The amazing shrinking debt!

dreamdreamer

Well, all bills now paid for the month and OH's money for his half of bills and mortgage now in, and I have £418 left in account! :j

I'm going to transfer £100 into my "loan overpayment" savings account, and £93 into my Virtual Sealed Pot (my esavings account - put in any extra income from amazon, surveys etc) that I've been paid this week from Amazon. This leaves me £225 for the 3 weeks until payday. I'm working non stop until sunday so shouldn't need to spend anything until then. Then my OH is deployed for a while. It's going to be a serious test keeping to the budget then. It's easy not to spend when we're both here because we're happy to stay in, but it's miserable by yourself so I always wind up out more = more money!

Spent £42 yesterday, went to the cinema with OH and a friend, and then out for dindins and a drink (+ taxi home) - £16 on cinema, £6 on taxi and £20 on dinner and drinks. That's the first time I've spent any money at ALL since the 22nd, bar a grocery shop, so not feeling too guilty! I'll have overpaid my savings by £200 this month just from NSDs.

Bread currently baking for my homemade soup and bread to take to work tonight. Mmmm.

dreamdreamer

I'm starting to get a little worried about my budget this month, the social events are starting to pile in, I have a girly lunch/wine/cinema afternoon on the 17th, a good friend's birthday drinks on the 22nd, and the annual work burns night do on the 25th (although this is on payday so COULD come out of next month's if necessary). I'm down to £178 for 2.5 weeks (including food). Eek. :eek:

I'll just have to become a hermit! Or a tee-totaller...

dreamdreamer

Well, now down to £162 after spending £11 on food, dust and cage cleaner for the degus, and £5 on a few food bits. Feeling more positive about the month, it's less than 2 week until payday now so the end is in sight! I've pulled out of the burns night do as it's £45 just for the TICKET, before alcohol, taxis, etc! Extortionate! I estimate spending £50 on the girly afternoon and £50 on other bits before pay day, leaving £62 for food. Got a bit in at the moment so it should be fine.

I've just been using my loan spreadsheet to work out what overpaying at various points will do to my debt free date. IF (and it's a big if) I could save £400 a month and overpay the loan, my debt free date would be 23rd September! This year! It has given me massive motivation to get off my bum and do some overtime! That I could be debt free in 7 months has flabbergasted me. It is dependent on me doing 2 overtime shifts every month, but it's nearly always going, I just have to sacrifice a bit of home-time, which I think I'm willing to do when the end would be so close.

dreamdreamer

My new SOA budget for 2011:

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1400
Other income............................ 400 - half of mortgage and bills from OH
Total monthly income.................... 1800

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 550
Council tax............................. 143
Electricity............................. 32
Gas..................................... 34
Water rates............................. 30
Telephone (land line)................... 0 - OH pays
Mobile phone............................ 35
TV Licence.............................. 0 - OH pays
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0 - OH pays
Internet Services....................... 0 - OH pays
Groceries etc. ......................... 200
Clothing................................ 0 - from "entertainment" money if necessary
Buildings insurance..................... 0 - OH pays
Contents insurance...................... 9
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 200
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Experian................................ 7.99
Savings................................. 200
Total monthly expenses.................. 1450.99


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 116000...(550)......3
Total secured & HP debts...... 116000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
NBS Loan.......................7050......295.1.....11.4
Total unsecured debts..........7050......295.1.....-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,800
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,450.99
Available for debt repayments........... 349.01
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 295.1
Amount left after debt repayments....... 53.91


This is radically better than my old SOP, I'm managing to put £200 a month in savings to overpay the loan instead of just breaking even, just from the savings suggested when I first posted. Any overtime payments into savings are on top of the standing order for £200.

I really think I might be able to do the £400 a month thing and be paid off by September! One last slog to the finish line! :j

dreamdreamer

£52 unexpectedly landed in my lap today - a late xmas cheque from my great-grandmother (she was in Jordan and Syria over xmas, at 82! Amazing woman) for £15, and a £37 refund from British Gas. We've just moved over to EDF and that was the credit in the British Gas account. Plus EDF gave us a total of £180 cashback to join them (£100 direct into our EDF account, and £80 via quidco) so all in all I'm pretty pleased with our move. Given we're also paying £15 a month less for the same usage, and our prices are fixed until September, it's going to give us an extra £352 just up until September!

I think I'll shove the £52 into the savings account. I hadn't budgeted for having the money so I won't miss it. Every little helps!

dreamdreamer

MORE good news today - I phoned Nationwide to ask them about how I went about overpaying their loan, the leaflet that came with it said I could overpay either once or twice a year, depending on when the loan was taken out, by sending a cheque. So I called to ask where I sent this cheque, only to be told their systems had all changed in June 2010 and as my loan was taken out after this I can not only overpay whenever I like, I can also pay over the phone on debit card.

This will make life a LOT easier! I was so excited I wanted to pay right then and there! But unfortunately my excess money for overpayments is in a post office account which doesn't have a debit card, so I'll have to transfer it to my current account first.

I was telling OH of my plans to try and get this paid off by September, and my bid to do lots of overtime to make this happen. His car finance (the only debt he has and very much within his budget) is paid off in June and we were imagining all the things we could do with all the extra money! Without overtime we could be saving £1000 a month come September! That will massively help with paying for our plans to get married in style in Vegas. And will also mean when we decide to start a family we can get a maternity savings account going to lessen the blow when I go on maternity leave.

I'm so excited for our debt-free future!

dreamdreamer

I've just stumbled on the lost account finder on here, and have submitted 2 querys. I know I had a post office savings account as a child, which I took the majority out of when I was 15 to buy a PC for my GCSE's. However I don't recall ever closing the account and I don't know if anything was left in it, so we'll see. Secondly I had a nationwide current account cashbuilder account when I was 17/18 that I know I never closed because it's still on my credit report, so I've queried that (as well as asking experian to post me the account numbers so I can finally close them!). I don't think there's much money, if any, in any of them, but every little helps!

Also, I got my credit score from experian today. I know it doesn't mean much but it IS all relative. Since getting my loan and closing all my credit card accounts etc, paying off my finance etc, my score has gone from 811 to 917, so I'm pleased with that!

dreamdreamer

PAYDAY! Pay in, mortgage, loan repayment and £200 savings taken out. £1066 left. There's another £321 of bills (CT, utilities, mobile, insurance etc) leaving £745 for the month. I want to put another £300 in savings out of this. So I have £445 to last me the month, for food and entertainment. This should be more than doable. I wound up spending £420 last month and I did a massive food shop 3 days ago that should last 2 weeks.

Total debt is now = £6822
Savings = £1500

As soon as all the bills are out on the 1st, I'll transfer the savings into my current account and overpay my loan by £1500. So my debt balance on 5th Feb should be £5322.

JustBe_2

Well done dreamdreamer:D

You have managed so much so far, keep up the good work.

JustBe

dreamdreamer

Third time lucky with this post, it keeps crashing!

I spent £30 in pets at home today, £15 on essentials for the degus (food, hay, dust, cage cleaner) but £15 on some new toys for them, they're easily bored and had started bickering and fighting in the cage so I treated them. This was offset though by a £7.42 Amazon payment and a £9.15 Quidco payment.