Should I throw my surplus income at my debt?

immoral_angeluk

If you income isn't secure then a buffer would be a good idea in my opinion... even if only a couple of months worth to tide you over until you've claimed unemployment benefits and started getting paid..

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hey,

In the long term (if I do stay as a contractor) I will definately want to get 6 months wages as a back up. Currently as it stands, I've never had that much money in my account - ever! So it will take a while to get to that stage. It is good practise tho.

My current set up is I have a 'bills' account that me & my OH pay equally into each month based on a strict budget. All direct debits go out from there. I then have 2 personal accounts. One that I get paid into (currently at £300 into a £900 overdraft, it was at the limit until I started getting my back pay) I pay £200 to my credit cards and make a small transfer to my 2nd account for petrol, personal spends and annual things leaving a little bit behind which goes towards paying the overdraft down. This is how I have been reducing my overdraft by not living in it.

Strangely my overdraft has the highest APR%, which is why I'm paying it down first!!! Who'da thunk it! Shows what good SOA investigating throws up!

I have no direct debits from my personal accounts so I am responsible for paying my lump sum to the joint account monthly.

Before I started contracting - I would get paid, pay into the joint account, pay myself an allowance and the rest was ready to throw at the cards. This was all on the same day. Boom, all done in few transactions.

Now, it seems to take forever and I am always checking the date. Obviously the monthly system works best for me so I need to just 'pay' myself monthly and not worry about doing it week by week! From now I'm just gona check my account on the 1st of the month and deal with the month as a whole.

My poor brain doesn't cope with change very well I'm SO itching to be rid of these debts especially as I have done my best to up my income. I feel like I should be constantly doing something, anything! towards it.

When you don't have money to move around what do you do to feel like you're contributing to becoming debt free???

Whenever I'm on my laptop (which is a LOT in my work) I'm always very tempted, just to make another small payment here and there.