T minus 220 days to go...

tigermoon

Well, this is my shiny new diary to go with my shiny new user name. I used to be a pretty regular poster on here but I realised that my user name and diary probably gave a bit too much personal info away about me. I have been lurking on the forums a lot though and I miss the accountability that posting gives me, especially because I have been a bit up and down with my debt repayment.
Be warned, this is going to be a long post, or series of posts, because I need to get my plan written down so I have more of a chance of sticking to it!
Me
So, first of all a bit about me, I’m 28 and live far up north with my lovely OH and my parents and sister not too far away. I work full time for an oil company which most days I enjoy, other days I find it deathly dull and full of office politics. However the pay and T&Cs are good, there is scope for career progression and they were incredibly supportive to me last year when I was very ill. I am thankfully recovered now but I have a condition that can flare and recede at any time so I have to be reasonably careful. There is not that much known about it but my consultant thinks it is stress related, long term stress particularly, so I am learning how to minimise and manage the stress in my life. I also try and stay as healthy as I can by eating the best diet I can manage and getting plenty of relaxation and me-time, mainly by horse riding and snowboarding (in winter). This is something I am quite happy to spend money on, even if it means taking a bit longer with the debt repayment plan.
I own a flat which I rent out to cover my mortgage and live with my OH in a house which we renovated together. I don’t pay half of his mortagage, I give him £300/month to cover rent, gas, electric and council tax as well as paying the phone, internet, TV licence and sky myself and we pretty much split the food and grocery bills 50/50. We’re both happy with the arrangement, I’ve helped him out a lot with money for the house renovation and living costs in the past and he is now completely debt free so happy to help me out while I get myself along the road to debt freedom. My mortgage has just come off its fixed rate onto the lenders SVR and therefore my payment has dropped by £300/month. This means I’ll have an extra £300/month to pay off my debts as with a 100% LTV, existing debt and the current market I have no chance of remortgaging to a new fixed deal.
My Debt
Well I went to the bank the week of my 18th birthday while I was a student and arranged a £1000 overdraft, shortly followed by a student credit card. That means that as of January this year, I have been in debt for a decade. I had be LBM in August 2009 when my debt total was just over £18600 and have been chipping away at it ever since, as of today the total stands at £8568.
This is made up of:
Egg Loan £6520 – minimum payment of £187/month and the APR is 9.9% and if I made no overpayments it is due to end in 2014.
A&L OD £900 – no minumum payment as my wages just go in here. No APR either although they charge me 50p/day for being OD (usually around 10 days a month).
Santander CC £782 – 0% APR due to end on 1st July.
NW CC £366 – around 20% APR I think although for the last couple of months I have paid it off in full and then re-spent the money so been minimising the interest.
I also have a student loan which I owe a further £7960, which is due to end August 2014 if I make no over payments to it.
So, onto the plan...

tigermoon

My mortgage payment will come out tomorrow (I think!) and I plan on paying £250 off Natwest with what is remaining in my account. Then I am due £89 expenses from work, have put the claim in this morning which will also go straight on my NW card when I recieve it (probably end of the week/early next week).
I get paid this Friday and my plan is to have a relatively lean month of spending in July. I have a weekend away planned to the west coast of Scotland but my OH is treating me to that for my birthday present (although my birthday is in January, that is not the best time of year to go on holiday in Scotland!) so I am not expecting to spend any more than £150 on that. I am also taking my sister out for the day for her birthday this month and I have my riding lessons to pay for. On top of this I’ve left £350 over for food, petrol, toiletries and entertainment which seems pretty tight to me (not to some I know and I am full of admiration for you).
The prize for my frugal month however will be that I will be plastic-debt free for the first time in 10 years as I am going to pay the full balances off my Natwest and Santander credit cards on Friday. This plus my egg loan payment will mean a total debt repayment this month of about £1000, eek!
I really hope I can make it to the end of the month without going over budget though, I think things are going to be pretty tight but it will definitely be worth it. The idea of not having credit card debt is almost unthinkable to me, it has been such a big part of my life for so long and I will be delighted to be rid of it once and for all. I’ve been waking up every morning for the last three weeks counting down the days till the 24th.
I am planning on walking to work at least 3 days a week to save money on fuel (I need the car the other 2 days), it takes about 30 minutes but it will be good exercise and definitely worth it. I’m also going to take out my cash for the week in advance and leave my cards at home so even if I want to, I just can’t spend.
The Santander card will be cancelled next week as soon as it is clear. I am going to put the NW card in a block of ice in the freezer, I have to go abroad for work every 3-4 months and NW don’t charge for usage abroad so I think it is worth keeping. Also, I won’t be in a position to have an emergency fund for a while so in case of car/home disasters it is probably worth hanging on to this for now.
It will not be used for buying nice food in M&S!!!

