To remind myself how far I've come - my debt diary. - SOA added

hypno06

Flippen heck! How can I have missed your thread all this time

Have just caught up with this for the first time (can you catch up for the first time, or do you have to have already been acquainted before you can catch up?) and am highly motivated by what I have read.

I too am bunging £1350 plus anything that I ebay, matched bet, find in the street, at debt, of which a large proportion is to the mighty Egg!!

If you ever get chance to read my diary, you will see that Egg are not my friends, plus last year, they referred me to a DCA in error, taking 18 months to sort out (although thankfully they seem to have sorted this out again now!).

But, anyway, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and we have much to be thankful for.

I will be watching your posts with interest - my DFD is still some time away but is coming forward all the time, and yours will be here before you know it.

Keep up the excellent work, and enjoy Easter x

chocaholic110

Thanks hypno! You are doing outstandingly with your repayments! I had a nosy around your board and you are doing great. Will be keeping up to date on that one.

As for me, I am having a bit of a spending crisis this month. I think I mentioned OH's car had just about died, well he got a "new" one at the weekend - "only" £500, but £500 I didn't really want to have to spend. Fair enough, he needs it for work (we live in a tiny village with poor public transport and even so he often goes to work at 2, 3, 4 am etc) but I am feeling as if this month is one step forward, 2 steps back.

Plus it is his birthday coming up - the big 4-0 and I really wanted to mark the occasion with a trip away. Have scaled down the plans somewhat to just the one night in a localish hotel but it is still going to cut down the debt repayments for next month. What do you think? Is that so bad? Am I allowed a temporary blip? Or will it just be the first step on the slippery slope back to huge HUGE debts?

chocaholic110

Forgot to say - got a cheque for £30 yesterday as part compensation for the gas being off earlier this year. The rest of the money went to our gas supplier, but haven't had a statement to show that yet. Will put the £30 towards getting rid of the Barclaycard asap!

hypno06

Morning!

My opinion re the birthday trip is that there is a difference between a blip, or falling off the wagon, and a planned or budgetted expense.

So, search around for a cheapish hotel, going through quidco or pigsback of course, or find a fab place to have a meal, draw up a budget for it and stick to it, glam up and enjoy!

If you had just decided on the spur of the moment to go to Paris armed with a credit card, then of course that would be a different thing entirely and you would receive a bit of

chocaholic110

So here we are, halfway though April already! The first half of the month has gone quite fast; the second half will drag as I'm back at work this week.

At least getting back to work might stop us spending money as if we were millionaires! The children seem to have had loads of parties lately, plus Easter activities, we bought a car and needed to tax it etc, I booked the night away for OH and myself for his birthday and I also booked tickets for a big group of us to go to the theatre (Did it through Pigsback and will get the money back for the tickets from the others but at the moment it is sitting there on my credit card account laughing at me!), plus, needed to put home insurances on credit card (bad budgeting on my part, but at least went through Quidco).
However, all in all, means that my Egg card that was paid off is now sitting at around £800! :eek: :eek: :eek:

A decidedly bad few weeks!

So the updated Debt amounts look like this!

Updated financial affairs for mid-April

My Debts

Egg Loan: £395 (Final payment next month )
Marbles Card: £4,040
Egg Card: £842.29

OH's Debts

Egg Card: £1,863.59
Barclaycard £571 (think we will have enough to pay this completely off beginning of May - at 22.9% it's priority!)

Joint Debts

A+L loan: £ £2,338

Total £10,049.88 - an increase of £758.29

It has felt as if it has been really hard to get under that £10,000 and STAY UNDER IT!

I think I am struggling for motivation now. Looking forward to end of April to get a big jump under the £10 thou mark.

facingup

Wow, it sounds like you have come really far, despite the increase recently... but really thats small compared to how much you have paid off. And you're not (hopefully!) going to make it a habit so you are still on track. Well done. Not long till under ten thousand for you, I know what you mean about being under certain amounts. Being under 5 thousand for me is a biggie! (debt at highest was around 9 thousand)

Keep it up! Would do clapping smilie but haven't worked them out yet!

chocaholic110

Wow, the months are flying past aren't they? It doesn't seem like it when I'm waiting for the end of the month all the time, but practically May already, wow! Hopefully soon we'll get some of that hot weather that the rest of the country seems to be getting!

Not had a lot of interest in our house. The estate agent did call yesterday and say they had someone wanted to look around. After spending the next hour having the fastest clean ever they phoned back to say the buyer had just put in an offer on the house they saw before ours and wouldn't be coming, gah!!!!

I suppose at least every month that passes means we are a month closer to being debt free when applying for new mortgage.

Ok, so let's see how the finances stand!

Updated financial affairs for end of April / beginning of May

My Debts

Egg Loan: £0!!! :j :beer: :j So thrilled that this has been paid in 22 months instead of 60!
Marbles Card: £4,040
Egg Card: £832.25

OH's Debts

Egg Card: £1,836.24
Barclaycard £0!!! :j :beer: :j Phew, no interest at 22.9%!

Joint Debts

A+L loan: £ £1,872

Total £8580.25

Total reduced in April: £711.34 (£1469.63 paid off and £758.29 added!)
Total reduced since LB moment (August 2006) : £18,395.75
Total reduced since debt at highest (January 2006): £20,303.75
Target for end of May - £7500!

wannasavemoney

Hi Choc, Just caught your thread for the first time and read it thro. Excellent going on the debts. Our DFD date was March 08 but hoping to get it done by Dec 07. Will be following your dfd journey to the end now and maybe we can both celebrate the demise of our unsecured debt! Good luck.

hypno06

On the bright side, at least your house is clean and tidy due to your quick whizz round!

Fab news on the Egg loan, I am still concentrating on my Egg card, it is now under £2000 so I am getting there.

The weather here is fab, I hope it wends its way to your part of the world soon (well, as long as it is still sunny here!)

chocaholic110

OK, so I am strangely over excited by the fact that I have joined the library today. I have got to say I LOVE books and reading, and the fact that I have several hundred books is not the fact that I am in debt *ahem* honestly!

So have joined the library (well, I say joined, I was a member years ago as a teenager but have a strange feeling I may have left owing them money. However, 18 years, one change of name and a different address later I am confident that they will not remember that - although it seems to be all the same staff...and they appear to be no older than they were when I was a teen. Maybe our local council just has librarian robots or something?)

DD and I have both come away tonight deleriously (sp?) clutching our books in a natty canvas bag with our local council's name on the side, very fetching!

And I am sure that my sense of excitement at being able to read all of those free books is hugely out of proportion but never mind. I suppose you have to get your kicks somewhere!