a decent personal loan product at a reasonable rate . I am hoping to get a five year deal.

So I have researched some of the best providers this morning, and put some calls into my bank and other lenders. I am leaning towards making an application to A&L who have the best typical rate, and then possibly using this to haggle with my own bank, or maybe just biting their hand off .

None of these loans offer overpayment facilities, so I would have to save separately if I wanted to pay it off early (and pay discharge fee). Off to do some sums now to double check I can afford the payments.

Auntyem

Morning everyone
Things a bit hectic for me at the moment as I seem to have lists of things to do coming out of my ears. I had a day out at meetings yesterday so the biggest list is now my work one :o.

So I will have to leave MSE stuff for a few hours while I clear the backlog. Have been musing about Northern Rock etc so have a bit of thinking out loud to post about that later.

Also, diet confession time: we had a curry . So am not hopeful for any weightloss this week, but have got straight back on the wagon today and determined to push on

Off to chain self to desk!

Auntyem

I cracked on with work early yesterday and then I did manage to get a few things done dfw wise later on:

- £15 V!rgin proceeds shimmied over to savings pot
- £9 jackpot joy profits joining them
- £45 oh's quidco money in
- £23 my quidco payment in

These are all going into a little savings pot for a week or two. Normally they would go straight off Cahoot but I want to try and get straight in my head first about Northern Rock, and the best way to play it.

My initial reaction was total horror at the total amount payable, I really thought I should shift the debt to a 5 yr personal loan. However, I really don't want to still have it around my neck in 5 years, and the snowball has occassionally given me hope that I could pay everything off before then. So an alternative (and this was kinda the original plan) would be to leave it where it is, and once the rest of the smaller debts are paid off, chuck everything I have at NR to get rid of it asap.

The problems with a personal loan would be:
- Monthly payment about double what I am committed to now. Am worried about committing to a payment that would pretty much wipe out most of the "leftovers" from my wages every month. If anything else came up I would be in trouble.
- No overpayment facility. If I was in a position to make extra money to chuck at it, it would all have to go into a savings account until there was enough there to pay off the whole amount. My problem here is extra "things" tend to come up which need paying for which bite me in the bum. If the money was already paid off the debt then there is no way it can be used for anything else.

So I am leaning towards keeping the NR product as bad as it sounds, and just aiming to overpay. I will have a mess around with the snowball to see if it can tell me if I should be paying things in a different order? At 12.79% it is my lowest interest rate so at the moment I am just paying the minimum. Any advice on this more than welcome!!

Other dfw news, completed another bookie last night making a healthy £38. Today I need to keep the momentum going and find the next one to start.

Diet news, back on the wagon after our little curry-related slip up, and I am trying to do my absolute best prior to weigh-in on saturday morning, just praying I will have lost something even if just one lb!!

Hope everyone has a good day.

Auntyem

Weigh-day tomorrow so still being very good with food :A

I don't feel like my shape has changed, but I will be really disappointed if I haven't lost anything this week, even with the small curry setback, thats nothing compared to the amount of chocolate, crisps, biscuits, and general CARP that I normally consume on a daily basis. I haven't had any of that sort of thing, so I think I deserve a little loss *prays*!

In dfw news, I finally managed to get oh to log into the loan account so that I could update my totals as of January month end. The loan is now tantalisingly close to 3 figures so I will be scraping as much cash together this month as possible.

A few more thoughts about northern rock have been swimming around in my head: mainly that its on a variable interest rate. So I have been worrying about the possibility of the payments going up. But I am still leaning towards keeping it and just chucking as much extra at it as I possibly can. My dilemma now is knowing what to pay first, because for every month I spend chucking money at other smaller debts, the NR is costing me £123 in interest.

Question for any experts reading:
Everything I have read says to pay off the highest interest rate debts first, as this will save you more in the long run. But is that still true even when the highest interest rate debts are for much smaller amounts and over a shorter term?

Off to do some more sums...

Auntyem

Ok I have posted on the main DFW board for advice about the loan as my head hurts looking at the figures!

Hopefully this should help me get a new plan together based on the responses

Auntyem

:j:j:j:j:j

I have lost 3lbs!!!!!!!!!!!!
:j:j:j:j:j


Ahem. Sorry about that. Just a wee bit pleased that all the carrot munching of the last two weeks has not been in vain .

I am so glad I have lost something, as this will spur me on to continue with the same eating regime and keep resisting all the general biscuitery and snackery that is being consumed by oh and kids and everyone around me. Also this means I can have the little bowl of salted popcorn tonight that I had promised myself if I had lost something .

Auntyem

Hello diaryland, this week has been so mental with work I have not had chance to post . Really seriously fed up of lots of things at work and I think it's sapping all my energy (either that or lack of calories:rotfl:)

But I have managed to get my inbox under control this morning, and have written lots of lists which always makes me feel more in control!

MSE stuff has been ticking away in the background, this week I have tried to keep going with the matched betting progress, even if it's just one thing every day. I'm up about £50 so far with a few little new books and a reload. I'm just waiting for a match to finish in lunchtime which should let me withdraw and then I need to find my next target.

I've just requested £50 withdrawal from Paypal which is made up of ebay and survey payments. That will go off to the debt pot. Also had a bit of a problem with one of my St Miniver sites this week, not letting me withdraw. It kept throwing up an error message asking me to contact customer service. There is no way I was calling them as I know I would get flagged as a bonus abuser and my account closed. So I played some bingo hoping that would do the trick but no, then I tried messing with my card details but it wouldn't let me. Then I noticed the debit card is actually expired BUT they have a strange button on the site that lets you edit the card expiry date (v confused smiley!)... so I tried this, and then it appeared to let me withdraw. So no money in the bank yet but fingers crossed, it is on its way.

I now need to get my balance down to zero so that I can add a new card, but I am stuck on a penny and there seems to be nothing I can lose it on :rotfl:. Will have to keep trying on that one!

Have been doing some careful studying of flying_fresian's Morrisons tactics and went on a mission earlier this week to practise. Was very pleased to pick up some reduced parsnips and carrots and made some lovely homemade soup which I am about to have for my lunch :A

Have to say I managed to find more bargains in Asda though, a couple of great whoopsied fresh fish portions, reduced eggs etc. I am finding it can be a difficult stand off between The Diet and The Bargains while looking for these in the shops. eg I got some posh local extra strong cheddar on offer in Morrisons, £1.97 for 400g. But I am sad not to be eating it . Am sure DH and kids will demolish it however so I know its not going to waste!

Have been fairly good on the diet front, I have still had no crisps, chocolate, biscuits, snacks or anything remotely junky. We did go out for a meal this week though but I tried to choose as sensibly as possible so I am hoping it will not have a bad impact on weighday:)

And thats all my news for now! Hope everyone is ok and having a good day

mooomin

Auntyem wrote: »

Have been doing some careful studying of flying_fresian's Morrisons tactics and went on a mission earlier this week to practise. Was very pleased to pick up some reduced parsnips and carrots and made some lovely homemade soup which I am about to have for my lunch :A

Have to say I managed to find more bargains in Asda though, a couple of great whoopsied fresh fish portions, reduced eggs etc.

Well done on getting bargains!

Our Asda is massive and I can't figure it out for bargains at all. Morrisons is easy for me - if it's after 5pm I'll find something!

Kayleighpea

Hi Em,

Congrats on the 3lbs! That's excellent! :j

I was not so lucky and put on 1.5lbs this week :eek: but is my own fault for doing fast food mystery shops and having a night out on saturday I guess! Back on it and being as good as possible from now on!

Sounds like you're doing really well on the money side of things too, wish I could keep as focussed!