tigermoon

August & September 2011...aka overdraft time!
August is an expensive month for me, my car MOT & service is due, this has cost me £600 for the last two years because my car is old. The only way I could afford a new one is one finance and there is NO WAY I am doing that. Have budgeted £450 for the MOT because haven’t done that many miles this year so hopefully the wear and tear won’t be too much. Have got a bit more in reserve if it does work out as more...although it would be nice if it was less!
I have a hen weekend the first weekend in August, most of which is already paid for and a weekend away to the Edinburgh festival planned with OH, again accomodation is paid for. I’ve set aside £300 spending money for these. Then it is my mum’s and OH’s birthdays in August too and I’ve set aside £100 for presents for them. So all that, plus usual spending should mean I am left with about £400 for the overdraft clearance fund. I’m going to put this in my savings account for the month.
September should see my overdraft clear once and for all and leave me with one debt to pay (egg loan). I will pay the full balance of my overdraft in one and cancel the facility and they can stick their 50p/day charge. I have a cardcash account with halifax that I currently use for my spending am I am planning on upgrading this to the reward current account so I get the free £5 a month after my overdraft is clear.
I am supposed to be going to a music festival in London with a friend at the beginning of September and I am going to have to tell her I can’t go. All in I think it would cost me £600 and it just isn’t realistic for me just now. There is someone else going too so it won’t mean that she can’t go and I’ll offer to sell the ticket and reimburse her for the cost of the deposit on the hotel. I really hope she is okay with it, she knows I have some debt but no idea to what extent. Am very worried about this conversation and planning on having it with her this week...
All being well however, come the end of September, I will still have my friend and finally be in the position that there is positive balance in my bank account. I think it is only in the last few months I have realised that not everybody goes overdrawn to the limit of their overdraft every month. I should also, calculations being correct, manage to pay my first egg loan overpayment of £400 this month.

tigermoon

My Plan Part 3
Oct 2011 – January 2012...aka the home stretch.
So if I make it this far, by 30th September (the day before my minumum payment is due) I’ll owe egg £5640. I’ve done a rough SOA for October-January (although I will do more detailed ones closer to the time) accounting for my one off expenses – Christmas, dad’s birthday (Nov), parents’ anniversery (Nov) and 6 months car tax (Dec) and I reckon it will leave me with just over £1000 free for debt repayment each month in this period.
I will also get a Christmas bonus and end of year bonus from work which I don’t know what the exact figures will be yet but I have been relatively pessimisstic in my planning. And from all this I think (don’t want to sound too sure yet) my DFD should be Thursday 26th January 2012 (payday), when I will not only make my final egg loan payment but will put some money into a savings account as well. There really is a first time for everything J...

tigermoon

Wow that seems like some plan, I am going to do everything I can to stick to it and make it happen. My health is more important to me than my debt and I am in the fortunate position of being fairly well paid and and not having problem debts so if I don’t happen to get ill again (and pray god that I won’t) then this should be achievable. In fact there isn’t really any reason why it isn’t achievable. Excel tells me that I am 220 days from being debt free, I need to learn to cut back in that time. Okay I won’t sacrifice the horse riding, nor the couple of weekends away in Scotland I have planned but I can walk to work more, I have cancelled my gym membership, reduced my sky package, sorted out some things to list on ebay and I really can pluck my own eyebrows J.
I’m going to try and update this diary regularly as well as do PAD and what small things because both of those have helped me in the past...
I can see a glimpse of this new life of mine coming round the corner, where if the exhaust falls off the car or the boiler breaks it isn’t a cause for panic. Where I can go on a snowboarding holiday next February and pay for it in cash. Where I can finally, finally not be a person who is in debt and I can post my name and my story on the debt free roll of honour. The burden of debt gets lighter as the weeks go on and I need to hold onto that thought and that feeling for the next 7 months because it is going to be tempting and it is going to be tough.
So if you are still reading at this point and haven’t fallen asleep then please, wish me luck. I am digging deep, working hard and determined to finally do this once and for all.

Emzilla

Hi Tigermoon

Wow, you seem so organised and that is a really detailed plan. I'm sure that you will achieve your goal of getting debt free in 220 days.

I'm off to subscribe.

Emz xx

needingaccountability

Your plan looks good, we're both heading for about the same date - I'm the 29th January 2012:beer:

tigermoon

Thanks emzilla, I may seem more organised than I feel!
I suppose writing it all out has a carthartic effect and gives me something to aim for...stops all the thoughts just whizzing round in my head at least!

tigermoon

Wow, that's brilliant needingaccountability, do you have a diary where you are updating your progress?
Look forward to updating the roll of honour at the same time.
Love the username by the way!!

needingaccountability

tigermoon wrote: »

Wow, that's brilliant needingaccountability, do you have a diary where you are updating your progress?
Look forward to updating the roll of honour at the same time.
Love the username by the way!!

Yes its 227 sleeps till I wake up debt free,

worked out my sleeps wrong and had an original due date of 29/2/11 then I saw your diary and it clicked, so had a rejig and 29/1 is doable, so thank you or I would have got to 0 and been very upset :rotfl:

tigermoon

needingaccountability wrote: »

Yes its 227 sleeps till I wake up debt free,

worked out my sleeps wrong and had an original due date of 29/2/11 then I saw your diary and it clicked, so had a rejig and 29/1 is doable, so thank you or I would have got to 0 and been very upset :rotfl:

Hehe, glad to be able to help :rotfl: