£12k in 12 months!!!

mrsspendalot

DH just received a well timed 0% balance transfer deal for 9 months through the post, so I'm just going to have a look at the best way to shuffle some credit and save us some £££ on interest

mrsspendalot

Got the Balance Transfer sorted out .... £26.13 left on the Debenhams card which I'm paying off today as soon as my online banking will let me log on then it is empty :j

Current balances on the cards are:
Capital One £5439.02 (inc. a £1790 BT @ 0% for 9 months, rest of balance just come out of 0% deal and is now on 18.9%)
Santander £2598.83 (most of this is on 0% BT for further 6 months - can't remember the exact figure, rest is 22.9%)
Halifax £3509.52 (15.9% interest)
= £11,547.37

Once Debenhams is empty (£3000 limit), my hope is they offer a 0% BT deal, then I'll move most of the Halifax debt over as this is the only card we are paying interest on the full balance. Plus, can't move Santander debt to Debenhams card as it is also run by Santander.

All going in the right direction

DebtFree2012

Hiya there

Found your diary as promised!

Will be watching closely You're doing fab already.

i like how you have a 1k target and see how much you pay each month to it, hopefully the lot or more. has your 12k taken into account any interes that will be added?

How are you going to reduce your food bill and how many's it for?

I pay all my bills each month and see what figure i have left then that all goes to debt but lately haven't been having much spare

Keep going - well done!!!!

mrsspendalot

DebtFree2012 wrote: »

Hiya there

Found your diary as promised!

Will be watching closely You're doing fab already.

i like how you have a 1k target and see how much you pay each month to it, hopefully the lot or more. has your 12k taken into account any interes that will be added?

How are you going to reduce your food bill and how many's it for?

I pay all my bills each month and see what figure i have left then that all goes to debt but lately haven't been having much spare

Keep going - well done!!!!

Hiya!

No I haven't taken into account interest which will be added to the balances as yet - only because I can't get my head round working out how to calculate it on my spreadsheet whilst some of the balance is 0% and some is on interest :rotfl: But on my spreadsheet each month I update the actual outstanding balance (inc. interest added) so I do know what the running debt total is including interest and that is what I will keep my eye on. I'll just be happy to start with to be able to maintain paying to the CCs £1k a month.

I'm planning on reducing my food bill by better meal planning and buying less 'treats' . I have 2 adults and 3 kids to feed (plus #4 on the way). All the kids are on packed lunches for school. I managed £67 this week from Mr Tesco, which included the £3.50 delivery charge and all the toiletries we needed. I'm a bit restricted with shopping at the moment as I can't physically go round the supermarket myself looking for best offers as I'm laid up with SPD. When the baby is here and I can get mobile again, I'm hoping to be able to shop for £60 a week.

I do the same in terms of looking at what income/outgoings are each month, and working out what will be left for debt payments. If I get a month where I can only afford £700 instead of £1k, then it's better than nothing. I'll try and make it up another month instead with a larger payment.

Good luck xx

LMCD

Good luck!!

nice target, hope you get there!!

Lynn

mrsspendalot

Feeling a bit restless

I've reached the point in the month where I can't pay anything else now until the end of the month when I get paid. I hate this point on my spreadsheet because I somehow feel like I'm wasting time :rotfl:

I think to do something productive I'm going to go upstairs to the filing drawer and dig back through the Santander statements and see when and how much we BT'd so I can work out how much is incurring interest, and how much longer the rest is on 0% ... that will feel quite good to know, as according to my snowball, Santander is the best card to tackle next. I can't decide whether I feel best doing Santander before Halifax, as seen as Halifax is all interest bearing at the moment. Decisions, decisions.

I really really really need to do some ebaying too :cool:

Today will be costly, a trip to the dentist for us all. Looking at £112 based on what we paid 6 months ago :eek: because we have a private dentist due to shortage of NHS dentists where I live

DebtFree2012

Did you get your BT figures? I get excited doing things like that - how sad!

I've just called the child tax credits who kindly informed me they are taking our credits off us as we've gone above the threshold due to small pay rises and i think the government must have dropped the threshold.

Great!

I know what you mean when you say you are wasting time, or feel like it. I am the same, I sit and stare at mine then come up with a mad idea that means I get to play with it again but results in not alot of difference lol.

I'm attacking Virgin CC first as although they are 2nd highest apr I currently pay most interest due to their higher balance. i have 28 payments to make to them and they will be clear - I wish that was one a day instead of 1 a month! ie over 2 years!!!! Oh that xmas will be a joyous one for me!!!!

I have free dental til june so have appointment this month - my son's less that 1 hence free. Do you not have that?

x x x

mrsspendalot

DebtFree2012 wrote: »

Did you get your BT figures? I get excited doing things like that - how sad!

I've just called the child tax credits who kindly informed me they are taking our credits off us as we've gone above the threshold due to small pay rises and i think the government must have dropped the threshold.

Great!

I know what you mean when you say you are wasting time, or feel like it. I am the same, I sit and stare at mine then come up with a mad idea that means I get to play with it again but results in not alot of difference lol.

I'm attacking Virgin CC first as although they are 2nd highest apr I currently pay most interest due to their higher balance. i have 28 payments to make to them and they will be clear - I wish that was one a day instead of 1 a month! ie over 2 years!!!! Oh that xmas will be a joyous one for me!!!!

I have free dental til june so have appointment this month - my son's less that 1 hence free. Do you not have that?

x x x

Not sure about free dental - I thought that only covered you for NHS and this is a private dentist? He's really good though and won't rip me off, so if he can do it for free (or cheaper) he will. Everyone else will have to pay though so it's still going to cost

Right, to my surprise the Santander 0% BT is actually almost finished

We BT'd £1200 to it on 21/11/10 for 6 months. So I'm expecting on the next statement the interest will jump and we'll be repaying the whole outstanding balance at 22.9% - in which case we are better paying that off first before Halifax because of the higher interest rate. Really really hoping for a 0% offer from Debenhams now we've cleared that so we can BT some of the Halifax debt. We're usually quite lucky with 0% deals once we've cleared cards, and we've spent most of the past couple of years constantly shuffling the debts around to keep them 0% as long as possible. Trouble is, we've not made a dent in paying any of the actual debt off, hence the current drive to get rid of it once and for all.

Bad news re the tax credits, a lot of people seem to have been hit this year with changes - will that affect your debt repayments too much, or will you be able to adjust your budget to cope?

mrsspendalot

Ok, I've just input all my current figures into the snowball calculator ... which gives me a debt free date of June 2012 ... which takes into account interest (which my spreadsheet doesn't) so 2 months different. However, the Capital One card has some interest bearing balance, and some not - so the interest figure on the snowball isn't accurate and I'm not sure how to get around that. Think I'm going to just have to leave it as it is, and make sure that I update the snowball every month with the amount of interest paid etc. and hope it just evens out. Plus, I know from my budget spreadsheet that in October I should be able to pay £1500 towards debt, rather than £1000, so that will help bring the amount down.

I'm still aiming for end of April as the debt free date for now anyway - even if I have to ebay my soul to get there :rotfl:

Talking of ebay ..... I WILL go and list some items!!!!

mrsspendalot

Back from the dentist £106 lighter but slightly less than the £112 than I was expecting .... so my memory clearly wasn't very good as they haven't put their prices up.

Listed some bits and pieces on ebay and have one bid already