My diary - getting rid of my debt deamons!

Kei

After lurking around these pages for a few days, I have decided to come clean and start my own debt diary. Thing is I never thought of myself as being in 'debt', it was something that other people were in. But, ever since I became a student and turned 18 I have borrowed money, either through an interest free overdraft, or interest free credit card. Maybe thats why I didn't see it as debt, if it was interest free! So that was about 8yrs ago and ever since then I have always had the odd bit of debt hanging around, which never bothered me as I had the means to pay it back, living at home and earning a good wage.

Things changed last year when I bought my own house, the debt that I still had hanging round has not been so easy to shake off, plus I bought a car last year with finance, and took out a credit card to help me through Christmas. TBH it's not a large amount but I feel that it is stopping me do the things that I really want to treat myself to, like a holiday or decorating my house.

So I am taking steps to pay it all off, slowly but surely I will get there. I last used my cc in Dec, and from the 1st Jan my resolution is to keep it that way.

I need to work through some figures so that I can set a proper target / budget, so far my theory has been to stop spending and pay off as much as I can.

After completing this challenge the next will be my mortgage! Start small and aim high!

Will be updating my sig with all the figures soon. Any support or inspiration welcome x

Kei

Ok I have looked through my finances and here are the figures;

I have decided to go back to January and put the figures at how I started this year off. Is this cheating? Sort of like making a to do list and putting on things you have already done just so you can start crossing them off! I think its a motivation thing. So, as of my January statement;

MBNA credit card - £1671.65 of a limit of £2100.00. This is 0% until July so I hope to get it paid off before then. (since Jan I have managed to pay £700 off this so far )

Graduate account overdraft - £1455.50 in the red. My limit on this is £2000, with the first £1000 interest free and the next £1000 interest chargable. I can't remember what the rate is on this.

Car finance (until Dec 2011) - Approximately £2834.92 owing, I need to check this with the company. Also not sure exactly what the rate is on this but I know it is high, 20 something %!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Total personal debt as of Jan 2011 £5962.07 :eek:
This is much more than I thought it would be............. (quote me in my last post 'its not much TBH')!!!!!!! :mad:


So thats the bad bit over with. now for incomings.........

£1400 paid monthly. Of that £800 goes to the joint account for things for the house, £227.96 goes towards my car finance, which leaves £372.04 for personal spending and paying off my other debts. However I had a chat with the OH and he has agreed that as we have a council tax break in Feb and March I can use the spare £150 per month to go towards the OD, also from now on I can pay £700 to the joint account instead of £800 so that I have an extra £100 to go towards the car finance. Now the thing is, I haven't told him about my credit card! He thinks that I had one and have paid it off (which is true, I had a Barclaycard and I cancelled it at the end of last year). I got the CC mainly to help me get through Christmas and thought that I would only put a couple of hundred on it at the time. I'm still not planning on telling him about this as I hope to pay it all off soon.

So the plan is, to pay £300 off the credit card every month so that should be paid off in April. I have been taking £100 a month and putting it in a seperate bank account for all my personal spending that month, including going out, haircuts, friends bdays, etc. That way I can keep track of my spending, and I only use my debit card or cash to buy things for me.

That leaves £72.04 left over which I will either put towards the overdraft, or as I can have £1000 interest free I might pay this off the car finance so hopefully pay that off early.

I am also waiting for Santander to credit me with my £100 account opening incentive, am owed £40 by my brother and £115 by my sister which of course would go towards the debt, but I have not chased my sister for this just yet.... but thats a matter for another post!

So, my debt free date is going to be Dec 2011 if I stick to my car finance plan, but I want to pay it off much earlier than this, especially as I will have paid off the CC in April.

Now I need your advice! I can happily manage paying off my CC and overdraft as it is mostly interest free, but how can I get the car finance APR down? I don't have the money to pay it all off now, but if I did I would because I think I am going to waste about £350 in interest between now and Dec paying that off. If the debt were on a cc I could apply and transfer it to a new interest free card, but I don't think you can do that with finance? Any ideas? :think:

Kei

Ok so I have just checked out the APR on my car finance and it is 25.4%:eek:, also realised I have miss-calculated the total I owe by £50 so the new total for that stands at £2884.92. Fantastic.

On the bright side, I have had a NSD today, also got a home made chili cooking on the hob with ingredients from my bargain shop this weekend (tried out the budget supermarket instead of the big T, spent only £28 when I got home compared this online and realised I saved a whopping £15!!!!!;))

Also getting paid next week so going to be able to make my next payments.

Just updating my sig (with a nice glass of red in hand) so that I can see the progress so far this year x

Kei

Just got back from work; starving. Stuffed a load of jaffa cakes down! Nom.

I was thinking in the car on the way home how great I had been at NSD's, not spent a penny today! Then the petrol light came on so I spent £40 on a tank But my work is a 20 mile journey each way and I soon get through that.

