Lisa's Debt Diary - The Beginning!

lvm

Payday has arrived! :j

Have sorted out all my little transfers and paid my Mum the last of the money owed to her so now I'm left with just £3,684.61 left to pay at a lovely £30.14 a month.

Main savings account is up to £9,530 - can't wait til it hits £10k next month. And not much happening with other savings accounts. Got to pay for my motorbike lessons soon so need to keep all the money I have.

2 months into new energy provider and I STILL haven't got my refund from last one :mad:. Maybe I'll charge them interest!!

Checked my TCB account and it turns out the £80 in it doesn't become payable until end of January Was hoping to use some of that for Crimbo pressies as well. Never mind!

On the bright side, I did get accepted for a £34 mystery shop! Slightly nervous though that it's for a laser eye consultation and I'm not even allowed to drive home myself :eek: Scary....

Anyway, better be off and at least pretend I'm doing a wee bit of work!

Cheery bye! x

prettypaula

i think its really great that youve saved so much money, but you arent TRULY saving if you have debts.

its also going to really help your credit status if you settle them all now...

you are in a position to clear the lot and still have savings, i just dont get why you arent doing it?

lvm

prettypaula wrote: »

i think its really great that youve saved so much money, but you arent TRULY saving if you have debts.

its also going to really help your credit status if you settle them all now...

you are in a position to clear the lot and still have savings, i just dont get why you arent doing it?

I get 10% interest on my savings and all debt is 0% because it defaulted over 3 years ago so I am truly saving by having debts. I won't be needing credit for another 3 years when I'll have a clean credit file (with the CCs I have with perfect payment history) so there's no point in losing interest in order to pay the debt.

So I come out with more money by not paying the debt now...

prettypaula

lvm wrote: »

I get 10% interest on my savings and all debt is 0% because it defaulted over 3 years ago so I am truly saving by having debts. I won't be needing credit for another 3 years when I'll have a clean credit file (with the CCs I have with perfect payment history) so there's no point in losing interest in order to pay the debt.

So I come out with more money by not paying the debt now...

yes, but the debts wont go away just because they are no longer on file, and if settled and you want to say get a mortgage in 18 months time you will likely get one, where as if they are just defaults, you wont ? IYSWIM?

lvm

prettypaula wrote: »

yes, but the debts wont go away just because they are no longer on file, and if settled and you want to say get a mortgage in 18 months time you will likely get one, where as if they are just defaults, you wont ? IYSWIM?

I already have a mortgage - next mortgage will be in 3 years when I will have £50k in savings to purchase B2L. There'll be no info on credit file of defaults and if payments remain the same, £30.14 is negligible. Likelihood is I will have negotiated settlements by then (have a settlement on largest debt but they refuse to put condition in writing).

Savings will only be around £30k in 18 months time and not big enough for a deposit on any property I'd consider buying...

lvm

Yippeeeee!! Just managed to cashout £15 on Toluna!

Decided that rather waiting 3 months+ for Love2shop vouchers, I've gone for Amazon instead in the hope they are quicker - even though I've never bought anything on Amazon in my life! Fingers crossed they pay them out quickly so I can use for Crimbo!

lvm

Just got a lovely little letter from my good friends at Vanquis informing me they are doubling my credit limit to £1000 from my next statement. Pity it didn't come in time for my wee trip to London in 3 weeks time though! Never mind!

Quiet day today - managed to do a couple of surveys though which will hopefully allow me a couple of payouts soon!

lvm

Good evening diary

So, I had my free trial assessment bike lesson today and it was sooo fun (although a bit more tricky than I thought it might be). Have booked in to do my CBT on 26th and 27th November and need to pay the £634 by next Saturday 5th. Money a bit tighter than I thought it would be - bank account falling below the £500 I like to have and the bike lessons are gonna completely wipe me out. Luckily a good bet has come my way so hopefully that's at least another £90 earned. I'm half tempted to go out and buy a leather jacket I've seen in Debenhams (reduced from £165 to £123). I've got £20 in vouchers and was thinking if I could turn that bet and anything else I can do, into £103 by tomorrow, that I'd go out and buy it. Not entirely convinced I should be doing that but think I may at least go and try it on in the afternoon and if it's so amazing I can't say no, I might just get myself an early Crimbo pressie. Could put it on my credit card (getting a couple of ££ Quidco cashback too) and pay it off before my next statment.

Well, that's the plan. Let's hope the jacket doesn't fit or someone's already bought my size (there's only 1 left!) so it'll take all temptation away!

Anyway...having a boring Saturday night and am now off to reforecast my finances to see how bad it is!

Cheery bye! x

lvm

I need a good slap from someone. I have just got home, having spent £123.75 on the aforementioned leather jacket. £123.75!! :eek:

Just to make myself feel worse - that's the equivelent of 56% of my monthly mortgage payment and I really can't justify it. I didn't even make the £100 on that bet I said I would before buying it.

So, £20 of it was paid with vouchers (thanks to Toluna and Shopandscan!) and I've made £35.96 on betting today.

I put the £103.75 on my credit card so will get a couple of £ back via Quidco so let's say another £65 to pay for. I've got until 26th Nov to pay it back to the credit card but here's hoping I can do it next week or week after.

Good thing is, the jacket is absolutely stunning :j...it will be perfect for riding in and will go with everything. Downside is, it's a little bit on the small side (only just zips!) but at least that's motivation to lose some weight - actually I'm just gonna live on 1 meal a day for the next 3 weeks and that should help.

If anyone has any short term money making tips, feel free to fling them my way - I'm in dire need of them right now!

Off to switch off all electricity now and sell my furniture...night night x

lvm

So, managed to get rather a few mystery shops booked in over the next couple of days/weeks:

Tomorrow - Laser Eye consultation - £34
Friday - Carpet shop - £11
Saturday - Sandwich shop - £4 fee / £3 re-imb
Mon 14th - Perfume - think around £10

So £59 in fees for 4 shops - not bad I reckon!

Keep meaning to set up my video camera so I can see if I can get in to video mystery shopping but keep putting it off.

Getting well p*ssed off that I've still not got my refund from Scrappish Power! Will be phoning them tomorrow to find out exactly what they're doing.

Have joined the NSD challenge and £10 a day challenge for November. Currently on 2 out of 15 NSDs but haven't really got into £10 a day yet. No doubt I'll leave it til 30th and have to find a way to make £300!!

On a completely different point...have started the long road of losing weight again. Have managed today on a banana and half a pack of BBQ chicken fajitas. Kind of needing to lose a stone by 2 weeks tomorrow. At least that'll help me not to spend money. I have just under £3 of Asda vouchers and I'm hoping to not spend anything else on food in the next 2 weeks. I'll have to cope with what's in the cupboard (which is actually next to nothing - some pasta, a tin of tuna, soup, rice, sushi making stuff, pasta sauce). This is gonna be an interesting couple of weeks. If the last time I did this is anything to go by, I'll have no energy to get out of bed never mind get to the shops so maybe that's a Godsend as well!

So...weight at start (1/11/11) - X
Weight now - X minus 0.75 lbs

Need to get to X minus 77 lbs (ish). Not exactly an easy task but I've done worse so here goes!