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

Lemon_Tree

mine is £9041.48 not that i'm counting. After i've paid off cahoot at the end of this month i'll be able to snowball all that money into Northern Rock. Can i ask you - do you have internet access to your NR loan? i can't remember if i ever did, i think i started it online so may have had it once upon a time but can't remember any log ons or anything. I'm not even sure i'm allowed to overpay it so i was planning on saving up the money like i've had to do with cahoot.

Auntyem

Ooooh pretty similar amounts then, glad there is someone to keep me company on the NR quest.

I used to have internet access to it, when it was a mortgage. But now it is de-linked that login doesn't show me anything anymore. I can definitely overpay though, they told me on the phone that was the only way to knock off more capital. Statements are only quarterly as well which is a bit pants, so I think I will be ringing them up every month to ask for a balance. I made my first overpayment the other day so I need to give them a ring and check they have received it ok.

You could always try putting your email address into the "forgot my password" thing on their website and see if they recognise you?

eta: actually I think I just set up the online access myself one day using my account number etc so you could possibly just enter that online and answer the security questions.

Lemon_Tree

thanks maybe i'll give it a go. I only get annual statements from them, but i have a record of what the amount is and how much each payment is. Unfortunately they front loaded the interest on mine so i won't save much paying it off early cept the satisfaction of sticking my fingers up to them
i'm really hoping cahoot don't get around to passing the loan to Santander before i get to pay it off in full next month. Must remember to pull all the savings back into my account so i can pay it in full on payday and save as much interest as possible. Can't wait.... shame i don't get paid till the end of the month.

Auntyem

Hope it goes quickly for you, its great to get rid of something isn't it.

Well my payment got to NR the other day so I have just sent another seventy quid which was from quidco and ebay stuff.

Now I have to decide what to do about the matched betting funds. There are lots of big offers hopefully coming up over Cheltenham which I could do with the float for. I don't have enough to take advantage of everything but I was thinking I could focus on one or two. So I don't think I am going to be nicking any MB funds for my overdraft just yet. Maybe at the end of the month though.

I could do with a bit more regular extra income coming in every month, so I might have to start looking at mystery shopping again. I don't know if there is much around at the moment so will have to check that out. I also have stuff to list on ebay but I know it will take a lot of motivation to get stuff photo'd and written up (really need the rolly eyes here!)

Hope everyone else is feeling slightly more motivated!!

Lemon_Tree

can't help with the motivation for ebay cos i lost my ebay mojo a couple of years ago.
paying off cahoot has just got a step closer as i've just pre dated the transfer of my savings back to my current account, so that on payday (last friday of this month) i can pay it off in full. It's gonna help keep me on the straight and narrow this month as if i spend too much then i can't put as much towards it out of next months pay packet and i'll have to wait another month.
When you paid yours off did you pay it off online via their account manager function?
I got the grand sum of 1.29 from Quidco this month so i've put a pound towards an overpayment on the mortgage.

Auntyem

Yep it was a bit of a palaver actually. We emailed for a settlement figure and they gave us a figure which was more than what was showing as the outstanding balance online. They said, don't cancel the direct debit though as depending on the exact day you pay, we might need to refund you a bit. So we sent the payment and then when it ledgered the account showed a credit. So DH contacted them again requesting the refund, at which point they said they could only issue a cheque (deffo need rolly eyes here). So we are still waiting for that to arrive. But the direct debit has been cancelled now.

Lemon_Tree

thanks that helps me, at least i know now what i should expect when i do 'request the outstanding balance'. I was kind of hoping that i could pay it off by debit card there and then. can't wait to cancel that DD as it's been hanging over my head for some many years. For the first few years it was a flexi loan but as i kept taking it back to the limit every couple of months or so i converted it to a fixed one.

Auntyem

Hello, sorry I have been absent for so long. Work is the main culprit but I have managed to do some debtbusting too. Have just completed my budgets / calculations for next month so I have updated my signature, pleased to report have now paid off 16% and my total has gone to less than 14k .

It makes me happy to do the totals every month and play with my spreadsheets . Here are some statistics from this month...
I have paid £414.24 towards debts this month
£167.05 of this is made up of the minimum payments.
This means I have scraped £247.19 from savings / mse type stuff which I am quite happy with. I was lucky to be able to do this as my contribution to bills went down a bit as there was no council tax. So it will be a huge struggle to match this next month but I am going to make it a little challenge for myself.
April Challenge #1 - Total debt payments £414.24!

Out of my £414.24, £279.72 (£68%) has gone to reducing the capital owed. :o:o
So 32% of my payments have been swallowed by interest. The only way to get this down is to PAY MORE.

I have noticed my naughty tendancy to buy lunch has started creeping back in this month, so I plan to have a crackdown on this. Although this will have to start tomorrow as I don't have anything with me today .
April Challenge #2 - No work lunch spending!

I also need to update my diary more often. I find it so helpful reading other people's diarys for inspiration and motivation [STRIKE]and stealing all their ideas[/STRIKE] , I need to remember to note down what I am doing on a daily basis as it might help someone else.
April Challenge #3 - Report debtbusting efforts on diary!

Lemon_Tree

hi em,
I contacted Santander on saturday to pay off my loan ( they turned off my internet access the week before!) and have a one off DD going out for the balance in the next day or so, then they will take the final Dd on the 15th and it's done and dusted. Yay!

well done for paying so much off your capital this month. It's lovely to see how we're able to pay off more than the minimums when it's not so long ago that we were only just able to make the minimum payments.

Auntyem

Yay :j:j

Well done on getting rid of Cahoot! Looking forward to tackling NR with you