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

spud30

Well, for what my opinion is worth, I would do it.

It means a fresh start when your boy arrives, and you can always build your mortgage overpayments back up again.

lunar

really dont know what i would do, it would be nice to have a clean slate when DS arrives though, but pandas point about finally paying off the £2000 without the mortgage is a good one, i think that would be a really good feeling.

Sorry you are having probs with your pregnancy, hopefuly your headaces will improve and he will turn soon.

chocaholic110

Thanks both. Still no closer to making a decision. Haven't mentioned anything to OH yet. Thought I would get the facts and figures first so will mention it when he gets home. He will probably go along with whatever I think though - he doesn't really do decisions!

Off to mull it over in the bath for a while!

chocaholic110

Well, cheating or not, we've arranged to get £2000 overpayments back from the mortgage. So once that comes through we can pay off the marbles card and when my pay goes in at the end of January it will square up what has been spent on credit cards and overdraft and hopefully leave us in credit!

Sat and worked out a budget for when my pay goes down. I have budgetted for our wages being the lowest they can possibly be (ie counting OH's monthly wage as 4 weeks at the lowest amount he ever gets, and my wage being 4 weeks at SMP). That way, anything OH gets above his minimum pay (and it's usually between £30 - £180 a week more than I account for) or if we get 5 pays in a month - this will be a bonus, not expected.

Have worked out that everything should get paid and we will hopefully have £150 a month to save - and more than that some months...I hope!! Going to put the £150 a month in one savings account to cover car tax / insurance etc, keeping another account for Christmas for Free money and a further account to stash away anything we can save extra - if anything!

Other money saving things we have done today

• got OH to phone Egg to get his Egg card replaced (we cut it up while paying it off). he currently has that account and a Barclaycard which he pays off each month. However, Barclaycard scares me as if we ever hit a month where we can't pay it the interest rate is about 22%:eek: . Egg is only 6.9%. So when his Egg card comes he will do monthly expenses on there (mostly petrol) and we will cancel Barclaycard therefore leaving him with only one credit card with a paid-off-each-month balance. I will do the same with my marbles card once paid, leaving me with only a paid-off-each-month balance (and DS is hiding it from me for the time being anyway!)
• cancelled Sky Sports, movies and music saving £25 a month. however I am slightly appalled to discover that many of the carp channels that OH likes to watch (ones with Saturday Soccer, bull riding (don't ask!!), 70's wrestling and western movies) are available for free anyway so it doesn't stop me having to watch them. Also realised that we have been paying out every month for channels nobody watches :mad:
• Did the Asda shopping to be delivered on friday, using MySupermarket, therefore gaining ipoints and making £15 in multisaves again. Found a free delivery code as well, so that's not to pay either. We didn't go shopping at all last week (other than milk and bread) and we are going to try shopping only 2 weeks out of every 3 rather than every week - will keep you posted how it goes!
• Pledged that we will try not to buy chocolate (shouldn't be hard as we have loads left!!), alcohol (OH is having a dry January, he says) and clothes (I do have a tendency to overbuy for the kids) in January and I will cut down on magazines. It will help if we keep shopping at Asda online.

Still need to try and install Orange livebox to save on phone calls but couldn't manage it today. Need to ask my computer savvy neighbour to have a look! However, I am feeling fairly positive about January - maybe a bit too evangelical - hope that doesn't mean I'm headed for a major fall off the wagon!

chocaholic110

Ah, just remembered, I need to phone Barclays and drastically reduce the overdraft I paid off with them - will do that now!

pandapaws

:j Hooray! You can make a debt free start to the New Year and new baby! I know I was probably the only person who wasn't so positive about the idea, but I was actually coming round to it anyway before I saw your last post!

If you're looking for a card to keep and use 'now and again' like your Egg/Barclays, the Argos (I know!) Mastercard is actually really good - you get 3 months 0% on everything you buy forever, not like introductory deals - really handy for emergencies and things you can't quite afford to buy outright but don't want dragging on forever. The downside is that it says 'Argos' across the front of it - not the classiest thing to pull out if you're in Harrods, but it doesn't bother me! The other huge advantage is that they seem willing to give them to anyone - me & DH both got accepted when all others declined. They also have a really good rewards system where you can get stuff from the catalogue really cheap without having to save points - worth having one just for the rewards alone. Just thought I'd mention it!

Sea78

Wow - you're doing brilliantly!

I've now actually packaged up the clothes and will take them to the PO on Weds Hopefully they'll arrive before the baby!

Sea xxx

chocaholic110

Somewhat back to normality today with OH back at work. It seemed like he had ages off when his Christmas holidays started but it's flown over. Trouble is, now I'll have to start cooking again, don't think I've made a meal for two weeks - is that really bad?

Couldn't sleep at all last night, despite being so tired I was nearly falling asleep on the sofa. Went to bed (reasonably early) and the wide awakeness kicked in. Ended up up and down until 2, then lying awake until 4 when OH went to work. After that I seemed to be able to sleep but only fitfully. Still, I feel fine today and it's not like I have a heavy day planned...actually I have nothing planned...hmmm...what should we do? No doubt DD will spend the day in the attic with her best friend and their ever increasing doll family as she has done for the past few days, and DS will have a heavy day of wandering around with friends and playing on his new Wii games.

chocaholic110

Bah, typically we've woken up to snow on the only day in the last two weeks that I've had to drive somewhere. Now, I quite like snow (and the kids love it) but NOT if I have to drive (living in a small village at the top of a hill with twisty roads leading steeply out of it will do that for you). Hoping the roads have been cleared a bit more in an hour or two - where's the gritter when you need one? Otherwise might have to consider other options - bus? taxi? hmm...

chocaholic110

Snow was still coming thick and fast so my Mam's partner came in his 4x4 to drive me to my appointment. Baby is still breech so have a scan booked for next week to see if any change, then will have to decide what to do.