Moody's 2010 Diary

MoodyBlues

The payment was a little high, so things are tight this month. Paid all the bills though (there should be some more coming out early next week), apart from one which will have to be paid with next months pay. I refuse to use the credit card, therefore things will be extremely tight.

elfen

Moody, it looks like you're doing good at this!

MoodyBlues

Thanks elfen. Seems to be taking forever though!

MoodyBlues

Really starting to annoy me that the Lloyds debt is going to take a while to pay off. This is extremely slow going.
Tomorrow I'll be sending off the PPI thing (finally had enough money to photocopy the old statements!). Not really got enough money to pay for the recorded delivery but I guess you have to speculate to accumulate..
Thankfully the majority of the debt is now on 6.9% for the life of the balance. I just have to make sure that the payments are not missed! Not really sure how I am going to find the money to reduce this debt faster.

MoodyBlues

Sent off the PPI questionnaires. Hopefully something will come of it, seeing as many people who have been missold have had joy in their claims, but I'm not holding my breath.
Besides a few hundred quid that my brother owes me (which he's paying back albeit slowly), and a couple of grand my sister and brother-in law owe me (that I will never see), that's the final source of possible moneys owed me.
It will be the long haul now with the remaining debt.

MoodyBlues

Current debts as of June 2010:

Description....................Debt......Limit.... .APR
Lloyds Advance CC..............6713......9000......20
Halifax CC.....................7613......8000......6.9
Loan...........................4786...............7.95
Barclaycard CC.................1779......2100......6.9
OD.............................1000................0

Total unsecured debts..........21891

OD is interest free for 12 months (til December).

£150 will be going toward the LLoyds some time this week, so that will be less soon (the interest on this is ridiculous).
Finally less than 22k owed (solidly)!!
Also received letters from Lloyds re the PPI saying they have passed on the complaint to their Insurance section. Fingers crossed!
I realise that it looks like I am still using the Lloyds card, but I am not. The interest alone was £115 last month (and higher the month before)!! I can't wait to pay this off.

MoodyBlues

It's going to take forever to pay off the Lloyds. If I have a bit of time next week I may have to look into a second job.

MoodyBlues

Positive news today. At least one of my complaints about PPI have been agreed with, and I will be getting a refund. Trouble is they don't say how much.
I redid the snowball calculator based on the minimum I am expecting (not including interest and the years I had no records for) and that may well bring my debt free day down to February 2015!!! Had I not had my lightbulb moment and even if I hadn't spent anything on the cards I would have been looking at September 2016 plus having to find extra money to pay for the cards!!!
Once the PPI money has come through I only have one other lot of money that is owed to me that I can guarantee will be paid eventually, so in order to drop that date of Feb 2015 I will need to either, a. get a payrise (supposedly on the cards, but has been since October!), b. get a better paid job (worth looking into), c. try and spend even less (we have already cut back so much so not an option), d. second job (not an option as will not get to spend enough time with OH), e. competitions (currently doing freebies), f. win money (can't afford to lay out money so not an option unless it's a free comp), g. sell stuff (not happy about this but will need to look into this). There are a load of other options I guess, such as negotiate with the landlord to lower the rent a little etc. Dead ends are: can't put the council tax to over 12 months, can't adjust gas/electric much more than we have, can't lower the food/general shopping any further. Reduced outgoings as much as possible, therefore need to get more income. It would be nice if I could get a 0% card or low LOTB card for a short while at least but I don't think that's an option right now. I may try this a few months down the line.

Also it looks like I am on target to just having 17k cc and loan debt by the end of the year!!! I'll be about 1k out which is much better than I thought I would be!! Irregardless it would mean that 5k of debt would have been paid in a year!!!

MoodyBlues

Current debts as of August 2010:

Description....................Debt......Limit.... .APR
Lloyds Advance CC..............6600......9000......20
Halifax CC.....................7540......8000......6.9
Loan...........................4459...............7.95
Barclaycard CC.................1710......2100......6.9
OD.............................1000................0

Total unsecured debts..........21309

OD is interest free for 12 months (til December).

This should all be much less in the next few months, when some money owed comes in.

MoodyBlues

Current debts as of Feb 2010:

Description....................Debt......Limit.... .APR
Lloyds Advance CC..............9800......10800......20
Halifax CC.....................7420......8000......6.9
Loan...........................3620...............7.95
Barclaycard CC.................1580......1800......6.9
OD.............................1000................0

Total unsecured debts..........23420

OD is no longer interest free and the bank has decided in its wisdom to double the interest but it still works out as roughly 6.95% APR.

Unfortunately our paying down of the debts were derailed over the last 6 months and we ended up having to use the credit card. My mother in law passed away suddenly a few days after we had flown back from a visit to my wife's parents in September. Consequently she had to fly back (I couldn't get any more time off work), and we have had to pay toward the funeral costs. Add onto that several other issues and we are some £2k more in debt. The good news is that I received a payrise recently so now I can hopefully tackle these debts with a vengeance.
We still have a few hundred to pay towards funeral costs, but despite that I can hopefully put another £500 towards the Lloyds debt. That would still mean we are £1.5k worse off than in August. Back then I was hoping to owe under 20k by this point.
However now we are back on track, and I am taking to my diary again and debt busting with a vengeance. So far this week 4 NSD's.