Juat trying to work out what to have for tea, something quick and cheap? I did so well on the shopping last weekend that I want to do it again for under £30 this week, so I have started making a list of things we have run out of. OK, so £30 might be easy for most of you reading this, but me and OH quite easily visit the big T once a week, wandering round chucking whatever we fancy into the trolly, and then pay anything from £50 to £100 on it!!! And thats just for the 2 of us and our 2 cats! So for me £30 is a massive challenge, just wonder how long I can keep that up.

Still not had my £100 from Santander and I rang about that last monday (over a week ago) so will have to chase that up.

So glad its Friday tomorrow, and a week until payday!:jCan't wait to update the sig again.

garfield44

Hi Kei,

Well done on having your Light Bulb Moment (LBM) and starting to tackle your debts. That is the first major hurdle over and done with. Its so difficult at first but once you get into a routine your debt will be gone in no time.

Thats really nice of your OH agreeing to you paying less to the joint account.

As you will see from my signature my debt is monstrous but thanks to the motivation and inspiring people on these forums I have started to tackle it. The first thing I did was have a clear out and sold a lot of clothes on ebay!!:T

Anyway good luck on your journey, I'm off to subscribe so will keep popping in every now and then to see how you are getting on

Good Luck and just think, by the end of this year you will be debt free :beer:

Kei

Hi Garfield,

Thanks for popping in, was starting to feel a bit lonely all on my own!

I did a little ebaying in Jan and made about £100 which went towards the debt, will have a look through this weekend am sure there is lots more that can go! Also gonna do a car boot one sunday morning when it gets lighter in the mornings, and I actually love doing a good car boot - it's amazing what people buy from you!

I think your right about the LBM being the first major hurdle, I always kidded myself that I only owed a few hundred and this is the first time I put it all together and saw the shocking figure, glad I caught it now though.

Best of luck with you too, I stumbled on your diary the other day and saw that you haven't told the OH about most of it either! I haven't told anyone else at all about my debt and it is so nice to be able to talk about it on here ;-)

Catch you later x

Kei

So, all in all not a bad weekend! Stayed in Friday night, then saturday OH wanted to go into town to spend his bday money from last week. I have been avoiding town and haven't been since xmas shopping, but I took along a £20 H of F gift voucher I got for xmas just incase I got the urge to splurge! But I was very good and spent a grand total of £8.99 on myself for some shampoo and necessary make-up! Then Sat eve my friend had a babyshower, very kindly they supplied all the food and drink, and I already put in money for the baby hamper a couple of weeks ago so a spend free evening! OH dropped me off and took his friends to the pub in my car - never again. They found a bottle of water in the back of the car so decided to squirt each other with it on the way home. OH told them to pack it in, but car soaked in water. Calmed down on the way home, after all, it will dry out, but next day had a proper look and wasn't the water that was a problem, was the amount of mud they had managed to spread all over the interior of the car with their dirty shoes! Spent all day Sun cleaning car inside and out so now its back to like new!

Got the day off today as using up my holidays, so have a nice to do list;

[STRIKE]Pay in cheque for OH at bank[/STRIKE][STRIKE]
Replace 3 batteries in watches for OH
[/STRIKE][STRIKE]Fix gearknob in car with superglue![/STRIKE]
Buy cat food
Get tester pots of paint for hall / kitchen
[STRIKE]Clean extractor fan in kitchen[/STRIKE]
Wrap present for OH dad bday
[STRIKE]finish washing[/STRIKE][STRIKE]
Change bedsheets[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Ring santander find out where £100 incentive is[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Ring sky see if I can reduce monthly bill[/STRIKE]

Just rang Santander about the £100, already rang them 2 weeks ago and money still not there!:mad: Guy on the phone said that I need to wait up to another 7 days and if it is still not in take up with complaints team:mad: USELESS. Will not be banking with them in future going back to old bank, gonna get the £100 and run! Also annoyed with them as they don't do fasterpayments so I have to be careful of timing when making payments etc.

Right off to ring Sky now see what deal I can get.

Payday Friday more payments to my debts :j

shinytoaster

I think that you are doing a fantastic job. You seem incredibly motivated

Good luck with Santander. Maybe you will have better luck if you write them a letter.

Kei

Ooooo how strange shiny toaster I just saw your diary and posted there, came back to mine and you had already left me one! hehe

Just got off the phone to sky and they offered me half price for 6 months (no contract so will be back to haggle again in 6 months) and I have down graded broadband to the free one again saving £7.50 p/m on top as long as I keep my useage low! :j OH should be pleased, hopefully he'll let me have the difference for my debts! All thanks to Martins money tips email though :T
Well it was a productive morning, not sure how productive the afternoon will be at least I have managed to keep the heating off all day so far.

shinytoaster

haha that is freaky! lol

I have a reduction on my sky subscription as well

abba1772

hi :wave:

been reading your diary with great interest

just want to say well done and keep it up.......will be subscribing if thats ok just to see how you get on x