Debt free by Summer 2012 (if not sooner!)

Woowoo

Hi DF

You are so nice responding to everyone's posts individually

Hope your having a good day and the Cap 1 statement wasn't too scary! x

DebtFree2012

Hi All

Cap1 statement wasn't too scary but of course confusing lol. I had late payment sum on there (HATE :mad: THESE - or hate not being able to pay should I say:() which I expected. Strangely the interest they charged was less than estimated even though I hadn't paid the min payment? The min payment this month is more than "normal" due to the late fee and the residual of last months min payment still being owed. Still with me? hahaha.

So all in all, nothing negatively different that I expected. Roll on Tuesday - will do cartwheels when it arrives. First pay day of my new debt free journey.

Work's busy busy busy and frying my brain at the moment. I suppose busy keeps your mind occupied helps the time pass though.

Has this month felt like the longest ever or what?

xxx

Woowoo

Those late payments will soon be a thing of the past!

I have to wait until the 28th for payday, I do hate January!

DebtFree2012

beccie wrote: »

Thanks Garfield, that's really nice to hear. Make sure you post a link when you start your diary.

Morning DF Hope the Cap1 statement isn't too bad. Don't panic too much anyway, at the start it does take a while to catch up on payments you've missed and charges etc and getting a budget and things organised but once you've done the first couple of messy months you'll be well away! I'm sure you can do this x

Hi beccie - How are you? Thanks for your thoughts re posting on here everything.

My CC debts are as follows:

Cap1 4386.06 @ 26.48% year (as at today)
Virgin 7281.06 @ 17.23% year (new statement due 22nd and not paid last months payment so will go up
Tesco 2533.04 @15.76%

These are the ones I feel out of control with - my loan to barclays is fixed a month and will pay off last as can't get out of it. My OD is 500 OD and I am unsure whether to use this to pay debt (currently maxed out until March according to budget forecast) as the charges aren't much as agreed overdraft, not one of those stupid reserves which is also a reason I am in this situ.
(This time last year was 1k OD and being charged £22 every 5 days for being more than 500 OD.)

So really the decisions I need to make are:

1. Do I use OD to pay cards or should I stay in the black and pay less to cards?
2. How to attack cards. highes apr doesn't have highest balance etc etc. Was thinking do I split my "spare" cash 3 ways each month or pay min on 2 and rest to 3rd or spend 6 months reducing virgin (this would bring interest down to less than 100 month) then 6 on cap 1.

I have done some number crunching and to pay min to virgin (2nd high APR but highest bal) for a year i would pay over 1k in total but only shave less than 200 off debt!

Feel free to say I am indecisive!

x

DebtFree2012

Woowoo wrote: »

Those late payments will soon be a thing of the past!

I have to wait until the 28th for payday, I do hate January!

Thanks woo - it's so frustrating as it's on 2 months worth I had problems with - being on maternity pay etc. For the last few years I have always paid the min on time. you are so right - they will be a thing of the past again from now on, never to happen again. xx

**Kat**_2

I hate Jan too Woo - I get paid a week today but got paid soooooo early last month!

DF- I can totally relate to the reserve, I am in that trap. Slowly paying it off (only slowly as the amount of charges I get each month are ridiculous).

rachelww1

Hi DF2012

Hope you don't mind me subscribing to your diary.

I had my LB moment last month, and also have a lot of debt to shift, which I would love to do by 2012. I did tell my DH the extent of debt, but that is because some of it is joint, and some is mine that has been used to pay off his IYSWIM. If it was purely mine who knows if I would tell him. What he doesn't know about are my posts on here.

I've done quite well so far, but that's only because DH had an insurance payout for an accident he had at work last year. All of this went on paying the NW CC in full £2500(actually I overpaid by £200 and have to wait 6 working days to get it back :mad:). Another £2500 went to Barclaycard, leaving a balance of c£4300, and £330 went on a full service for the car. the remaining £120 went towards the OD.

We also scrapped DH's car last weekend as it wasn't worth repairing, so that will save us on petrol, insurance and repair costs. I'm the one who's left without a car though, and now walk to school and work.

I think I can manage £1215 a month repayments, but that still make my DFD 2013 according to my snowball. So any inspiration from you would be great.

Hope you don't mind me plodding along quietly beside you xx

Woowoo

Hi Rachel :wave:

garfield44

I hate January too, yesterday was supposed to be the most depressing day of the year so things can only go up now

Payday is 8 days away for me - woop woop.

Just had a look at your balances, that cap1 interest rate is really high. I would suggest targeting that card first and throwing all you can at it. I dont know how they get away with charging so high interest rates.

Ha Ha once I figure out how to post a link for my diary I will do so!!

Its called Losing 25lbs and Gaining £25k all by Aug 2013......EVIL DEBT

LexieLou

Hi,

I'm going to jump on the bandwagon about Cap 1. You will probably find that they sent you a letter a while ago telling you they were increasing the interest and to avoid this you could do the following:

Not use the card again and the rate would remain at 18%
or pay it in full

If you carried on using it the rate was going up to that bingo figure they've mentioned above.

I contacted them and told them to keep the card and I wouldn't be using it again which is why my rate is still under 20%. They seemed to have hiked it up for everyone who was paying late etc and I was one of those people.

I also need to point out that the letter was really vague and looked like one of those circulars and if you are anything like me opening a letter from the CC companies is something that you don't do, well didn't do.

Anyway I agree with the person who posted above about tackling Cap 1 first. you're paying over a quarter of your owed amount in interest...get rid asap.

I tackled tesco and cap 1 at the same time, but in my case they both had the same interest rate. Then I decided that i wanted rid of Cap 1 first as i wanted to be able to clear a card and then move onto the next. I'm impatient so I need to see things shifting otherwise I loose motivation. So I'm still hitting Cap 1 the hardest and in my case it's working best as the other payments I can make at any bank free of charge, but Cap 1 has to be made with my barclaycard to avoid the charge of paying your CC bill over the bank. I also have this absurd obsession that i need to see the hard cash being handed over otherwise it doesn't motivate me. And you all thought you had problems...my brain doesn't know which way is up at times.

So that's my ranting over.

I'm off to see Lemon Tree.

Night

LL xx