T minus 220 days to go...

tigermoon

Woo hoo, reduced mortgage payment went out today meaning I can pay £240 off the NW card. Was meant to be £250 but I have to give £10 to somebody's wedding present collection at work.
Total debt now £8328 :j

tigermoon

So today is the day I finally paid off my plastic debt (I hope!). I got paid this morning and made a PAD of £1026 (£770 to Santander, £156 to NatWest and £100 to my saver account for my overdraft). I’ve got mixed feelings about it to be honest, I thought I would be bouncing off the walls wanting to celebrate. I am delighted that it’s finally clear but I am hoping I haven’t left myself too short for the rest of the month, it’s going to be a pretty long months (4 weeks and 4 days) till next payday. In fact I am a bit worried about it. For food, petrol, entertainment and toiletries I’ve got £300 (and a full tank of petrol which should last about 10 days). I’ve then got £150 put aside for my trip to the West Coast of Scotland and a further £75 for my sister’s birthday day out and £25 for riding competion entry fees I’ll need to pay at the end of the month.

My friend who I said I was going to say that I wasn’t going to London with now has no-one else to go with. I said to her that money was tight and she said that we could look into doing it on the cheap. I think it still means about £450 realistically by the time we get there though. The trouble is, I really don’t think she took me seriously when I said money was tight, £450 or £600 isn’t much money to her whereas to me it is a lot. Not really sure what to do about this now, I think it will probably be good fun when we got there but I’m not sure it will be good fun enough to justify the expense. She’s bought the tickets already and doesn’t think she’ll be able to sell them. Hmm, need to think about this one.

My other worry is my mortgage interest rate. I don’t know now if the Bank of England base rate is raised if my mortgage payment will rise immediately. I do have a plan B for this in that I can transfer the £100 back out of my saver and put it on the payment, plus I’ll just give my OH the rent next month rather than this (he doesn’t rely on it to pay the mortgage). So it wouldn’t be the end of the world, I’d just probably feel a bit like I have spoken too soon.

However, I think I will try and focus on the positives and try to come up with a plan – I suppose even if I do have to dip back into the dreaded CC to get me to the end of the month it will only be for one more month. And I am not going to dip back into them to the tune of £1000.

My biggest spends are petrol and food, and I think I can try and keep a lid on this. I’ve got a full tank of petrol which should last me about 10 days (optimistically 2 weeks) based on walking to work 3 days a week; then another £100 should see me through to the end of the month. My car is a heavy user (27mpg) even when I do follow all of Martin’s smooth driving tips. Food wise, I’ve put aside £150, I’m going to do a shop and batch cook this weekend, works out at £33/week which combined with OH should be enough. Need to try and stay away from the takeaways though – nasty, dirty habit . Toiletries, well I am going to buy what I can from Aldi, the only thing is my foundation which is about £30 in boots but I will hunt the internet for a cheaper source.

So all in all it does seem do-able (ish) and if not it won’t be as bad as it was yesterday. When I think about it, I am quite chuffed that as of today, I officially have no balances on credit cards for the first time in 10 years...and I have, in total, paid off just short of £11300. Only leaves me with £7320 to go...eep!

lotti379

Been reading - congratulations for clearing your CC debt today! :j :T :j

Just wanted to say your plan sounds great, and it is brilliant to see someone else who won't give up riding! :rotfl:

Also - I got YSL touche eclat for about £13-£14 on cheapsmells.com a while back... might be worth a look?

tigermoon

Thanks for the tip Lotti - will have a look there. Typed the name into google and managed to come up with a site that was £41 - £9 more than boots, not very DFW!! :money:

Feeling a lot better about things, had a look at the snowball calculator I set up way back when I started and realised just quite how far I've come. And if I can do that, I can make it to the end of the month. Had a lovely night with my parents last night too, my mum bought some prosecco to celebrate the end of my cc debt so we had a little party.

