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

Lemon_Tree

Hi Em,
well done on your progress so far, i've not been online so much so i'd lost your diary. Well done on the weight loss much better than mine which since i 'went on a diet' has been going upwards. mmmmm something wrong me thinks.

I guess with all the numbers you've been playing at with your loan you mean you've been using the snowball calculator, if not then i would give that a go.
Personally if your cahoot loan was like mine before i changed it to a fixed one a few years ago, paying off the highest interest rate first is how i'd go, especially as i'm sure i've seen that cahoot are messing about with their flexi loans and hiking rates whilst i would hope (probably in vain) that as NR are in the government's hands that if they changed rates it won't be massive increments. But i can also see why you're gobsmacked at only 40p a month going against the capital.

Auntyem

flying_fresian wrote: »

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!

Still researching on this, but I reckon Asda is better for diet friendly foods, plus they seem to put all the whoopsies together, in a fridge at the back of the salad bit.
I did see some brilliant deals in Morrisons, could have fed me and DH for 24p with some lovely looking pie/slice type things, but sadly calories won over price :A

Kayleighpea wrote: »

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!

Hi Kayleigh, hope you are ok! Thats one of the reasons I keep ignoring MS emails at the moment, they all seem to be pizza :eek: I don't know if the rules are different now, but the last time I did them you could never get a profit :cool:

Lemon_Tree wrote: »

I guess with all the numbers you've been playing at with your loan you mean you've been using the snowball calculator, if not then i would give that a go.
Personally if your cahoot loan was like mine before i changed it to a fixed one a few years ago, paying off the highest interest rate first is how i'd go, especially as i'm sure i've seen that cahoot are messing about with their flexi loans and hiking rates whilst i would hope (probably in vain) that as NR are in the government's hands that if they changed rates it won't be massive increments. But i can also see why you're gobsmacked at only 40p a month going against the capital.

Hi Lemon Tree, nice to see you again . Yes I have been using ths snowball and it always tells me to pay Cahoot first. I'm not sure what's happening with Cahoot, first they said they were cancelling the "flexi" part of the product (so basically we can't borrow anymore - fine by me :cool:), then we got another letter saying they are transferring it to Santander.. so who knows

NR is shocking, but I think they are doing everything they can to get rid of customers so I wouldn't expect the standard variable rate to go down. The part of the "split" bank that my account is now with is the old company, trying to get rid of the dregs of the mortgage book. I think they would expect customers with my pfofile to go and get alternative products at better rates. But the sticking point is overpayment. I am having a hard time convincing myself to commit to a personal loan for 5yrs when ideally I want it gone long before then. My current plan is to get Cahoot down to 3 figures with all mse stuff this month and then re-assess.

Oh, and, morning everyone ! :wave:

Auntyem

Yay Yay, check out sig for exciting weight loss news :D:D

Lemon_Tree

hi my cahoot fixed loan is being transfered to Santander as well. this is bugging me as they don't know it yet but i should be paying it off in full at the end of March which would be 16 mths early. Trouble is currently as it's online i can get a settlement figure instantly and pay it off online whereas once it's gone to Santander i have to do it all over the phone, which slows it all down. Hope they work with their usual spead and they don't swap it over till i've paid it off.

Kayleighpea

Auntyem wrote: »

Yay Yay, check out sig for exciting weight loss news :D:D

Well done!! You're doing really well :T

Auntyem

Hello everyone, I have had a massive lapse in diary updating, the main culprit being work :mad: Things are so hectic it's been taking up all my energy and not giving me much chance to think about anything else.

However its the first of the month today so a good chance to make some space for my budgets and spreadsheets, and to update my totals etc. It makes me so happy to see the figures coming down

My big news is that Cahoot is GONE! :j:j:j
A relative got a little inheritance and passed on a round one thousand to me, which nicely saw off the remaining balance from the hideous 21.9% interest flexi loan. I paid the whole windfall off the loan :A But then I did feel a bit depressed for a while about having no money and no clothes. But I have just completed my snowballing figures for the month and I actually feel joyous again to see the total come down. So I am grabbing hold of the happy feeling to do a positive update.#

My DFD is now showing at October 2015:eek:. This is based on me paying an extra £100 per month to debts, ontop of my minimum payment. So a total contribution of £268.50 per month.

Now as we know, I could port the Northern Rock loan [lions share of the debt] over to a standard personal loan product and pay around £250 per month to clear it in 5 years. The reason I don't want to do this is that I want to clear it all sooner than this, and NR allows me to overpay.

So I now need to start my major NR destruction mission, which will consist of me chucking everything I possibly can at it. I also have my three other smaller debts left, overdraft, credit card, and interest free card. I will probably continue to tart the 0% so won't worry about that, but I would like to get rid of the other two as soon as possible.
Overdraft - £680
Credit Card - £408.

I think psychologically, getting rid of the overdraft would help a lot.

So I have a few things to think about now:
- check out where I am with matched betting, not done any new offers or updated my records for a few weeks
- set up a new spreadsheet to record total payments to all debts (previously was just tracking Cahoot and chucking odd amounts at the others when I could). I want to make sure I have a way of knowing I am paying at least what I have committed to on the snowball calculator, to make sure my DFD is realistic.
- Figure out if I can make a dent in my overdraft with some MB money

Thats about as much as my brain can take at the moment!
Hope everyone else is ok x

Kayleighpea

Congrats on getting rid of Cahoot! You sound much happier and more positive about clearing the rest of them now, keep it up!

Auntyem

Thanks Kayleigh I will try!

Continuing on the positive theme, I have blasted through my survey inbox this morning and completed or deleted everything. Then I checked all the survey sites and have managed to order:

• £20 New Look voucher from MyVoice
• £6 paypal from Ciao
• £5 paypal from Lightspeed
• £10 Leisure voucher from Ipsos

Very pleased about this as I will be able to spend the New Look voucher on something new and sparkly for free :j. The sensible option would have been an Asda voucher which I could have used for groceries and then I could have transferred equivalent cash from the grocery budget to debts. But new and sparkly won .

I have also made a new spreadsheet, which always makes me happy. This one tracks all debt payments so that I can check I am being realistic with my snowball. And the good news is I have already gone over this months committed contribution . I will monitor this month and use that as a basis for deciding how much to aim for per month, and hopefully from that get a realistic DFD which I can work on hammering down.

Lemon_Tree

well done for clearing your cahoot debt. I should get rid of mine at the end of next month
next i'll be hammering northern rock as well. strange how we're mirroring each other
good luck with the rest of your debts, it's really great motivation to clear stuff isn't it.

Auntyem

Good news Lemon Tree, how much is your NR? Mine is 11.5k now so its going to be a monster to slay but I am determined to conquer it.