New Year New Me, the journey continues.........

moo2moo

Check your loans paperwork before you get too carried away just in case theres a charge for clearing it early.

thrifty_fifty

Good thinking Moo. I'll be glad when this lot of monsters are out of my life.

thrifty_fifty

Have taken the difficult decision not to attend interview for net a porter. This is a basic position and I just don't think it will pay enough to cover my travel costs, let alone leave me enough to pay debts off. OH and I have decided that we are going to go to London next year, when all our debts are paid off.

Tough decision, but need something at least in central london, and this was near the 02 arena, so a train, an hours tube journey and then a bus. That just isn't sustainable every day.

thrifty_fifty

Have decided that I'm going to have a go at creating my own wallpaper and fabrics. Going to do a bit of research on drawings etc to use, getting a printing screen etc. Quite like those victorian style outlines of flowers, artichokes etc-you know the ones that are just a black outline?

Might go onto way of the bay, to source some old books on identifying plants and birds, might be some good inspiration there!

chevalier

sounds like a good decision ref net a porter. that is one hell of a commute, and it only takes a derailment or something to double the time too.

nice one on paying off the card, good luck with your next target
chev

thrifty_fifty

Just checked my Barclaycard online again this morning. Still not allocated. Grrrrrrrrrrr, I can't stand the suspense!!

thrifty_fifty

Finally!!! I checked this morning and it reads zero. I just sat for a good 5 minutes staring at the screen, with a warm feeling inside. So today's task is to cancel that card. I'm not sure if there will be any interest on the next statement to pay, so whether I'll have to wait until then before I can cancel it, I'm not sure.

Also thanks are due to the wise words of moo2moo. I went into the bank yesterday to see if I would incur any charges for paying my loan off early, and I would, so I'm leaving it to run, until it is due to end in August.

So next target is Virgin card, and to be honest this is the one I'm most keen to get rid of. They have hiked the interest rates on several occasions, and now I have fixed it and frozen the card, earlier last year, so that will automatically close when I have finished paying it. I'm getting closer to that target day, by day.

moo2moo

August really isn't that far away and it'll be doubly nice to know that your loan will go away slowly in the background allowing you to concentrate on the Virgin card. The interest you pay on that will also reduce month by month which means your overall total will come down far faster. It'll all be gone before you know it!

Would I be right in thinking you'll be perilously close to debt free by Christmas?

thrifty_fifty

Thanks Moo

I'll be debt free by August/September. Next month I can start paying £600/month and the month after that £700. If my job does go, the new team will be up and running by 1st August, so I'm trying to get this lot as low as possible before 31st July. Last loan payment comes out on 25th August, so I'm going to keep the final payment set aside as an emergency fund.

I'm also going to flog a load of ebay stuff. If I sold the lot for what I wanted, that alone comes to £3,500, but even if I sold £500 worth of stuff then that would help, and mean I could be debt free by my target.

thrifty_fifty

Right, so I made the lovely phonecall today, to close my Barclaycard account, which was great. It took a whopping 8 minutes 58 seconds to get through it, which should bump my phone bill up. They tried every tactic they could to get me to stay and to transfer a balance, but I was having none of it. They buttered me up to start off with by thanking me for being such a good customer with an excellent history, having never missed a payment or making a late payment.

Just have the interest to pay on my next statement. I tried to pay it right then and there, but they said I have to wait until the next statement because they don't know what exactly the amount will be. Hmmm, I'm sure that isn't true because I won't be able to use the card because I just closed the account, and you know that rate and that it will be just 4 days that the interest will have accrued over. I won't be able to access my online account because the account is now closed, so I will have to do another 0845 call to pay that off. The patronising person even asked if I knew the difference between a debit and credit card. I soooo wanted to reply with 'yes, one charges you interest at an alarming rate, and the other charges you none'

Anyhow, one bites the dust and just two more to go. I've printed off a copy of the zero balance on screen statement and put this on the fireplace at the end of the bed. This way, it is the first thing that my eyes catch on when I wake in the morning, and I can be reminded of my achievement.

Off to sleep now. Going to spend tomorrow planning where to go on my London travels on monday. I think Libertys is definitely in order.

xx