A Head to Head Challenge

Nuclear_Tom

Looking like positive progress nevadagirl. 70 meals? Thats simply amazing, think of the savings there alone!!!! If you can get that right down to virtually nothing left then that deserves a wee celebration itself! :beer: :j

This month has been a bit up and down. Had to buy a replacement alloy and tyre for the car at short notice due to a pothole incident costing just over £220. Also, last months reading was taken from the wrong column on my spreadsheet, so my debt for the end of Jan (my month ends 23rd ) is £19,437.72 - so actually up a little on last months.

So, this months aims:

• To not get bored of big soups for lunch (BOGOF @ Tesco, and staff discount means a filling lunch for 36p a day!
• Stick to the museli (big sack at Tesco, £2.16) for brekkies, to save on the lavish fry ups, cafe stops etc.
• Not to snack at all, stick to a rigid 3 meals a day, with perhaps a piece of fruit if its free
• (can anyone guess I'm on a food diet as well as a money diet? )
• File an insurance claim with the local council for the damage to my alloy - damn potholes
• Keep a strict spending diary, and be very strict with myself.
• Relist all my unwanted books and CDs.
• Put my old mobile phones up for sale, and flog my £225 of HMV gift vouchers.

I'm confident I can make substantial overpayments this month, and be well under £18k for the end of January!!!

Also, I ammended my budget to be realistic, and if anything over-generous. That puts my DFD to May 09, but we'll see if I can bring that down further!

Good luck everyone, keep up the motivation!!!

Nuclear_Tom

Just to add - just sold a mobile to a colleague for £40!!! Not bad for a freebie! :beer:

mizmir

well done Tom!

I'm not sure quite how to manage this challenge now. I am making payments off my debts so I have paid stuff off. But my overall debt will have gone up by the end of the month. BUT my overall debt is considerably more than the original £21K so technically the £21K hasnt changed.

Soooo folks what to do? Do I just calculate the debt repayments I have made (will be min payments) and continue to follow the £21K down (effectively ignoring the fact that the difference between the £21K and my overall debt has increased) or do I calculate that I have paid off nothing as my overall debt has increased by more than I have paid off?

Am happy to take you guys' ruling on this one!

Am doing the Olympic Challenge so am hoping to raise enough extra to catch up again - but my head is in a bit of a spin with this!

nevadagirl

Hi Mizmir,

I know absolutely where you're coming from, as I'm going to face a similar problem later on this year in that my debt is going to creep up a little bit. My sister is getting married abroad and my boyfriend and I have to go, it would cause way too much trouble not to. She doesn't really understand that because I live on my own and earn half as much as her, it's a bit of a struggle to just happen upon £1500 out of nowhere (the price per person of the week in the 5* hotel she's booked). I'm looking forward to it being my first holiday with my new fella, but we've (well, I've) already decided we are staying in a cheaper place up the road, which should come in at half the price.

Besides, I really couldn't bear being under the same roof as all my family again for the first time in 12 years - there's a reason I moved out the minute I could when I was 18 :rotfl:

So it's going to set me back a bit for this year, not much, but you know when you start to get that feeling that you're on a slippery slope. So I've been thinking about what to do about this chunk of debt when I have to book next month or so, and I've decided to count it as a separate thing to the challenge, and give myself another kind of challenge to pay the extra one off. Like it's the overflow challenge or something. I think it's still motivational to tot up how much you're paying back, even if it's not enough to clear absolutely everything, the milestones are motivational. As long as I don't fall into a trap of thinking, well I want to sell my flat and I do need to get it redecorated properly, and replace the hall carpet, and that will add to the value of my flat, so I'll just count it separately and then the cooker breaks, and then something else happens. I really want to have a good shot at hammering this once and for all. Having said that, sometimes things just happen and that's just the way it is. So to get around to answering the question... I would keep following the original £21k down as that's what I plan to do, and try not to lose track of the 'overflow' bits.

Aside from that, things are going not bad with the challenge this month. I've left my spending diary and challenge amounts in my desk drawer at work but will be back on weigh-in day to update. I don't think I'll be putting any more towards it this month now :rolleyes:

Did I hear someone say it's a 10p listing day tomorrow, or was that wishful thinking on my part? I have 178 things in Turbolister ready to go.

Nuclear_Tom

I couldn't agree more nevadagirl, its the achieving the little milestones keep you motivated and focused.

My next target is to clear the £270 from my Aqua card (35% APR :eek: ), but its unlikely that will happen until atleast April... For the time being its simply a challenge to not increase the debt.

Count your debt how you wish - just the fact that you are keeping track and its hopefully coming down is what counts. My debt is actually just over £29k, but I've excluded my car loan for the purpose of this challenge - and thats ok as its an inflation only car loan from my boss that comes out of my wages!

Keep up the good work everyone. Don't get down about extra debt, just keep focussed and we'll all get there in the end! :beer:

mizmir

Thanks all. Will count the £21K as a chunk. The other £7.5K is now pretty stable - have really sorted the budgets out and should avoid it going up in future - and I have my snowball which I am going to stick to (and hopefully exceed).

This month I have paid £800.33 off my debts so I am weighing in early and have updated my sig. till 1st March. Hopefully will see a bigger drop then as I am also doing the Olympic challenge so should have extra money to throw at debts in Feb.

Nuclear_Tom

Sounds very promising mizmir... :beer:

I'm going to be struggling a bit as usual, whilst my monthly budgets are pretty solid and sound, unfortunately my pay from my part time job doesn't come soon enough in the month to cover some of the bills its allocated towards...

So another aim for me is to build a £200 buffer into my current account to cover such instances. If only I was allowed an overdraft

MSE_Martin

Wow cool thread. I've enjoyed reading the ups (sorry to hear about the odd downs)

Martin

Nuclear_Tom

*faint*

A (semi) personal mention from the master himself.

How flattering!!! Cheers Martin, you've just made my day, no, week... no, make that year!!!! :beer:

mizmir

I *know*! Martin joining in on our little thread - how cool is that?!

:cool: