Elmer's moneysaving mission

ElmerFudd

Had to spend £3.77 on a small shop last night and felt guilty for spending too much. Bizarre that I can feel so guilty spending a relatively low sum on essentials. I am doing well not getting coffees in the morning. It was definitely a difficult thing to get over, however now the weather is getting better I won't feel the need so much for any type of hot drink while I am out. Pay day isn't so far away and I have enough money to get me through the month. Hopefully I can pump some of it onto the debt. I know it makes sense to tackle the big debt first but its so much that it's disheartening. Part of me just wants to get rid of the overdraft and CC3 but I know this isn't a logical way of doing things. Even if I slow stooze onto the lower APR cards I'll still be paying less to the CC companies (@16.9% as apposed to 24% or whatever the high interest card is now). Since the spending diary has been going so well this month (warts and all) I am thinking about doing it again next month.
Also we have not been eating as much meat which has reduced our bills drastically. Online shopping seems to have also cut our shopping bill in half. We have bulk bought cleaning stuff so should have enough of that to last us several months. Hopefully now I should see the debt start to creep down despite the blip with the fee.

ElmerFudd

I want to reassess things over the weekend to see how everything is going. I will keep this updated fairly regularly but want to make a full list of things on Monday.

ElmerFudd

Daily spending diary updated. I am hoping to cancel one of the cards that have been paid off within the next month or so. I'm just waiting for the fee to clear and the result of that and then I can get rid of the credit card!!! With the high APR one I can also probably stop that one (although I doubt I'll be able to freeze the interest at 21%....most likely stuck at 24%). One other thing is that there is an offer for 0% for 6 months for balance transfers but I am unsure which card they are referring to. If its the one I want to cancel it might be worth me junking one of the other cards onto it and then either balance transferring or slow stoozing onto one of the low APR cards. I'll call them over the weekend and figure it all out then.

ElmerFudd

Shows how much I pay attention to things. Looking at the forums it appears that the student loan company has lowered the deferment limit from about £2250 a month to £2205 . This explains why I didn't expect the deferment to be a problem. Unfortunately now I earn £2238 before tax. If I'd only earned £39 less I'd be £127 a month better off. Ah well. On the plus side the student loan will start to be paid off. Additionally this is starting to get me more focussed.

ElmerFudd

Just when I think I am starting to sort things out - a spanner in the works. Barclays have decided in their wisdom to lower my credit limit "effective immediately" which is annoying since I had started slow stoozing some things onto it. So much for paying off the high APR card rapidly. Additionally I am now concerned that they may have reduced the limit below the amount that I have stoozed this month, therefore potentially incurring overcharge fees. Additionally is this allowed? I was given no notice of reduction of the credit limit. I was under the impression that they had to give you X amount of days notice before they did this or am I wrong?????
I called Barclays and a very useful guy said they have said they would look into it. They have added the complaint to my file and sent a message to the credit limit side of things. Hopefully they can keep the credit limit the same, but I am not holding my breath. Therefore I'll need to figure out exactly how much over I will be (with any interest charges too) this weekend and make sure I have enough on my card to cover this. Oh the joys of credit cards.

ElmerFudd

Looking at my debts over the weekend I realise I will have to do something drastic in the coming months to get back on top of things. Once all the debts are considered (minimums for most) that will leave a sum total of £190 for shopping for the month.
So far we have reduced it to £120 to £140 every 2 weeks!!! I'll try to push it down further but I don't know if we can.
Therefore I need to take some kind of action. I'll need to find some other way to make some cash, even if it's a case of taking on extra part time work.
Some potentially good things about next month: landlord has told us we only need to pay £300 less for next months rent; first half of student loan may not come out early, due to the deferment so may not have to try to find an extra £80 for the next time; council tax, water rates already paid for the month so that's another £133 we don't have to find; £100 already set aside in other bank account for direct debits for next month; £130 ish left in main bank potentially by the time pay day rolls around. That's potentially £743 that could be sunk into the big debt, although based on our current spending regime no doubt £90 of that would be going towards shopping. We really can't afford it though. Additionally I have no idea what we will do after next month.:(
One step at a time.

ElmerFudd

Barclays have confirmed that there is nothing they can do about the credit limit issue, but considering they are the ones who have potentially thrown me over the limit I don't see why I should be the one to fork out any potential overlimit fees. Additionally I hope this doesn't mess with my LOTB 6.95% which I expect it will. I can't believe they didn't even have the courtesy to contact me even a week before they decided to do this as I would have definitely done things differently. I know that it is entirely up to the bank to decide whether or not anyone gets a line of credit but as a courtesy to a customer that has never been overlimit, and always paid on time, you would think they would have given me advance notice. If I had known a week and a bit ago I certainly would have done things differently. I don't see how one credit card that I don't want (Lloyds) can increase my credit limit while another that I did want (up to this point) could lower it.
They claimed that I had not used the card in 6 months but that is BS as I had used it a week ago to make several payments and in September with a balance transfer. I'll certainly take this complaint further but tbh I am not expecting anything to come of it.

ElmerFudd

Bizarrely since yesterday I have found 82p in total in various places - just from getting from A to B!! Into the pot it goes...:)

Also just figured out that (depending on exactly how much the student loans are) I should complete payment of them in just over 4 years!!

Additionally I have snowballed all my debts again (now with the student loan added) and I am currently looking at a possible DFD of May 2016. A full year over what I hoped. The trouble is I really want to be rid of at least one of these debts completely.

By the beginning of next month I'll have a better idea as to how much I will have in "savings" that I can pump into the high APR debt.

Perhaps I will find more money (I can dream :P)

Gobsmacked that I will be paying the banks some £312 on interest alone potentially next month, and potentially £3647 in interest for the whole year. I have to be proactive and do more. If I could get them onto a long 0% credit card I could potentially save myself a ton of money.
Additionally I *must* just focus on the high APR card, despite the length of time it will take to pay off at this rate (4 years).
I think this is the worst it has been, but now I have no more fees to pay it should get better.

ElmerFudd

OK. Today is a fresh new day. I have managed to keep up my spending diary for the last 29 days and have also had 13 NSD's during this time. On another positive note I may be able to get paid overtime for a change early next month. It's a very rare thing and only gets doled out evenly over the years and it appears this year is my turn! Unfortunately it will only be for a week. This money (when I see it eventually) will go toward my 2011 Dribblers Advance!!! but I will use it to pay some more off of my high APR card. I also have no idea how the tax and NI changes will effect my take home pay for next month (payroll tells me they can't let me know til a few weeks before pay day at the end of next month!). I have some money left over from this month and some bills are already covered for the next month. Once another pay packet comes in on the 3rd I can crunch the numbers and see how much I can then pay toward the high APR card (I'll wait til I get the bill however). I am also planning not to spend any money in the next 4 days, and I expect 3 of those days will definitely be NSD's. I'm looking forward to paying more into the high interest card. Also spent roughly £260 to £300 on food etc this month. I know we can cut that drastically next month so we will make a concerted effort. My aim is to reduce it by half, i.e. Aldi's or Lidl's every other week.

ElmerFudd

Forgot to say that the loan is now under £3500 and that the student loan is now £7511!! Overdraft is now under £1500 but that will rise again when some bills are paid. Still attacking the high interest credit card and looking forward to hopefully having it at £9500 all being well by this time next month. That's the plan anyway. In addition I have £30 odd in change which I could put toward the card. I also forgot to mention that I have reduced the credit limit to my other Lloyds card (which has a zero balance on it). I am considering closing it altogether, but want to look into something first over the weekend before I do (possibly beneficial all round). Will keep you posted!