Starting my Journey

Ashamed_2 · 20 October 2010 at 9:28AM

It may be getting cold but the sun is shining for me today.

I recieve two letters from both of my highest interest credit cards.

Barclaycard and HSBC will start to pay off highest interest first from November

. Which means that those very dangerous and required 30% cash atm transactions will be gone in the first two months. This also means that I can now take advantage of the 0% interest until Jan 2012 that barclaycard offered me.

Ashamed_2 · 20 October 2010 at 9:36AM

* Monthly figures update.

We've done very well indeed this month. :beer:

Our credit cards have beed reduced by £687.57 from £31,978.68 to £31,291.11
Loans have been reduced by £418.37 from £26,748.23 to £26,329.86
Mortgage has been reduced by £316.20 from £163,179.87 to £162,863.67

Giving us a total monthly reduction of £1422.14 :j
Total Debt Paid Off so far = £9,857.93

If_My_Pennies_Were_Pounds · 20 October 2010 at 9:37AM

Well done :T Seems like you are really determined at the moment.

Kepp · 20 October 2010 at 9:59AM

It's all sounding very good at the moment

saorsie · 20 October 2010 at 10:26AM

Figures are looking fab Ash - well done you & yours :T

-s-

chevalier · 20 October 2010 at 11:16AM

Hi Ashamed
Well done on getting on a journey to pay off your debts. That is awesome.

Well done as well on you both giving up cigarettes. I am sure that you are already finding your energy levels are higher since then.

Ace that you will be able to have a big increase in disposable income in January. But can i suggest a slight alternative strategy for the money? Are you currently budgetting monthly for all the yearly costs like MOT, car insurance, servicing? If not perhaps you need to start a pot for this as well? Also what about an emergency fund so that you don't have to pay for anything major on the debts?

You were going to be £405 better off from January. If you saved that for 6 months, that would mean that if anything major broke around the house - fridge, washing machine, boiler, you could pay cash for it, not have to take out more finance....

Alternatively how about keeping £100 of it as a treats budget or to save towards the holiday you were talking about?

good luck going forward
chev

Ashamed_2 · 20 October 2010 at 1:47PM

chevalier wrote: »

Hi Ashamed
But can i suggest a slight alternative strategy for the money? Are you currently budgetting monthly for all the yearly costs like MOT, car insurance, servicing? If not perhaps you need to start a pot for this as well? Also what about an emergency fund so that you don't have to pay for anything major on the debts?

You were going to be £405 better off from January. If you saved that for 6 months, that would mean that if anything major broke around the house - fridge, washing machine, boiler, you could pay cash for it, not have to take out more finance....

Alternatively how about keeping £100 of it as a treats budget or to save towards the holiday you were talking about?

This sounds like a voice of experience, so I will heed to your advice.

We had a complete new kitchen put in at the end of last year. Well it was an extension of the house and at the same time we replaced all the radiators and went from a back burner boiler to a combi boiler. At this time I shopped around for insurance to cover everything. We took out appliance insurance which we pay £16 a month for at present. This covers the labour and parts of any of the kitchen appliances including the boiler. So apart form things like TV's and DVD players we pretty much have everything covered. This policy is valid for 3 years. I've already used it once for the washing machine so it's already paid for itself. But saying that i have been putting £50 into a savings account on the side each month for small holidays etc.

Ashamed_2 · 20 October 2010 at 2:02PM

I transfered money from HSBC and Tesco to 0% barclaycard today.

Which means I now only have 4 credit cards as HSBC is now paid off in full

.

When we joined here all 5 credit cards were maxed out.
Barclaycard ( £3,300 @ 21% & £8350.82 @ 0% until Jan 2012 )
Santander ( £9,683.13 @ 9.92% for life of balance )
Tesco ( £1,083.06 @ 0% until Dec 2010 )
HSBC ( £0 @ 19.9% :dance: )
Halifax ( £9,995.00 @ 4.93% for life of balance )

I've played around with quite a few snowball scenarios and have worked out that I need to pay the excess on Barclaycard until Paid off in full. This should be done just in time as the 0% balance transfer finishes and the 21% kicks in. Next Put all the excess into tesco's until paid off, then the santander gets the excess until finished and finally the Halifax.

I'm sure that as I get the debts down I will be offered other 0% rates whihc I will take advantange of but in the meantime I've worked out that the cards will get paid off as follows:

November 2010 - HSBC :beer:
January 2012 - Barclaycard
January 2012 - Tesco
July 2012 - Santander
March 2013 - Halifax

Ashamed_2 · 2 November 2010 at 3:40PM

I've been getting all excited and looking forward to January as I was told that we get some sort of child tax credit which helps us pay for nursery fees.

After reading on this site and a few other it unlikely that we will get this as we earn too much. Does anyone know the ins and outs of this as it's all very confusing.

I was under the impression that the term starting after the childs 3rd birthday, you then get 15 hours a week free childcare. I even checked this with the nursery and they agreed but when it comes to investiaging how we get it I'm very confused.

It appears that we need to earn less than £40,000 between us to qualify.

pennywisepoundstupid · 3 November 2010 at 2:13PM

Ashamed i used to work in a nursery and they sort out claiming for children over 3, they will just ask you to sign a form each term i think it was to state your child attended the sessions and then the nursery are paid by the council, also i was under the impression that all children got the free 15 hours, but things might of changed in the last 18 months.