twinparents07's joint diary 'doing it together'!!

twindad07

Morning,

I've made two PAD's today, I forgot the other day...
£3.65 rounding up the joint account and £4.23 rounding up my account.

I've had a couple of weekends without a game to referee, which was a bit of a pain but I'm back to it this weekend and hopefully most weekends after.

This month will be tight, but next month should be OK with two wages and still no mortgage to pay until November. Next month we have car insurance due for renewal, my car is due an MOT and needs taxing by the end of Sept which will come out of next months pay.

After that it will be good to get a normal month without any extras to pay.

Happytogetdebtfree

Evening, sounds like your doing good well done on the PADs xx

twindad07

PAD for today of £3.60, The interest on Virgin card is such a pain in backside. 26.9%, minimum payments only just about cover the interest.

Happytogetdebtfree

lol thats a plus sometimes ittakes you negative but soon it will be paid off justkeep plugging away x soonricardo willbe out of fuel when everyones paid off there cards lol x

twindad07

We've been a bit rubbish lately. Haven't been on here for ages.
We've made a couple of savings this month.
Car insurance has gone down from £127 a month to £94, still high but the best around - we had a few crashes in a short space of time - 4 in a year (only 1 was my fault - I try to blame the lamp post)
My mobile contract is the same price but I have extra minutes and texts now so I won't go over the allowance which was happening most months, so I should have any other charges.

On the down side we have to start paying the mortgage next month - £1618.
By my calculations we should be able to afford it, but money will be tight.

I'm going to try and keep this more up to date. I'm going to recalculate our debt once all the CC statements are in this month, see how much progress we've made...April 2016 here we come

Happytogetdebtfree

wow thats one big mortgage, nice to see you posting hope all is well how is twin mum is she enjoying her job xxx

twindad07

Morning all,

Its nearly time to start paying the mortgage again in November so its time we got back on track with reducing our debt. At the moment we are really just paying the minimum and cruising along without our debt going anywhere, we have spent far too much on takeaways lately and not enough on reducing our debt.
We need to look at our whole routine, we are not meal planning so we end up sorting something out for the kids and forgetting about ourselves, so end up with a take away. If we are more organised with our planning we will have all the food we need ready to go, saving ourselves time and money.
We also need to get back into PAD even if its a £1 a day, its an extra £30 a month going to our debt.
My dream would be to be debt and mortgage free by 40 - 9 years time, unrealistic at this point, but something to aim for.
First off we need to get the debt free part right. It has been over 6 months since I last used a credit card so the debt certainly isn't increasing, which it was 6 months ago.
Time to do some planning, its half term next week so I think it should be getting sorted week, tidy the house, sort the meal planning, look at our spending diary, work out a minimum amount to throw at our debts each month and stick to it.
Its time to get back on track.

twinmum07

Oops - a month since either of us last posted on here!

I would say we aren't really getting anywhere with the debt but have just updated my signature and surprised to see that we are actually quite slowly chipping away at things.

My first month's pay disappeared on clothes for the kids and things which had been long overdue. This month we have restarted paying the mortgage and things have been very tight but we have still managed to pay off above the minimum. It has also been the twin's birthdays so we have done well to keep things in check there. Next month there is all the expense of Christmas but we are hoping to have a quiet family meal at home so the food bill shouldn't be particularly big and presents shouldn't be too painful so long as we are calm and organised.

I have done a few surveys and was able to use my topcashback money to pay for DH's birthday pressie last week but just need to keep going with that. The twins have started at school 15hrs a week this week so that has meant yet more expense with double the uniform but at least they shouldn't need more school clothes for a good while and I should start to feel like I have more time to get on top of everything.

Right, best stop whittering and go get on with some school work as I have a big inspection thing on Monday so have lots to do this weekend

twinmum07

Right, have joined the long haulers support thread so am hoping that will give me a good kick up the bottom.

Want to start looking for some challenges to give us some goals to aim for but struggling to find anything just right for us. We have tried PAD but I tend to get a bit overexcited and overdo the daily payments and leave us below the breadline for the rest of the month.
I like the idea of an annual challenge for 2011 but guess it is still a little early. Our highest interest card at the moment is my Virgin card but our snowball shows that as being due to be paid off in June 2012 so it is hard feeling like our next goal is so far away. Once that has gone everything else should start to disappear at fairly nice, regular and motivating intervals but it is just dragging ourselves through this next 19 months first.

twinmum07

Avoiding school work again and just browsing the site for ideas. I think I will steal an idea of somebody elses (but I have read so much I can't remember where I stole the idea from but a 100 day task to tackle a number of tasks, including debt and raising some extra cash by clearing things out.

I love the idea of the £5 a day in December challenge so will join that once it starts but if I make a start on ebay with some 10 day listings then they will end in December anyway.

Will badger the husband over lunch to have a think about our joint 100 day challenge