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

moanymoany

themaccas wrote: »

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.

Some courses can be paid for in installments, worth checking. Postponing the course does not seem like an option because of the difficulties getting on and the extra £600.

Spendless

themaccas wrote: »

I have also looked at our savings - has been very healthy in the last few months now completely drained total: £1!!
Then..............I looked again and realised I had started a savings plan last July when we opened our A&L account. I very rarely look at this account because all our bills go out and these never change but I looked again and found out that the savings plan has been been going for 11 months and has the final payment next month. I phoned A&L who confirmed this and we are due to get the savings transfered into our savings account at the beginning of July. The amount will be £3000 PLUS interest at 10%. I can't believe it!!!!! How could I have forgotten that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to tell DH I think I am going to have to pick him up off of the floor!!!!

That is so good :T . Are you paying off your main debt with it? Really pleased to see you back BTW.

beanielou

Great news on your savings!

themaccas

We're not really sure, OH was speechless when I told him yesterday! It could pay our holiday off completely next year, or we could put it onto our debt and reduce it by a third or keep it in ISA savings as a rainy day fund, or keep it to do some home improvements when our tennents move out of our house as it will need new carpets, bathroom and redecoration. I am not too keen to put it onto debt as I am happy with our snowball date and I know we won;t be 'silly' with it as we might have been a couple of years ago.
It's great to have choices for once!

On another note we have managed to reduce our overdraft by £570 (25%) in 3 weeks by ebaying and working an extra shift and careful budgeting this month. I am chuffed to bits with that!

themaccas

Today I am sitting in a mound of bills/extra spending I don't really want. Have a electric bill for £33, then school photos. A set will cost £24 but without the mounts only £18 then a whole-school-photo for £19. OH took £20 out of the account for snacks:mad: meanwhil I have lived on only £1.20 all week and still have 80p left:A
Tax credits want £445 paid back to them which is money they paid to us inerror 4 years ago:eek: They can sing for it! And I have a note from National Insurance contributions to say they stopped giving me contributions towards my pension in 2003 as I wasn't working (I was on maternity leave and receiving mat pay) so they want to know if I want to pay them £1510 to cover this shortfall:eek: Ehhhhh......NO!
And I have only written 987 words towards my 2000 essay. I have writers block!!!
What a morning. Think I'll leave it all til next week:o

Snaggles

Fantastic news about your savings, but what a pain about the tax credits etc.

I hate school photos, they're so expensive and you feel like you HAVE to buy them. Luckily DS pulled a funny face on his last one, so we didn't want it - saved us a fortune! I'm hoping he'll do the same again this year

rayday2

With school photos I buy one 7x5 photo and then scan it and send it to snapfish and earn piggy points on the reprints!

I thought if you got child benefit then they automatically made your national insurance up but I am pants with tax things.

themaccas

Hi Snaggles, I haven't bought some of the school photos in the past because they were really bad pictures but this one is quite good. I love your idea rayday but we haven't got a scanner. I think I'll go for the £18 package a single 7x5 on it's own is still quite pricey at £12.25! I would love one whole school photo for DD so I think I'll get that one too but I won't buy one lke that again whilst she is in this school.
As far as the tax credits go they are sending me a form so I can appeal for them to write off the money. I remember frequently phoning them when these TC first came in to ask them whether we would be entitled to them as I was doubtful and dreaded this would happen. As far as the NI I have had to read the letter several times as I don't really understand it and I haven't heard of this before. Totally confused (which isn't unusual!)

Spendless

themaccas- I get a letter about my NI contributions every year or so. I haven't worked/haven't worked enough hours to pay NI since my son was born 7 years ago. It normally has a * somewhere and when you read small printsays that you get HRP (home responsibilities protection) for this time because I claim child benefit in my name.

I don't know all the details of whether you should or shouldn't pay it, but mine usually give a if you wish to pay you have till x date to do so and the date has been well over a year away if not longer.

Re tax credits. They came in in April 2003,and if you had a baby under 1 (which from reading your post you did), then you are allowed to earn a higher amount and still be entitled to tax credits. Plus your maternity pay during this time may have been less than your usual wage, and that's if maternity pay is taken into account cos I'm not sure. :cool:

Verbatim

Really pleased about the lovely forgotten savings acount, definitely the best money is unexpected money.