Corona007's random ramblings

Corona007

Firstly let me say hello and thanks for popping in! :beer:

Well where shall I start? Perhaps here. I'm visiting this board for the same reason as many of you - I'm really bad at managing my money. My weakness is twofold. I am travel mad and love jetting off to new places and like many blokes of my age I also spend too much money on gadgets and technology that frankly I don't need. Couple that with being a monumental failure at planning my cash flow properly and you get where I am today - in debt and totally fed up with it.

I've always had some form of debt since I left university 10 years ago but my situation really arose over the last four years. I work very long hours and regularly work away from home for long periods of time. It sounds daft but as a result I've barely looked at my finances and don't always have time to open and read my post. My view has been that so long as I have cash in my pocket and keep paying the minimum on my cards then all would be ok. Add to this a spending habit that is not sustainable and I was in short burying my head in the sand. The problem with this approach is that I'm forever coming home to a large holiday bill or council tax bill that I haven't budgeted for. My usual solution was to chuck it onto a credit card and "I'll sort it out later" - something of course I never quite get round to doing.

I had my LBM on New Year's day this year. The night before over a few beers I had been discussing with friends where to go travelling this year and I decided to look at which card had enough credit to book a flight. It just so happens that I picked up my Halifax cc statement and my eye was drawn to one line which read "Typical 27.95% APR". I have £4,400 on that card and when I looked even closer I saw that my minimum payments were barely covering the interest accumulating each month. The last time I looked at that card it had been on a 0% deal - just goes to show how little attention I payed!

This worried me so I spent a few hours going through my finances and pulling it all together in a spreadsheet. In total I found across 5 credit cards and my overdraft I have £18,886 of debt. Almost £12k of that is from the last 4 years. I was shocked and sat staring at the numbers certain that they were wrong. A bit more digging and I discovered some eye opening facts. Last year I was charged hundreds of pounds in interest yet it seems I am owed over £2k from people and organisations I haven't got round to chasing up. It was a wake up call. Well that is factually incorrect - it was a sleepless night to be more precise.

So here I am. I want to finally rid myself of this debt and start spending my money on my own terms again. Because I am fortunate enough to have had my LBM before it really got out of control I can start attacking my debts positively and with a clear plan. For me it is just about cutting out unnecessary spending and managing my cashflow properly. I'm sure I'll have plenty of ups and downs but I'm determined to win.

I decided to join the £10k in '10 challenge to get me started and rather than do an SOA now I'm logging all my spending this month to analyse later. I've no idea if it is possible to pay off 10k but I'll give it a damn good try. I also decided to start writing this diary - not out of an egotistical desire to publish my comings and goings but to give me all the motivation I need to keep going. Hopefully though it will be interesting, informative and perhaps even occasionally be funny so it may be entertaining for everyone else too.

Oh yes I almost forgot. It seems I spent £463 pounds in Starbucks last year and at the same time I've been making monthly "repayments" to one of my credit cards that was paid off over six months ago. What does this tell us? Firstly that I was right - I am rubbish with money - and secondly that this diary may just raise a smile or two.

See you around. Corona007

Kittenkirst

Hi there Corona007,
Welcome to the club Well done for picking up your debts and taking control of them, i find doing a diary helps a lot as well as chatting with peeps in the forum! The 10k thread is ace for ideas to make money, the grabbits board is great for cheap stuff when you do really need to purchase something (often links to voucher codes or store glitches).

Have you looked into the debt 'snowballing' on the internet- dont think i can post links but if you google makesenseofcards and click on snowball calculator; you enter all your debts and rates, it then sorts your debts and can provide a monthly breakdown meaning you pay off the most costly debts first whilst still paying minimum balances. I found it a really good was to prioritise the debts and provided a month by month list of amounts to pay each debt

Keep it up and heres to a fab -and thrifty- 2010!
KP

Corona007

Yes I've looked at the snowball calculator and I think I can tweak the payments I'm making but I'm awaiting on a Virgin 0% card application decision and want to factor that in (should I get it!) before making any changes. First to go if I do will be that Halifax card :mad:.

Corona007

Well, I've continued to trawl through mountains of paper work and start to properly understand where my spending has gone astray and it is proving enlightening

I've come up with an approach to starting paying off 10k worth of debt this year. Firstly I've increased my overdraft limit and secondly I've applied for another Credit Card. :rolleyes:

Confused? Bear with me though as there is reason in my madness. Looking at my bank statements I have hit or exceeded my OD limit 5 out of the last 6 months which costs me on average £30 per month in fees. By increasing my limit I've given myself a bit more wriggle room each month whilst payments are going in and out to ensure I don't incur any more costs than necessary.

