the maccas Debt Free Diary - 20K to pay in 18 months

themaccas

I hope no one minds me starting a DF diary too, I have resisted for a long time but now our DF date has gained some urgency so as I log on here every day I thought I would keep a diary on how I am doing/feeling/highs and lows. Thanks to this forum we have managed to clearloads of debt already with a bit of luck and a lot of hard work. At the start of the year our debts looked like this:
CREDIT CARDS monthly amount / o/s balance / APR
MBNA 100/ 4755.01/ 0%
Co-op 140/ 6794.62/ 14%
Sainsburys Bank 250/ 7545.9/ 5.9% (lifetime bal)
John Lewis 100/ 901.42/ (pay off each month)
Next 39/ 328.88/ 29%
EGG 100/ 2670 / 0%
Other storecard 20/ 294.18 / 29%

LOANS
Northern Rock car loan 174/ 3372.22/ 20 months left
Halifax Car loan 313/ 4655.71 /17 months left
Black Horse 74/ 449.46/ 6 months 0%
First National 54/ 1396.39 /26 months left 0%

Morgan Stanley 10/ 673.73
Overdrafts 2600

TOTAL DEBT - then 1364 / 37111.46

Our current debt now looks like this - monthly payment/owing/% rate/term left

CREDIT CARDS
Amex OH 150/ 5488 /4.9% LoB
Amex me 150/ 5516 / 4.9% LoB
Sainsburys 745 / 5782 / 5.9% LoB

LOANS
Northern Rock 174/ 2072.61 / 6% / 12 months
First National 54 / 1021 / 0% / 18 months

Total Debt NOW 1273 monthly / 19,878.01 owing

We have gone from 13 seperate debts to just 5 and the bulk of our debt is still credit cards. This has all taken on new urgency as OH is leaving the forces in April 2008 and we desperatley want to be DF by then so we do not have to use his lump sum he will be given, to pay off our debts. A year ago this was to be the plan, we were going to use it all to clear our debts and now we really believe we could get rid of it all by the time he leaves. It will feel an amazing achievement if we do.

However we have a lot of things to pay out for between now and then and we are frantically working out how we can do it without creating more debt or reducing our payments. They are:

Buying a small strip of land by our house to extend the garden before we sell it. Cost - £2500 have saved £1100 towards it

DS1 is going on a school expedition next summer. Cost - £2700 have saved £1400 towards it (DS has raised 400 of it and will be raising the rest with mega fundraising initiatives with the school and through working)

OH wants to do a professional course in February to help him gain work in HR/training when he leaves the forces. Cost - 4700. He wil be able to get a 1000 grant towards it and we have saved another 1000 towards it.

So out of these we still need to raise £4100 (not including anymore for DS trip)

And what's more we have booked a family holiday to New York in March:eek:

I need to get back on track and start thinking....... so on top of this 20k there is another potential 4.1k to find:eek: .

Money is coming easily to me.......money is coming easily to me:o

moozie_2

Hi themaccas!

Great idea :j I always enjoy reading your progress and it will eb lovely to have it in one place

Good luck - you can do it!!!

Moozie xx

*zippy*

Good luck with it, I have a similar amount to pay off so I will look forward to reading your posts.

You have done so well so far, I'm sure you will do it

:beer:

themaccas

Thanks Moozie and Zippy, I think I'm hitting the wall now though though I don't yet feel I'm walking through setting concrete - that will probably happen in a few months. I had a luxury pedicure today courtesy of a gift voucher, would have cost me £27. I looooovved it and I just kept thinking how wonderful it would be to be able to afford to do this every month, it's those sort of thoughts that keep me going.

loubie_lou

That seems one hell of a mean feit! Good luck in you quest!!!!

oakdale_minx

Wow, good luck! I have given myself 4 years to clear £24k. I will hopefully have the unsecured cleared in the New Year and then I will be racing along side you!!

Iwill be reading your diary to take inspiration to try to speed up my race the DF finish line!

themaccas

Have been having a bit of a 'crunch day' with OH today. He is leaving the forces in 18 months and has been looking at what he is going to do. He has looked at various things in the past ie teaching but has decided to go into HR/ Learning and development. Between now and when he leaves he will be doing a load of courses to qualify him mostly covered by his resettlement package. However the main one he will have to fund mostly himself. He plans to start it in July and it will take 6 months with a cost of £4700. We have been working out the best way to pay for it and we have sort of decided to do the following.

He will get a £1000 grant and we have another £1000 we can pay towards it leaving a shortfall of £2700. I think the best way to pay this is to use my MBNA credit card which has a £0 balance but for which I have 0% on purchases until the end of January, giving us 3-4 months to pay it off (not sure how yet). The thing is if we leave it until next year the fees go up at the end of December by another £600 and he may not get a slot, the course dates he wanted in February are fully booked and there are 5 on the reserve list. So what to do..... we have a few days to think it all over.

themaccas

Just managed to pay a 'snowball' payment of £745 onto one of our cc's, hopefully if we keep paying this amount onto the sainsbury cc it will be paid off by May 2007, still feels a long time away though, the amount on this cc needed to pay off now stands at 5,065.70.

anniestar

Good luck with everything. I always love reading your posts and am sure that you will succeed. As regard to the training well, if you are positive it is what OH really wants then the sooner the better. Whatever you decide, GOOD LUCK

Verbatim

Wow, highly impressive result so far.
If you put the fees on the 0% card with three months to repay could you work out in advance how you'd do this? Or get another card with a longer period @ 0% for purchases so you'd have longer to repay? Presumably you wouldn't be tempted to spend wildly on it as you already have such a card and haven't gone mad with it.

Verbatim

Oh and i like reading about your progress too so am delighted you've started a debt diary.