100 months to turn the money situation round

elantan

Hi all ,

well it's that time again for me ... so what's been happening since i last had a diary

well things have been hell marriage wise(slowly things are improving) .... once again we split and really i had had enough of all the crap .... but without going into too much detail online i was "persuaded" to give it one more try and when i gave my ground rules things finally started changing for the better ... we now go to marriage guidence counselling once a week ... it has brought up alot of issues for my husband and he is dealing with them as best as he can ... some days are better than others

he has drank 3 times this year all together ... two of which were planned drinking nights one wasnt ... but he stopped at one bottle of lager so ... well so i dont really know what to make of it i am merely letting you know where we are tbh

he has been placed on anti-d's and is having bad side effects with them , he also hasnt been at work for nearly a month as he really is not in any mental state to be dealing with work just now...i think he will be off for another month when this line is up

so what else can i tell you ... well financially i have been slowly getting things sorted ... very slowly but i have joined a fantastic challenge ( ok i havnt been writting on it as i have had other things to deal with ... but i have been following it) ...

so far we are going to Florida ... we have spent so much on tickets etc that it is a bit silly to not think about going really ... so with this in mind and having no money what we have done is .... took out a £4k interest free virgin credit card for 16 months ... the £4k paid off the over draft which was at a whopping 19% (over draft now cleared) and left us £2k for spending

since then however the car broke down again (there's a surprise eh) costing £500 with a further £300 to spend on getting it road worthy so we are now down to £1.5k spending for florida

i have sat down with all our debt and figured out exact sums they are as follows

visa one £4160 (4% charge for taking it out) 0%
visa two £1650 0%
student loan £7,981.05 1.5%
mortgage £46,250 .76 4.69%

giving me the grand total of £60,041.81

i have figured out that i am going to divide it by 100 (thanks to a thread om mfw)

so i need to find £600.50 a month to clear my feet for my 100 month challenge

now this time i am going for a two pronged attack

this time i am also going to work on savings

i have been on the savings board and have had some advice given to me there

so i am going to save through a few different vehicles

we are going to have to buy a car sooner rather than later so i need a fund for that

we will need a fund for house repairs etc

we need a savings vehicle to supplement our pensions etc




so my start date will be March 2011 and my finish date is going to be July 2019 ( if i have figured it out right that is)

will keep you posted

elantan

for the savings i will be putting my retirement/long term savings into an I.S.A now the advice is that i put it into a stocks and shares I.S.A ... to start with i am only putting in £50 a month this will be increasing by £10 a year till i pay £100 a month ( by then i will be further down the getting rid of debt route) if i remember right i can put the money into my H&L account and leave it there as money till i decide what it is i want to do with it (shares/funds wise) ...i will put this in motion in March

for the savings for the car i will need to find an account where i can save money to be able to buy a car in a few years (or atleast put down a deposit) i plan on putting £100 a month into this account and more as and when i make it .... (half of my profits from selling books etc)

for the house repairs i will need to find another account that i can put money in ... i think i can only afford about £25 a month for this account (although i do need to spend a fortune on the house)

elantan

for the debt

half of the profits from book selling etc will go towards paying off the mortgage (which is currently my highest interest debt) ... i also plan on putting our sons dig money into the mortgage so a minimum of £160 a month will be getting paid as an extra to the mortgage account

our visa's .... visa number one we have 16 months interest free on this visa so i will be paying £50 off of this account and concentrating on the other one

visa number two i have to have this cleared by november this year so i intend on paying off £250 each month so that i wont incur any interest charges ... i will then pay the £250 into visa number one

i understand that by the time visa number one reaches it's 0% balance deal i will not have paid it off but my plan is to either transfer the remaining to another 0% visa or to borrow money from family to clear it off

student loan .... well this is on a low 1.5% interest ... i am currently paying £2 a month interest on this account ... i plan on paying the interest £2 plus another £25 a month ... i understand this will take me a long long time to pay off but once the visa's are done away with the money can then go and pay this off ( if i havnt had to go buy a new car by then that is )

that leaves me with £120 a month left to find ... because i have a repayment mortgage this will easily cover the £120 needed to ensure that i pay £605 a month

so there that is my current plan .... this will probably change with the need for a new car soon and i have no doubt there will be other things that will pop in the way

elantan

so what am i going to do in 100 months

well in 100 months i will not only be debt free but i will also have some REAL savings for the first time in my life

my plan is then to continue with the savings and to also half the amount of the debt payments i have made to do the following

save for a new kitchen ( ours is currently nearly 30 years old)
save for a new bathroom ( ditto the above)
save for house overhaul
save for a great holiday
save more for a better retirement

the other half of the debt repayments the plan is to have a bit of a life finally

se999

Pleased to see you're back posting again - just on my way out, so not had a chance to read your updates yet. But welcome back.

elantan

thanks see ... it's good to be back finally .... this is all part of the other challenge we are both doing as well .... the two work together thankfully

turfy6

Welcome back and its great that you sound so positive good luck all the plans sounds brilliant and the holiday, thats something I should be looking into big time.

Nottoobadyet

Hi Elantan - I've been out of diary land for a bit but Im glad to see you and hear that you are on your way up.

Can I ask why you are going for a shares ISA when you could be using your cash ISA? I know interest rates are low, but at least with a cash ISA you dont have to worry about your figures falling...

elantan

hey turfy ... yeah i think we both do badly need a holiday .... for the last 18+ months things have been hard going .... i think in a way it's no wonder my hubby had a melt down (NOT that that excuses ANY of his behaviour) ... i think it all started with our son being attacked and went down hill from there

were both looking forward to it and i think we are both badly needing it .... i hope hubby's anti d's have settled by then though as when he gets his cloud he has to go and lie down and his panic attacks have started back again

but Florida right now sounds heaven to me ....

where do you fancy going ?

elantan

Nottoobadyet wrote: »

Hi Elantan - I've been out of diary land for a bit but Im glad to see you and hear that you are on your way up.

Can I ask why you are going for a shares ISA when you could be using your cash ISA? I know interest rates are low, but at least with a cash ISA you dont have to worry about your figures falling...

hey ntby (can i call you that) i have been on the savings board and what they seem to advocate is taking a stocks and shares I.S.A as in the long run they will give a better rate of return ....

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3069526 here's a link to the thread ...

i have to admit i do feel a wee bit worried about shares etc again ( as you will see on the thread) so this time i am going to just put the money in in cash (through H&L) and when i feel confident i will transfer them to funds etc ...

in the mean time i will learn where i went wrong and find what way is the best way forward for me ( i hope)

elantan

i have been sitting here pondering things (as you do) and i think i will pay off the £41 + pennies off this week to take me down to £60k and give me a quick boost .... not much but it makes the numbers more even for working out kinda thing... and puts me in a good way to start the challenge