The CC I applied for is a Virgin 0% which if they give me it will be used to cover the higher rate interest cards that are first on my snowball hitlist. Ideally that will help me stop accruing more interest on them whilst I focus on paying off the lower rate cards first. Once done I switch to paying off the Virgin card.

Just got to wait for them to respond to my application, otherwise it is back to the drawing board.

Corona007

In the mean time I've focussed on debts that are owing to me as there could be some quick wins there if I can recover the money. First on the list is Atlantic Energy who screwed up my final bill at my previous property and overcharged me about £120 but still have not coughed up a refund. Took lots of moaning but have been assured the check is on the way in the next 5-10 days.

Also discovered that a camera I purchased last year is eligible for a £35 refund if I register my details with Canon. Well for the first time in my life I have found a reason to read those bloomin' warranty cards in the box :cheesy:. I'm sure I'll get a mailbox full of spam in return but hopefully a £35 check too. As they say, every little helps.

Finally I turned down my thermostat 2 degrees. Not because it'll help save me money but it seems the people in the apartment below me are cold with all the snow about and have turned theirs up. :T

Corona007

Well I have to say all the gut wrenching shock of my LBM is now replaced with a feeling of overwhelming positivity about the whole thing. There is a masochistic part of me that is enjoying this challenge now!

I've been keeping a record of everything I've been spending the last few days with the intention of compiling and using a whole month's worth of information to find areas to cut back for the rest of the year.

Only problem though is that I'm not sure I am spending "normally" and I think I am subconsciously cutting back when walking round the supermarket and telling myself - "you don't need that Corona007". This will either mean I'll look at the data in 3 weeks and find it hard to cut back much more, or if I try and spend naturally I'll end up increasing my debts this month by wasteful spending :rolleyes:.

But on the plus side, my first cc payments of the year have gone out and I'm on the way.....

TheLightFantastic

Hello!!

Thanks for having a browse at my diary. I am so pleased to find more people who are in similar situations as myself and see them also trying to get their lives sorted. The thing about keeping a spending diary is that even though you believe you aren't spending normally (and if anyone can honestly say that when they kept their first one they did - I'll eat my hat) you are starting to question and logically work through your purchasing decisions. That is the single most valuable lesson. I'm convinced that I'm in debt because I make emotional decisions about spending -its usually goes like ...."oh, I really need to travel to x number of countries before I reach x age and get a mortgage and consider setting down and having a family...blah blah..." and lo and behold, I'm on the hotline to my bank for a loan or taking my credit card out for a long run. I now know that all the travelling I've done could still have been achieved on savings had I taken a more rational apprach and opted for shorter holidays or been sensible about the number of places I wanted to visit. That said, there is nothing like the feeling of being somewhere where as a kid you never could have imagined going!
Am subscibing to your thread and am really pleased that you are dealing with your debt!

Corona007

Hey TLF. That sounds eerily like my thought process - spontaneous and without logical thought processes being engaged. I have a history of booking trips away when I get itchy feet and drunk. And no prizes for guessing how I pay for them....:o

Well hopefully we can persuade each other to be more sensible and only go travelling when it is affordable*. I'm looking forward to reading how you get on too....

(* for any given value of "affordable" )

Corona007

I have to admit that one of my guilty pleasures is people watching and there is no better place to do that than in London. I was sitting on the tube at some unhealthy hour this morning and like everyone else was reading the local metro. It just so happens this morning that there was an article saying that 1 in 10 men admitted they had paid for sex and some ridiculous percentage said they had been to a strip club. Was highly amusing seeing all the women purse their lips as they read it and start thinking "just wait till I get home. I'll be asking him whether he has too..." I suspect there are lots of poor blokes getting the third degree tonight.

But I digress. Not too much to say on the debt busting today as I'm still waiting for various cheques to be sent to me to start some serious repayments. So in the mean time I've consoled myself with sending an official letter to a previous landlord that owes me money that if he doesn't cough up I'll be taking him to court in 14 days (a long story I'll share some other time). My life is never dull at least!

Lemon_Tree

well done for joining the diary threads, they are a great help, you find out new things and get lots of support and ideas for how to clear your debts. stick around with us, we're generally a nice bunch and we all know what you'll be going through.

Corona007

Cheers Lemon Tree, I'm enjoying my brief time here already. Unfortunately I suspect that I won't be updating this diary for the next week or so though. Don't think I have given up so soon though dear reader(s) - it is just that I'm off to India tomorrow and I'm not sure whether I'll get much opportunity to log on to the web out there. And no, I haven't cracked up and booked myself another holiday on my credit card, this one is a business trip (and may I say it couldn't have come at a better time to go :snow_laug)

Strange how your perspective on things change so quickly. Two weeks ago I would have said "woo hoo, another country to visit and new places to see". Now I'm just happy that I have 7 consecutive days in which I don't have to spend any money! Well that plus I might just get a good curry out there...