I'm Going to Reduce My Debt

Hallam_Macca

First of all thanks for the kind words and advice, really appreciated.

Today I've spent £2 on a collection at work and my tesco shopping bill came to £78.57, down from £90.90. I also spent £13.99 in the football club shop on a t-shirt. I've checked all my accounts to see if I've spent anything else over the last few days.

In my NatWest account my gym fees of £25 left on the 12th. A bit puzzled though with part of my statement. I tried to pay £51.50 into my MBNA account which I thought had worked but never reached MBNA resulting in a £12 late fee charge. On my NatWest statement it says that this went through but not on my MBNA statement. I've since then made another payment of £51.50 which has been received by MBNA and taken off my debt but on my NatWest statement it's gone over as MBNA paying me?! Very confused by it. It means nothing has gone out of my NatWest account but £51.50 has been paid into MBNA for free?!

I've checked my Capital One account also and because I didn't pay enough last month the minimum payment is now £36.83. I've already paid £30 so I've just transferred the difference £6.83 to make sure that is paid.

It's been just over a month since my lightbulb moment. Think it's a good time to see what I earned/spent since then to see how it fares with my SOA.

Incomings

Wages £834.02
Gifts £178 (£80 vouchers)

Total £1,012.02

Outgoings

Food £44.96
Household Food/Rent £78.57
Fantasy Football £30
Pub Lunches £5.38
Football £112.69
- Admission £68.89
- Programmes £10
- Transport £33.80
Presents £32.31
Mobile £58.41
Debt £144.75
Birthday Collections £8
Holidays £140.49
- Currency £100.49
- Travel Insurance £40
Contact Lenses £22
Clothes £76.98
Borrowed £30
Gym & Football £35

Total £819.54

angelavdavis

Hallam_Macca wrote:

A bit puzzled though with part of my statement. I tried to pay £51.50 into my MBNA account which I thought had worked but never reached MBNA resulting in a £12 late fee charge. On my NatWest statement it says that this went through but not on my MBNA statement. I've since then made another payment of £51.50 which has been received by MBNA and taken off my debt but on my NatWest statement it's gone over as MBNA paying me?! Very confused by it. It means nothing has gone out of my NatWest account but £51.50 has been paid into MBNA for free?!

Could it be that you might have misentered your account number and so the payment went out of your account to MBNA but could not be paid into an account number, so they returned the payment??

Why don't you set up direct debits to pay the minimum payment for your credit cards to stop it happening again? You can always add top up payments if necessary. Obviously, the money will need to be in the bank, but it will help your credit rating too as the missed payments count against you?? Just a thought.

I have had another idea about the football programmes - what do you do with them at the end of the game? Ever thought of trying to sell them on eBay?

Hallam_Macca

angelavdavis wrote:

Could it be that you might have misentered your account number and so the payment went out of your account to MBNA but could not be paid into an account number, so they returned the payment??

I dunno really, looking at the NatWest statement it says £51.50 went out and £51.50 was paid back in so in effect nothing left my account but my MBNA statement just says that £51.50 was paid in. Unless something later is added to my NatWest statement I've managed to pay £51.50 for free. I'll get intouch with NatWest I think and get it sorted, better to sort it now and not get stung by it later.

Not really thought about doing direct debits to pay off credit cards before. I'm never sure how much I'll be paying out though each month. Just need to not forget payment dates and minimum payments. My payment dates always seem to change each month.

I've tonnes of programmes at the moment, been thinking about putting them on ebay but I don't really want to put the whole lot on and get a lower price when I could get more selling them singlely. Got a lot of stuff in a box I'm hoping to sell on ebay, just need to get round to putting it online.

Hallam_Macca

I've had a no spend day :j well kind of anyways. I've checked my NatWest account again and £51.50 has now been paid out of it again so everything balances at least.

Think that's it for today really, going to put some of stuff on ebay now I've got some spare time.

Hallam_Macca

Hi all. Hope you've had a good weekend. I've had a pretty forgetable one to be honest and I'm bored out of my tree!

I managed to get a £10 tip friday night when I picked up my sis and her mates and dropped them of in Manchester, wasn't expecting anything but great to receive.

Went to the football yesterday, spent £2.50 on a programme which I'm going to put on ebay today at some point now I've finished with it and spent £2 on the half-time draw, I didn't win funnily enough. I was supposed to be going out last night to watch the Hatton fight but that got called off at the last minute as my mate fell ill so instead of spending money and having a good time I had an early night instead. Suppose it saved me some money though.

I put a couple of things on ebay on friday but as of yet there are no bids on either.

It's coming towards the end of the month now when I'm normally struggling badly on whatever money I've got left but surprisingly I've still got just under £300 to last me until the 6th Feb.

Until then I've got a couple of bills to pay for, £23.89 for my season-ticket and £56.93 on my mobile bill which was unexpectedly higher than I thought it would be. It's my mum's birthday on the 5th so I'll need to spend some money on that, probably £30 for everything. There's just one away left until I get paid next, the ticket will cost me £16 and a lift down with my mate will be £14. I'll be also paying £15 in total in subs for the football team I'm playing for.

Paying for all that leaves me with about £135 spare. Not sure what to do with anything spare I should get. Pay some more of my debt off or do nothing with it at all. Any ideas?

Tustastic

Well done on the money-saving this month, bet it feels good not to be struggling this far from pay-day. As regards the £135 you expect to have left over, suggest you look very carefully at your budget for February to see if you need any extra for it, then if not just lob the money at the cc with the highest APR. Good luck for the away!:)

Hallam_Macca

In the last few days I've spent £5 on subs for the football and £3.53 on food.

I'm finding it difficult to do anything more at the moment to get my debt down. Always hate it when your coming upto pay day but there's not a lot you can sort as you did it all as soon as you got paid. Has anyone got any tips of things I can be doing at all that make me feel like I'm making a difference even now?

I'm currently trying to sell a load of things on ebay and using quidco and survey sites to earn more money.

Hallam_Macca

This hasn't been updated for a bit I know. Lost a bit of motivation recently. Not a lot I can do at the moment and thinking about what I want to do in the future seems far away in the distance.

Over the last few days I've spent £31 on match tickets to Northampton and Swansea a few weeks later. I also spent £3.33 on food for work as well as £1.25 on getting some breakfast at work as well. My mobile bill of £56.93 has also been paid recently.

Not doing terribly well on ebay. Had one item not sell twice and only 1 bid on any other items so far. Things seem to have ground to a halt at the moment.

Ah well got half a day off work today, going to use it to find a better job and spend my vouchers I got from work later on.

Hallam_Macca

Had quite a decent day after all yesterday. Applied for a number of jobs, got a call from Prime-Time Recruitment, got an interview with them on Monday to discuss what I want to do and what they can offer and then they can put me forward for some interviews.

I'm a bit wary of them though, I heard off a friend that Prime-Time take a percentage of your wage away. Is this true? Not sure I like the sound of that at all.

Having a bit of trouble getting out of work for this though, already rang and said I've a physio appointment but work desperately need me in all day. I'll see what I can sort on monday.

On the spending front I spent £2.54 on a McDonald's while I was waiting to pick my sister up from work. Ended up spending just under £35 of my vouchers at Marks & Spencers. I think I did well spending that as well, there's nothing there really that I could buy without making me look middle-aged!

Today I've spent £1.30 on todays Daily Mail, saw a promotion online to get really low train fares starting today. Looked through the entire paper, nothing there at all about it. Great! I've also spent £1.24 on food and drink from the shop.

Two9A

Just about every agency will take a percentage of income as their fee, it's a matter of which figure they provide to you. If you get paid 10/hr say, the agency will probably get close to 12/hr, and skim their fee from that; if they state that you'll be getting 10/hr in that case, it's all fine.

(I'll be starting a new contract on Monday, and a fair chunk of my wage will go to agency and umbrella fees, so I'm not massively pleased about it either )