Clear your credit card and overdraft help please..

zoominov

Im getting around £580 a month in salary whats the easiest way to clear your debts...

My debts are as follows...

Credit card debt - £564.20 - Barclaycard - student

HSBC Overdraft - £1,474.14

Now that i've got a job i keep on dispensing money and i have no need for it has anyone got any tips on how to stop spending money , the thing is last time i had a job i kept on spending money everyday as a student how can i become more stingy help please...

RAS

Your first thing is to find out what the APrs on your debts are.

You pay off the highest APR first.

Do a spending diary to find out what crap you buy unneccesarily and stop it.

zoominov

RAS wrote: »

Your first thing is to find out what the APrs on your debts are.

You pay off the highest APR first.

Do a spending diary to find out what crap you buy unneccesarily and stop it.

I don't know what the apr however the interest is £9.43 a month on the credit card..

On my o/d i get charged £25 a month 0% APR till £1,000 if i go over that i pay £25

To travel to and from work its £5 a week i get white coffee in the morning from mcdonalds for £1.19 so thats 5.95 a week and £23.80 a month

I should really cut down on that..

£35.00 mobile bill
£80.00 rent
£23.80 Coffee from mcdonalds

So thats £414.20 remaining to pay my credit card and overdraft...

podperson

Hi zoom,
Think you might need to make yourself a little more realistic budget Am assuming you live with your parents but do you never buy any other food apart from a coffe in the morning? You haven't budgeted anything for entertainment - do you never meet friends, go for a beer, go to the cinema. Do you never get a haircut or buy a present for anyone? If you have no idea what you spend on these kind of things keep a spending diary to keep track of it. Budget yourself an amount for these so you can see what you will comfortably have left to put towards the debts rather then throwing a lot at them at the start of the month and ending up dipping into them again later on when you have no money left to live on.

zoominov

podperson wrote: »

Hi zoom,
Think you might need to make yourself a little more realistic budget Am assuming you live with your parents but do you never buy any other food apart from a coffe in the morning? You haven't budgeted anything for entertainment - do you never meet friends, go for a beer, go to the cinema. Do you never get a haircut or buy a present for anyone? If you have no idea what you spend on these kind of things keep a spending diary to keep track of it. Budget yourself an amount for these so you can see what you will comfortably have left to put towards the debts rather then throwing a lot at them at the start of the month and ending up dipping into them again later on when you have no money left to live on.

TBH i only go out with my friends like once a month or so spend around £20 i get a haircut once a month for a fiver i actually don't buy presents for anyone i get paid on the 15th of every month if i pay my credit card bill like 2 weeks before i get paid , i have decided to go early to work and make a coffee at work instead of paying 23.80 a month that could go towards my living costs and debts...

Whats the easiest way of getting rid of the debt..as my work contract is for 6 months i need to get rid of the o/d and the credit card debt im not to fussed i just need to get the o/d down before 1,000 if you go over 1,000 you have to pay £25 a month in charges..

ah yes food i have like take-aways once a week so thats around £8 and food is also included in the rent i pay to my parents for the groceries..

HELP..

kaz0705

Unfortunately, the biggest lesson on the journey to becoming debtfree is becoming money savvy.

You say you don't know the interest on your creditcard? that's lazy! Come on! If you get paper statements it will (at least) have the money interest percentage; times it by 12! Everyone here are more than happy to help but you need to take a bit more responsibility for the debt so first things first, find out the APR. If it's online, there will be *somewhere* that tells you. If not- CALL! But call through saynoto0870.com!

Then, do a Statement of Affairs (SOA):
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html and be realistic- no amount is too small if you're spending it! This helps us advise you where to cut down.

Then, with whatever you can afford each month to pay off debt, do the snowball calculator:
http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

My immediate thought is: Why are you paying £25 a month (£300 a year!) on a free overdraft when some banks will do that free? (ie Santander- plus you could get 'free' money for applying for an account through sites like topcashback.com)

You're heading in the right direction (especially with figuring out the coffee habit!)- browse through these boards and soon there wont be anything you don't know about saving money!

tealady

Hi OP. Basically there are 2 ways of finding money to pay off a debt
Spend less
Earn more
RAS's comment re keeping a spending diary is one that has worked for many people as it makes you stop and think.
Can you work a few more hours, get a 2nd job, daily clicks, mystery shopping?
If you complete an SOA (even if you don't share it with us) then you can see where the money is going.
HTH

Lottebear

If you have finished studying, can you sell any of your old books? As there is quiet a merket for them on Amazon/ebay.

You could use the money to pay off your credit card.

HappyMJ

zoominov wrote: »

To travel to and from work its £5 a week i get white coffee in the morning from mcdonalds for £1.19 so thats 5.95 a week and £23.80 a month

Please tell me you at the very least take advantage of the free coffee's from McDonalds. You know that sticker on the side collect 6 stickers get free coffee. You have also made the mistake everyone makes and multiplies expenses by 4. There's more than 4 weeks in a month. It's 4.34. So accounting for 28 days leave and every 6th coffee free that should cut it down to 194 paid for coffees in a year £19.25 per month. Would you consider a flask? It's about £12 (check Argos) and contains space for 2 large coffees. Would instant coffee be OK or does the McDonalds coffee taste better? Either way it's about £4 for a 200gram jar of instant Kenco (which is the same as Mcdonalds) or a pack of ground coffee and about £2 a month for the milk and sugar. The jar should last about a month.

zoominov

kaz0705 wrote: »

Unfortunately, the biggest lesson on the journey to becoming debtfree is becoming money savvy.

You say you don't know the interest on your creditcard? that's lazy! Come on! If you get paper statements it will (at least) have the money interest percentage; times it by 12! Everyone here are more than happy to help but you need to take a bit more responsibility for the debt so first things first, find out the APR. If it's online, there will be *somewhere* that tells you. If not- CALL! But call through saynoto0870.com!

Then, do a Statement of Affairs (SOA):
and be realistic- no amount is too small if you're spending it! This helps us advise you where to cut down.

Then, with whatever you can afford each month to pay off debt, do the snowball calculator:

My immediate thought is: Why are you paying £25 a month (£300 a year!) on a free overdraft when some banks will do that free? (ie Santander- plus you could get 'free' money for applying for an account through sites like topcashback.com)

You're heading in the right direction (especially with figuring out the coffee habit!)- browse through these boards and soon there wont be anything you don't know about saving money!

my interest rate on my credit card is 19.9% every month i have around £420 to pay of my debts the interest rate on my o/d is also the same 19.9%.

0% interest until £1,000 if i go over that i have to pay £25 a month..

so i will pay £200 a month on my credit card which is £50 week for two months and £1705 in december i should have cleared my credit card.. :j

i will pay around £150 a month to get under my £1,000 limit on my overdraft i have £1474.20 left on my overdraft so how shall i pay my overdraft off...shall i get under my £1,000 limit first or shall i just pay of my credit card first...help ???

Yea i will stop buying coffees from mcdonalds and instead go early to work and make my coffee there..

Also its a hassle switching your bank account i've been with hsbc since i was 15 or 16 i checked the santander website just now and i need to pay £1000 in the bank account if i don't i need to pay 12.9% in interest...

zoominov

HappyMJ wrote: »

Please tell me you at the very least take advantage of the free coffee's from McDonalds. You know that sticker on the side collect 6 stickers get free coffee. You have also made the mistake everyone makes and multiplies expenses by 4. There's more than 4 weeks in a month. It's 4.34. So accounting for 28 days leave and every 6th coffee free that should cut it down to 194 paid for coffees in a year £19.25 per month. Would you consider a flask? It's about £12 (check Argos) and contains space for 2 large coffees. Would instant coffee be OK or does the McDonalds coffee taste better? Either way it's about £4 for a 200gram jar of instant Kenco (which is the same as Mcdonalds) or a pack of ground coffee and about £2 a month for the milk and sugar. The jar should last about a month.

tbh i didn't know about the free coffees tbh i don't care about the taste if i have to stop drinking coffee from mcdonalds and make use of the free coffee available at work..

wow £194 on coffee yikes !