Elmer's moneysaving mission

ElmerFudd

To push myself into gear I have decided on a stupid and audacious plan. I am on a mission to clear that bad card. That will be doable I hear you all say - in 5 years! The reason why it is audacious is I plan to get it paid off by the end of the year. Therefore somehow I need to find an additional £9600 in the next 8 months. I need to kick this up a notch. So whether it be finding cash on the street, extra work, cutting back, 0% or low interest deals (which I now don't plan to apply for for about 6 months) - I will remove that money from that high APR card. Wish me luck!!

ElmerFudd

An NSD today thankfully. Spoke with my boss today and it looks like the extra work I did recently may net me £260 before tax. He also said it may take some time to materialise due to payroll. Any money is a bonus. As long as I get it I'm not too fussed. It will go straight on the bad CC!! Additionally I will be able to count that toward The Dribblers Advance. I'm not counting my chickens though, and wont be happy til its in the bank account. I also plan to look into a few money making ideas over the Easter break. Hopefully something will come of it. I hate the days before payday though. I want to act on the debt yet there is nothing I can really do. I hate waiting round for things to clear. I can't do anything banking wise til at least the weekend.

ElmerFudd

Today will be the last day I'll be on these forums probably til the beginning of next month. I will carry on moving money around and paying off the high APR card. I'll carry on with trying to get roughly 14/15 NSD's a month. I'll also keep my eyes open for money making opportunities. Hopefully I'll be back later to catch up on the forums!

ElmerFudd

Caught up somewhat on the forums. Did Martin Lewis' test earlier which has I think enabled me to focus more on a few areas (can always pick up new hints). To be honest though with all the debt I have currently saving anything is a bit silly. I'll consider saving once I have paid off or moved this 9k + from the Lloyds card!
On the weekend I want to sit down and crunch the numbers again for next month before I throw any more money at the card. I don't want to leave myself short. I need to also make sure the Barclaycard isn't making any more offers before I start anything with that card. I haven't quite decided yet whether to pay all my next months bills with cash (and hold out on the Barclaycard til they start offering a good deal) or use the Barclaycard to pay the bills (at 16.9% much better than 24.9%) and the cash "saved" to pay some more off the Lloyds. I think ultimately I'll just use the cash but I can't wait to see the high APR card drop. The other alternative is to pay off the Barclaycard and close the account (tempting when I think about the bad customer service) but I'll be shooting myself in the foot, so I reckon it will just be minimum payments on the Barclaycard til the foreseeable future.

ElmerFudd

Back from my break and ready to go!! I'll be able to update everything tomorrow as I don't have my notes on me. The Barclaycard still isn't offering anything so meanwhile I have been using it to pay some bills so that I have ready cash to pay toward the bad CC. That would leave £600 odd on it @ 6.95% and 400 @ 16.9%. Better than it being @ 24.9% or whatever it may be next month!!!!
I still need to call them to ask if they could possibly lower the interest. The only things I have really done in my break is keep up with the NSD's and avoid coffee shops and burger joints (not easy to do on a break). I have also learned that my pay will be £14 more than I was expecting so hopefully I will be able to get this debt down quicker than I thought.

ElmerFudd

Santander interest is actually £10 but still works out as less than or equal to the interest payments on the cards currently so for the time being the Overdraft will be on my low priority list.

Currently the approximate 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% £400 @ 16.9% - CC3
930 @ 0% for 9 months (21% after) - CC4 - finishes December 2011.
7511 @ 4.4% - student loan
Total 26941 (not including overdraft or other loan)

I have some savings that can be used to attack the bad CC but I want to wait til the statements have come in for the other cards before I decide what I am going to do. I think I may still have a little debt at 16.9% on CC2 but won't know for sure til I get the statement (a payment may have gone through after I had made a big payment last month, and nothing was clear when I checked the account a few days ago). I also plan to just use money from now on for the shopping so will need to set aside some for the month for that (so far we have not been spending a lot this month and should have enough food to last us for the next few days at least). Council tax, water rates, insurance, electric, gas, and rent have been paid for the month. Will also need to start on my transfers at some point this week so I can get my extra £10 a month from the Halifax accounts and can maintain my fee of £10 from Santander (not a gain there really but no loss either).

All being well if things go to plan we may well be able to get the bad debt down to about £9100 or so by the end of the month. If Barclaycard make another offer however I may be able to get that figure lowered even further. One problem is that the bad CC is offering 0% for 6 months on balance transfers but weighing everything up it's not worth it. If I could shift things about where the fees wouldn't be extortionate and I actually had much of the debt on 0% (even for 9 months) then I would be a little happier. I think the best thing for my sanity and health is just to keep seeing that bad CC debt figure drop and drop (even if some of that debt is shifted).

On a happy note the main loan has dropped to £3100 owed!!!

Itsadogslife_2

Hi Elmer, just wanted to pop in and say keep up the good work, you seem to be on the ball with who is charging you what in regard to APRs. I have always lived in this bubble that I can move things from card to card and pay at least the minimums and therefore I am OK. But lo and behold the credit card companies are reducing my credit limits, we have one card that they have closed the account without asking us. The remaining cards are not offering any balance transfer rates and hsbc won't let me transfer a balance at all even on a standard variable rate

Banks, don't you just love em????

ElmerFudd

Hi Itsadogslife thanks for the encouragement . I know at the moment what they are charging me but knowing their past records I am under no illusion that they can change things at any moment. Seems to me the worse things are for everyone the harder banks work to jack up their interest rates, lower credit limits and close accounts. Sorry to hear that you have also been having problems with them. I used to think some banks were OK but now I think they are all bad but some are just worse than others!!
I'm balancing things right now, but this month I should have a better idea where I am with everything (even if the Barclaycard doesn't offer anything - if they do then it will take another month or so to rearrange things), with a little bit left over to go toward the bad card. It's such a large figure though that it's kind of daunting. I keep thinking it's going to take me forever to pay it off, but then I look at how much of it I have already paid off which cheers me up slightly. I don't think I will really be happy til it's all paid up .
Sort of kicking myself though because that figure could have been 1k lower. I'd BT'd 1k from Barclays to my old Lloyds CC (0% for 9 months) thinking that they would offer me a 6.9% LOTB again (but they didn't), and then on the same day discovered I had an offer for my other card for 0% for 9 months!! Unfortunately I only had £300 or £400 worth of credit on the card. Ah well, live and learn. Until Barclays offer me something (if at all) the only thing I can do is pay for food with the card and use the cash to overpay on the bad card (16.9% is more desirable than 24.9%).

chevalier

good luck with keeping focussed

ElmerFudd

chevalier wrote: »

good luck with keeping focussed

Thanks chevalier. I need the luck as I'm prone to fall off the bandwagon. Once I get over the hump (which hopefully should be this month) and it looks like we may have enough spare each month to go on the bad card I'll be happy

Will need to crunch all the numbers once all the statements have come in. Most of the income for this month is in. Most of the bills have been paid apart from the credit cards and the main loan and I can't do anything about those til the statements are in. This weeks shopping money is set aside (hopefully it will be enough to cover everything despite being fairly tight with it I am hoping for change out of it to go toward next week).

LSD today as I bought a coffee (will need to buy a pot of coffee later).