Elmer's moneysaving mission

ElmerFudd

Letter received from Santander finally telling me they will be charging me interest (that gave me a 15 month interest free overdraft!). Interest will be £5 a month, which is still less than it would be if I had the debt on the low LOTB card. Therefore til further notice I will keep that debt there while I attack the high APR card. I am waiting til the middle of next month for the bill to come for that to figure out worse case scenario what the "minimum" payments will be since they are now calculating it a new way (I believe 2% + 0.5% of the balance) which would work out to £260. I guess I could call them to find out but I am loathe to paying money on the call. Additionally if I did call them I would want to try to lower the APR too, but again want to wait a little and sort this out further into next month.

ElmerFudd

Got a letter from my old credit card provider for the card I paid off some months back. They are offering 0% for 9 months on the card. The problem is I recently lowered the credit limit on it (I was going to cancel the card). However now I plan to transfer a little of the high interest card onto it, thereby saving me £110 over the 9 months (despite the fees) and weirdly £500 over a 4 year period meaning that my DFD has moved from Nov 2015 to Oct 2015. This will be after I make my overpayments for next month too. I'll have a better idea on things once I get to the middle of the month and also get some info back from payroll as to my new pay... I'm not sure how workable paying the amount I plan to each month will be and won't really know until I have kept this up for a good few months. The last few months have been fairly straightforward but I really do expect things to get tighter soon enough. Still have my eye to the ground for pennies etc but so far I haven't managed to find anything in the last few days.

ElmerFudd

OK. New main post for April

Goal 1: to increase the number of NSD's (have to beat 14 that was set in March!!) - 5 so far
Goal 2: to try to increase income.
Goal 3: reduce outgoings.
Goal 4: not to be tempted by burger joints and coffee bars.
Goal 5: See if I can transfer some of the debt to other CC's at a lower APR. See if I can lower APR of bad CC.
Goal 6: Daily spending diary.
Goal 7: Cut back on electric usage.

I will post an updated list of what I owe next week once all the transfers have taken place.

Currently they are:

Credit card 1: APR 24.9% = £10400
Credit card 2: APR 6.95% = £7500
Credit card 3: APR 6.95%= £1600
Loan 1: £3280
Loan 2 (student loan): £7500
Overdraft: £1600

Total= 31880

Have some money in terms of savings (so overall debt actually lower) which still need to be paid onto the bad CC but need to hold onto it til the bill comes and I can work out exactly what's going where. Don't expect any major payments this month, although next month (May) will have to find cash for the gas and electric. Therefore some of those may go up (the good CC's) while others will drop considerably (the bad CC).

Spending Diary for April:

1st April 2011 - found 35p, so already up for the month! NSD!!!
2nd April - definitely won't be a NSD as I will be doing a fair amount of shopping (which still should be lower than before March!). Plan to do a BT on this day too.
3rd April - Spent a small amount (under a tenner)
4th April - spent 70p so far but have no plans to spend any more.
5th April - NSD!!!
6th April - NSD!!!. Additionally unsure if I added the money I found last week to my dribblers advance, so not sure of the tally.
7th April - NSD!!! - found 30p today
8th April - NSD!!! - found 40p today
9th April - Weekly shop - spent roughly £30
10th April - LSD (£6.40)
11th April - LSD (£1.25)
12th April - Should be an NSD - should have been but wasn't (70p)
13th April - should have been but ended up spending more money on milk (£2)
14th April - thankfully got over the hump of the morning so I have a good feeling it will be an NSD. NSD!!!
15th April - should be a NSD.
16th April - shopping - spent £90 but should cover us for 2 weeks.
17th April - NSD
18th April - NSD
19th April - NSD
20th April - NSD
21st April - NSD
22nd April -NSD
23rd April - NSD
24th April - NSD
25th April - NSD
26th April - NSD
27th April - NSD
28th April - NSD
29th April - spent about £30
30th April - NSD

I think that's about it although may have spent a little bit (LSD) in the run up to the Royal Wedding :P

ElmerFudd

Managed to BT around 1k to an old card that was offering 0% for 9 months. Better than nothing. Fortunately I was also offered the same deal with Halifax, unfortunately I am only £100 from the limit. Therefore I have paid a bit of cash into it to clear whatever may be at 16.9% and then will BT over that small amount from the BC next week and finally the week after BT a large amount from the bad CC. All in all I think it's doable. Hopefully I will find out when the first one clears and will be able to breath a little sigh of relief. I still plan to be tight with things.

Oddly enough the crappy card is doing a 0% for 6 months deal. I don't think it will be worth it though (when you take into account the fees). It's possible I will be able to get a better deal somewhere else soon, but to be honest I haven't looked into it yet. I'd rather wait a month or so.

Maybe next month things will look a bit better on my plans.

Currently the debt stands at:

10411 @ 24.9% - CC1
7700 @ 6.95% - CC2
1600 @ 6.95% - CC3
7511 @ 4.4% - student loan
Total 27222

Hopefully after all the transfers take place it will be like this:
9000 or less (dependent on various payments) @ 24.9% - CC1
7700 with majority @ 6.95% and 400 @ 0% for 9 months (all £400 should be paid off by then) - CC2
1600 @ 6.95% - CC3
950 @ 0% for 9 months (21% after) - CC4
7511 @ 4.4% - student loan
Total 26761 - may be less than this

This just covers the student loan and CC's. Haven't included the overdraft or main loan (can't recall the exact figure).

ElmerFudd

Tried to get a totally different CC with a 0% for a long time deal but failed dismally. Looks like I will be sticking with my current cards for the next 6 months at least.

ElmerFudd

Balance transfered over £800 from Halifax (at 0% for 9 months) to my evil high APR card. Tried to Balance transfer £950 from Barclaycard but am having some issues with them. I figure I can wait a month or so to see if it corrects itself and if it doesn't consider paying off what little is remaining of the Barclaycard and closing the account. Ultimately not worth sticking with a company that messes you around even if you get what appears at first a "good" deal.

ElmerFudd

Should be getting some money hopefully at some point for a course I helped out on recently. Not sure exactly how much money it will be but anything is better than a poke in the eye (naturally the more money the better!). Not expecting anything to come up payment wise in the next few months so should by rights be able to keep paying off these debts.

Currently the debts stand as:

9800 or less (dependent on various payments) @ 24.9% - CC1
7700 with majority @ 6.95% and 400 @ 0% for 9 months (all £400 should be paid off by then) - CC2
600 @ 6.95% - CC3
930 @ 0% for 9 months (21% after) - CC4
7511 @ 4.4% - student loan
Total 26531 (not including overdraft or other loan)

EDIT: UPDATED to include payment made to CC4 (unfortunately following the BT I received a CC bill so paid off £20 on that card).

Once CC3 sorts itself out I can potentially BT £1000 over to the bad card. Will be great to see that card at under 9k again. I'm not holding my breath though.

ElmerFudd

Goals for the rest of the month:

1. Try to transfer money from the bad CC to Barclaycard.
2. Lower my credit limit on the bad CC.
3. Increase my income.
4. Keep looking out for dropped coins.
5. Keep avoiding burger bars and coffee shops.
6. Try to keep up on NSDs.

Some of this is ongoing, other things I won't be able to do til payments have cleared. I may have to wait on the Barclaycard since they are playing up (seems a few people have had problems with them).

Have looked at my debt tally and thankfully it looks like my debt is now under 31k!!! Bad debt now under 10k. Positive things I have done this month so far: have moved some debt to 0% for 9 months, will be earning extra for some work I did last week, have found a fair amount of dropped change. Downsides: too many LSDs, too many coffees etc. Will do better.

[Deleted User]

Just thought I would pop in and say well done, keep up the good work. :beer:

ElmerFudd

Thanks goochie. I have slipped slightly in the last 4/5 days but I am still focussed on getting the nasty debt down. I'm not entirely sure how I am going to balance things next month but I have figured that if the Barclaycard doesn't offer me a balance transfer I will make payments with it over the next few months and use the money I "save" to bring the bad CC down even more (not ideal but it's better than paying 24.9% APR interest!!).

I've also figured out that hopefully I will have a £8 overspill to dump on the bad debt. I'm also not factoring in the money I will be getting from the work I did last week. Then again I am not sure how much it will be or even when I will get it. Anything is a bonus though in my mind at the moment, since it all counts to bringing the debt free date closer. In addition I haven't factored in any additional money that I may get due to the tax/NI changes.

I seriously need to look into ways to make more money. I haven't had much time lately as I have been busy with work, but I have some time off for Easter so will take the opportunity to look into all angles then. My major fear though is that I might not have access to a computer in the next few weeks and logging onto the MSE forums helps a lot when it comes to avoiding spending. I'll just have to focus.