GenuinePlacebo's New Year.. New Baby.. Debt Free Quick!

genuineplacebo

Hi all,

Well, my Husband and I moved into a new house in 8th December and found out on Xmas day that we're expecting our first child.

Our main aim now is to pay off our credit card debt by the time I stop getting full pay on maternity leave. I will check the details at work tomorrow but I think I get 4 months full pay, and then SMP.

Baby is due approx end Aug, so if I leave work in 7 months time this gives us 11 months of our usual income to try and pay off our credit cards.

We also have a Tesco Loan but this is hopefully going to be paid off in Aug 2012 when my sharesave with work matures.

Our credit card balances now total £2900. This means that we should clear them if we pay £270 a month onto the cards. I don't think this is do able, and would rather pay £150 - £200 a month. Especially as we also have things to buy for the baby...

That said, we do Quidco, and have £200+ due to be paid from there. We've also just sent a load of stuff off to CEX and Music Magpie which totals approx £300. I also do shopandscan which will help out with baby things and complete surveys. I've done mystery shopping in the past and will be trying to do more at every opportunity.

Our main problem this month is that we were expecting our first mortgage payment on 8th jan to be our standard payment of £1200 a month, however, due to how the Post Office calculate interest we actually need to find £2200 and buying our home wiped out our savings!

Any idea you guys have on how to save money/make money etc would be much appreciated!

I'll update as and when I make payments :-)

Thanks in advance!

stepharoo

Congratulations on your exciting news!

Check out NCT Nearly New Sales. They can be amazing. You don't have to be a member of the NCT to go and can find the info easily on their website about sales in your area. I picked up well over £100 of baby clothes for about £30 and they were all nice quality stuff. Babies grow remarkably quickly so most of the clothes were almost new.

genuineplacebo

Thanks Stepharoo! I've put a couple of sales on my calendar for later in the year - April/May time, thanks so much for the advice!

stepharoo

Make sure you get to them early on the day as they tend to attract a LOT of bargain hunters. There is usually a small donation requested for entry (usually about £1 I think) and they only accept cash so it's also a good way to budget.

Glad to be of help, if I think of anything else I'll let you know!

genuineplacebo

Thought I would post an update.

Turns out we have 10 months at my full pay as the pay during maternity is one month less on full pay than I first realised.

On a plus note, I have drawn up a spreadsheet for the next 18 months to keep track of our financial situation.

We have been approx £200 - £600 into our overdraft at the end of each month for the past few years, a bit of a cycle really. With December's pay we had to pay our huge mortgage payment, we are now approx £500 overdrawn but get paid again on the 20th and shouldn't need to buy any further food/petrol etc until pay day, all bills are paid already.

So January's pay will be used to pay off the overdraft, and we will not use the overdraft ever again!!!

After that we can focus on clearing the credit card debt and building a savings pot for the months after my SMP finishes.

Any help/advice anyone has would be appreciated.