It's just a jump to the left... or "Confessions of a Debt-Free-Wannabe"

tyllwyd

As other people have said, you have £604 to use for debt repayments. To be honest, I've really enjoyed reading your posts but they ramble here there and everywhere, and it makes trying to understand your finances very difficult. I think that is part of the problem that you are having - you need to sit down and force yourself to face up to a plan of action instead of letting your mind take you off on tangents.

Have you looked at the site where you can work out how to snowball your debts? http://www.whatsthecost.co.uk/

I think you need to forget about consolidation loans and smile and all the rest of it. Just sit down and work out a simple plan. First month get rid of the business account overdraft!! Then take your spare £600, and take off your loan repayments to leave you with £350. Assuming that you can make savings on your everyday spending, you need to work out where to put that £350 to make best use of it. If you can even put £250 towards some of your credit card debt, you will start seeing it come down pretty quickly.

diekleinemue

Dear lynzpower, dear all,

thank you for your feedback, there are a couple of important points you make here and seeing my SOA written black on white makes me realise that there is a lot more I can do. For example:

INCOME

I should just get out and do some freelance work again! Damn it! I am incredibly good at what I am doing and I love doing it a lot!! It's one of the most enjoyable things I can imagine and while there were serious reasons for NOT doing it after we moved over a year ago, now that we are settled in I should just get a new project off the ground. Even in bad times it paid on average £200/month.

Action:
- go and find suitable venue, agree terms and conditions of useage/hire
- set a start date, make and distribute flyer, ad in local paper?
- do what I do best


EXPENDITURE

£60.62 travel/transport into work/uni
Now, travel and transport is calculated on a return bus ride (£3.50) which is the most expensive way of getting to and from work/uni. I am usually cycling to work, but that is still attached with costs for the ferry (£2.15 return) or the train (£2.80 return), so I am budgeting the worst case scenario here. Also, I usually get a lift to and from uni but in case that isn't available I have to set aside money for the bus.

£86.60 food/hospitality in work/uni
Similar scenario. I have to say, that this isn't at all what I am spending on food and hospitality because usually I am taking in food I cooked the evening before or I make sandwiches. It reflects those days when I am going out for lunch with my colleagues, or get a coffee to go on my way in. I budgeted £5/day x 4.33 which came to £86.60/month. I think the expenditure diary will give me a clearer picture how much I am actually spending. Another angle here is that I am not happy about eating warm late and that I rather have a warm meal at lunch time instead of cooking from scratch late and eat at 9pm which leads to me gaining weight and having to buy new clothes. (If that isn't a vicious cycle then I don't know!) He lives on junk food and sandwiches throughout the day and wants to warm in the evening and I feel bad/unsocial for not wanting to eat warm late. So it's a bit of a catch-22, really. Well, we compromise where we can. The veg bag (which incidentally is a fantastic value for money considering the variety and amount) is a great help as it makes us cook with what we get and what we have in store.

£40 mobile phone
Mh... That first sat uneasy with me. My mobile is my main point of contact with the rest of the world and my contract is quite good with £30/month for all the free texts/minutes I normally need. Lately though I have been travelling a fair bit and neglected to pick up my mobile phone provider's offer for cheap calls/texts from abroad which lead to me having to pay £10 ontop of my contract 2 out of the 3 last months. I think more discipline is needed to avoid unnecessary overpay and forward planning in terms of any travelling.

£35 gym ( do you NEED this)
*sob* Because of the amount of travelling I have done since May and being seriously ill with the world's worst flu from August to the beginning of November I haven't been to the gym for AGES. It has to go and I have to go back to doing yoga on my own in the back room! *calls gym* DONE!

£125 university fee
I am studying psychotherapy and as part of the training we have to undergo therapy ourselves. Although I can access therapy at a reduced rate it's still £25/session and I budgeted for 1 session/week. This will continue until the end of the year and next year when I will counsel people in a placement I will need supervision on a two-weekly basis which I have to pay for. It'll be more like £30 - £35/session and then this post will go down to £100/month. I have to pay a year's tuition fee and residential costs though which will be around £1250 and that'll mean a serious cut back for the five months I am paying that.


£22.19 organic veg bag
Seriously, it is! It's our main source of fruit and veg and reduced our supermarket shopping bill.

£80.58 clothes/frivolities
Er... well. I understand that NOT spending these £80 is making me £80 better off in terms of the debt, the reality though is that in the last 6 months I spent £80/month on things that I can't always show. Some was clothes, some was (I feel bad to say "beauty products". I shouldn't feel bad about this, or?) beauty products (and that actually is a long term saver since I am fading out my expensive brands and replacing them with cheaper, better value for money products, (which also go with the ethical, holistic, organic life style my partner and I are wanting to live). So, here again the expenses diary will give me a better idea where this money goes and what it's for and I will be able to budget that tighter.

SUGAR HONEY ICE TEA I forgot something really important! *eak* I forgot my cats. I am paying all cat related bills, i.e. vet and cat food which comes to £250/year, £20.83/month.
How could I forget them??? *avoids cat's gaze*
=^.^=

And regarding the different debts:
The graduate loan is not too bad a rate and a short term with 32 months, the Co-operative Band credit card needs transfering to a new 0% BT by the end of January 2007 - that could be hairy if my credit rating isn't going up immediately.

How about I move
£309.65 HSBC Current Account (£500 agreed overdraft)
£1653.39 HSBC Credit Card
£279.41 HSBC Business Account (£0 agreed overdraft)
£493.70 smile Current Account (£500 agreed overdraft)
____________________________________________________
£2755 TOTAL to a 0% BT credit card?

I could probably pay that back much cheaper than having to deal with the different APRs and charges and such like. But you're right, my over-debt-ness might not get me a card. But maybe my partner could get one. He could get the first and I can close those accounts, pay it off with £150/month and in 6 months time I get a 0% BT card and move the remaining money and continue paying it off. THEN my debt will be less and I will have paid off some... Does this sounds like a reasonable plan?

Have all the cards been cut up?
I am not going to cut up the cards just yet as they are my emergency fall back, but I am not using the Co-operative Bank credit card as it's just for paying back the £3000 'parked' on there and I am only using my HSBC credit card in utter emergency, (of which there have been some with me travelling a fair bit the last couple of month)


It might be worth pointing out that all the travelling I have done had a good reason as I am developing a fantastic project and am hoping to start applying for funding in February. So, although the consequences of these expenses is hitting me hard, I am convinced they will pay off come Spring next year when the project is getting up on its feet.

Does this shed some more light? What do you think about the whole "my partner opens a 0% BT and I transfer funds into it, pay it back and then in 6 months I open a 0% BT and move it back under my name" thing...? Does this sound ludicrous?

My monthly budget could then be
£450 personal expenses (budgeting worst case scenario until expenses diary proofs otherwise)
£250 HSBC graduate loan (am rounding the figures up to lose the pennies)
£150 Co-operative credit card (or whereever these £3000 move to after Jan 2007)
£150 other 0% BT credit card to cover the overdrafts

That would mean I am paying back £550/month towards my debt leaving £97/month to contribute towards mortgage/bills.

It doesn't look like the cheapest way of doing it but it would give my financial credit scoring 6 months to recover and then I can rethink what might be a cheaper/faster way of doing it. Yes? No? What do you think?

Looking forward to you feedback!
diekleinemue

whatatwit

Hi, Diekleinemue.

Well done on facing up to it all and cancelling the gym. :T

I can see your reasoning in allowing for full expenditure on travel & food, but, what happens to the surplus when you get a lift?
Does it vanish into the black hole never to be seen again.

Have you seen some of the diary entries on this board, your posts are really entertaining and hopefully helpful to you.

Would it help if you were to start a diary on here, charting your progress and recording how your budgeted money gets spent each week.

If, at the end of the week, there is a surplus, this could be thrown at your debts, before it tempts you into spending it on something that you can't possibly live without.

Looking forward to reading more.

diekleinemue

Dear whatatwit,

When I read about the expenses diaries on the website and in the chat forum I felt it would be a good place to start. I am at it and so far I have done incredibly well since I didn't leave the house today to focus on uni work and have spent £0! Hurrah!!

Tomorrow is uni, I will take sandwiches and a bottle of water to save more money and I am getting a ride, so should cost nothing. Err..., except for that one book that is overdue and that will cost me £4.50. *sob*

Wednesday - Friday I am in work. If the weather is bearable it'll be £6.45 on transport (if it's pouring down it'll be £10.50. OR I finally invest into waterproof trousers and be done with it but that's £20 I don't really have this month) and I know I'm cooking tomorrow night, so lunch for Wednesday is sorted and I'll make sandwiches for Thursday, leaving only one day when I will buy something to eat in town = £5. I will try spent no more than £12.50 by the end of the week no matter the weather!

Oh, sugar! And then there is my own counselling of course with £25, which isn't negotiable and part of my training. *sigh*

Ok, so I'll spend no more than £42 by the end of this week.
The game is on!!!
diekleinemue

whatatwit

So, are you going to keep us updated on here, or start a new thread.....

With all this cutting back, your debts will soon start to shrink, (just wish my hips would).

Moozie has a weekly challenge going for us all to join in with and she also posts a daily....'what have spent today' it's just like going to confessional.....*forgive me Moozie for I have sinned*

Have a read up also on Pigsback and Quidco, they are both money for nothing sites.

System

How many words a minute do you type? Your threads are dead long and very well structured and different coloured writing. Well done!

diekleinemue

lennymfo wrote:

How many words a minute do you type? Your threads are dead long and very well structured and different coloured writing. Well done!

Hey lennymfo,

Glad you like it! I type almost as fast as I speak... *ahem* and I thought if I use some colour it makes it easier to read. And boy, do I wish I could be more concise.

When I have got my monies under control I'll attempt a "REAL" challange and try not to say more than 200 words a day or something like that... *sob*

*zips it*
diekleinemue

whatatwit

diekleinemue wrote:

Hey lennymfo,

Glad you like it! I type almost as fast as I speak... *ahem* and I thought if I use some colour it makes it easier to read. And boy, do I wish I could be more concise.

When I have got my monies under control I'll attempt a "REAL" challange and try not to say more than 200 words a day or something like that... *sob*

*zips it*
diekleinemue

HAH, now that will be a challenge to watch out for. :rotfl:

beanielou

Great thread
Hi & welcome to MSE

System

diekleinemue wrote:

Hey lennymfo,

Glad you like it! I type almost as fast as I speak... *ahem* and I thought if I use some colour it makes it easier to read. And boy, do I wish I could be more concise.

When I have got my monies under control I'll attempt a "REAL" challange and try not to say more than 200 words a day or something like that... *sob*

*zips it*
diekleinemue

No, you're fine as you are.