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

Verbatim

Hi again.

Well done on taking back/cancelling stuff.

How long would the extension be for? The 90% on school fees would certainly be a major factor for us!

You're off to NY soon I think so have a ball and tell us all about it when you get back.

themaccas

Hi Verbatim the extension will be for another 15 years - up to age 55 so we would even be able to put our youngest through who is shortly to turn 4. It's a life changing decision really and I think we'll probably take the extension, we've been married nearly 20 years and he's been in all that time so we've not known anything else!

Spendless

Hi themaccas,

I've been reading your thread for a long time but this is the first time I've posted on here. Well done on what you've already acheived :beer: .

Sorry to hear you had a bit of a blip last week. Couple of thoughts I've had. Your signature shows how much of your debt you've left to go and how much that works out in % terms, would it be any help to put in how much you've already paid off in ££££s, so you're seeing how much you have acheived not just how far you have to go? Also are there any 'danger zone' times for you, where you could post and we could offer support before a blow out. Sort of on the lines of a slimmers class-LOL

themaccas

Hi Spendless, I have been thinking about changing my sig, the '%' isn't doing too much for me really. As far as 'danger zones' I think that could be a really good idea. I know when we come back from holiday there will be another 'threat to blowout' because I love going on holiday and having the excitement to look forward to it. OH and I were discussing what we were going to do this summer - the original plan is camping on the north norfolk coast. Then I started talking about going camping in France, this then led to well why not go to Disneyworld Paris, then staying in a Disney hotel. OH was good and said fine, but our budget is £400 that bought me back to reality. Of course we can't go to France and now a day later I can't believe I was thinking of it. So I think if I can hold back a day or so when I feel tempted, time really does seem to help me think through logically and stop the mad spending. I certainly wouldn't have had the blowout spend this week (I had last week).

SO the trick will be to tell me to book/buy things the following week if I feel tempted! I'll be back in the land of DFW by then!

themaccas

I've just got up, everyone else is still asleep but I am awake worrying over our finances. I feel everything is in a mess. It probably isn't I just need a bit of logic.

This time last year we had 2 bank accounts both with the Halifax - a bills account and a 'spending' account, Then we applied for a refund of bank charges so we opened a current account with A&L in case Halifax closed the accounts and moved all our banking there. Halifax refunded the bank charges and kept the accounts opened but we then decided to open Nationwide current account to take advantage of free foreign cash withdrawals. We were initially offered a cashcard account but now have a full current account with them. Then Halifax offered us their High Interest current account as we were 'valued customers'!!! So we currently have:

A&L Premier current accont * TRANFERRING TO THE HALIFAX HIGH INTEREST ACCOUNT THEN WILL CANCEL*
Nationwide current account*WILL BECOME THE 'SPEND' ACCOUNT
Nationwide cardcash account*TO CANCEL*
Halifax High Interest current account*WILL BECOME THE 'BILLS' ACCOUNT
Halifax current account*TO CANCEL*
Halifax current account*TO CANCEL*

So that will leave us the Nationwide for our 'spends' (food/petrol/pocketmoney) and the new Halifax for our bills (mortgage/electric/childcare etc). Does this make sense? I'm not really convinced that it wouldn't be better to have our banking all with one bank though.

beanielou

It might be easier to have it all with just one bank

themaccas

OK so I'm back on the ol' straight 'n' narrow and I have spent today transfering money, working out budgets for the month and making sure things are paid and with a lot of checking it looks like we have reached our total savings pot with a little extra. It seems an awful lot of money we are taking with us but I want to ensure we are not tempted to spend more than we have and this seemed the best way - to save up a big pot of money s o we can have a really good holiday. Hopefully we'll bring a lot of it back.

We have also got a 'car fund' which is growing nicely and is the compromise I made with OH when he recently wanted to buy a new car, it will be good to see how much we have in there by the time we are debt free. It is being paid into a high interest notice account so we lose out if we take the money back out of it. It is difficult trying to pay so much in but the car OH wanted would have cost us nearly £500 per month to pay off so I said we should try saving around that much each month and EARN interest on it rather than PAY interest on it instead.

Anyhow as soon as we come back from holiday I want to clear the CC i had my mad time with, it is really bugging me and I want it cleared asap. I managed to pay £100 off of it this month and will do the same next month but it still leaves around £1000 left to clear. Boy, am I regretting it now.

Well I have around £1.60 in change in my purse and I will try and get that to last the week, I am working tomorrow but not back again until next weekend so it should be doable.

OH has been offered an opportunity to go to the US with work for adventure training, it sounds amazing - 14 days in the GrandCanyon, Yosemite all for the cost of £140 (inclusive lucky him!!) so I have relented to that. We will need to pay for that soon but it should be covered by work expenses that he is owed.

So that's my update, I am continuing to budget to the nearest penny as always but it is easier than it was last year and once we have cancelled some of these bank accounts it should be easier still!!

themaccas

Just given OH £10 pocket money that will need to last him for the next 2 weeks, I'll wait and see how long it lasts! I NEED and WANT to get my hair done before we go on holiday. It costs £85 and I can't afford it really, so my options are:

Ebay some stuff:rolleyes:
Work an extra shift this week - can only work tomorrow or wednesday and even then I have loads of studying to do that I need to get on with:mad:
Take it out of the holiday money pot:o
Get it done cheaper elsewhere - still can't afford even a £10 cut on this month's budget:eek:
Don't get it cut and coloured and continue to allow my roots to show through:o

Oh decisions, decisions.................

Spendless

themaccas wrote:

I NEED and WANT to get my hair done before we go on holiday. It costs £85 and I can't afford it really, so my options are:

Ebay some stuff:rolleyes:
Work an extra shift this week - can only work tomorrow or wednesday and even then I have loads of studying to do that I need to get on with:mad:
Take it out of the holiday money pot:o
Get it done cheaper elsewhere - still can't afford even a £10 cut on this month's budget:eek:
Don't get it cut and coloured and continue to allow my roots to show through:o

Oh decisions, decisions.................

In order I would

ebay something to pay for it
work an extra shift (as long as you can fit it into your studying schedule)
take it out of the holiday money pot (cos you are £100 over your initial target, but you have to accept you have £100 less spending money should you come to the last day and find you'd really, really like to have/do something that could have come from the last £100);)
get it done cheaper
don't get it done.

I've put done elsewhere, not done as bottom options so you are not looking back at photos thinking OMG I hate my hair.

themaccas

..... I've just got a phonecall from the salaries dept at work telling me to put in a claim for holiday pay I have accrued whilst working the extra shifts over the past year. They told me the overtime and extra shifts I worked are equal to working an extra 20 days over the last year, I have acrued 1 holiday hour for every 12 hours worked and therefore they are going to pay me - £180!!!!:j So that will cover my hair cut and save any 'embarressing hair' photos and the rest I will put onto the CC I recently had a spend on.

However in true MSE style I'm going to ebay too. I've found a few things last night - designer clothing I bought in the US a couple of years ago (pre LBM).