Am off to get some shopping now and then going to batch cook a big chilli and some cheese and onion pasties for the freezer - will keep us fed for about 8 meals I reckon. Also going to aldi to stock up on loo roll, bottled water for the gym and oven chips (they are lovely from there!). Going to try and spend less than £30 including mascara, wish me luck! xx

needingaccountability

Well done clearing your plastic, I nearly got mine cleared today as well too but have to wait till the 15th July when I get a statement to pay the trailing interest. But for now when I sign into the accounts it's a lovely £0.00 or will be when the BACS transfer hits the last one I paid today.

tigermoon

Thanks needingaccountability, the more I think about it since Friday, the more of a weight off my mind the CCs being gone actually is. I think it will take till Tuesday for the BACS to clear and in fact I should have overpaid a little bit which I am hoping will take care of any trailing interest on natwest. Santander is interest free till the 1st of July so I reckon I should be able to ring up this week and close the account. :j

My credit limit on NW is something like £4500, they've just put it up to that recently too. I want to reduce it because I don't want to have that much credit available. In future I am only going to use it for genuine emergencies - roof falling off house type emergencies, not oh dear I've got nothing to wear type - and for travelling for work. So I think if, worst case scenario, both of those things happened at the same time then at absolute most £2500 should cover it. So if I reduce the credit limit to that when I put it in the freezer :cool: then at least it will show some progress. Will also give me my first savings target when the time comes - £2500 will be the point where I feel secure enough to close the card for good.

In other news, I've just applied for the halifax reward current account with no overdraft. I am thinking that if I get the account set up then I can transfer all my spending to it and just pay the remainder of my overdraft off as I would any other debt.

I spent £47 at the supermarket yesterday, not quite the £30 I hoped for but still I came away with a HUGE amount of food. There is all the fresh stuff for the week plus OH's lunch stuff. Then I made a chilli which will do us for 2 meals, a lasagne which will do us for another 2 and 8 cheese and onion pasties. Have also got pastry and veggie mince left over in my now overflowing freezer so all in all I don't think I did too badly. Treated myself to some really yummy nectarines as well, they are delicious...they taste like being on a Spanish beach

Oh and have got the London trip issue sorted out. My friend who I am going with, have booked different (cheaper) flights to her which means I am getting there and back for the princely sum of £85, which when I told OH he said he would treat me to it. :smileyhea Then my friend said why don't I give her the money for the ticket in September so I can sort of spread the cost of going over a couple of months. Then in August I will only have to spend the money for the accommodation and spending...probably about £200 all in which fits in quite nicely to the budget plan. So all in all am quite looking forward to it now Just need to find out if there is a cheaper way of getting into London than the Gatwick Express because £27 return seems awfully steep.:eek:

needingaccountability

Well done, glad your managing a break within budget. I'm very fortunate in that hubby runs his own business and we draw quarterly dividends. only adds up to £2000 a year as trying to build up a bit of money in business, but it is totally out of 'budget' and makes getting away so much easier.

I'm aiming on getting my ISA up to £2000 by end of March and then I'll feel a lot better. Not sure when I'll pay the loan back, as soon as it hits the mark or leave it a while till I have saved a wee cushion. Have till end of next march to decide.

tigermoon

Have just had three very satisfying conversations. First, I have closed my santander credit card – balance is now cleared in full without incurring a penny of interest. :j Then I’ve lowered the credit limit on my natwest card from £4700 to £2000 and this account is now in credit. Not sure by how much because my paying off and minimum payments don’t seem to have caught up to it yet – I think it will be something in the region of £30 when it is all sorted out.

And the third one was I have lowered my overdraft limit by £100 to £800. Was starting to think that I would use the fact that I had £100 sitting in the saver account as a buffer and a reason not to stick to my budget. It wouldn’t have been a temptation if it had been a credit card though because once it is paid then it is paid. So I rang them up and lowered the limit.

Unfortunately I have also discovered they are now charging me 50p/day for 20 days a month for my overdraft not 10 days as it was previously. That means on the 19th July I’ll get £10 debited and also on £19th August. Am debating if it is worth asking OH to clear overdraft and then pay the money back to him. There’s nothing I can do about the July payment (as that is back calculated from June) but it would save me the August one. But then I don’t really want to ask him, not that he would mind at all but it just sort of feels like something I want to do on my own...or maybe I am just cutting off my nose to spite my face? Even in the worst case scenario it will be paid back by the end of August (maybe even end of July depending on how much my MOT costs) so there wouldn’t be any more charges than that. But then being part of the PAD thread has made me realise the value of all those little payments and that £10 would be better going off the balance. Hmm, another one I need to think about for a while...:think:

In other news, I had a good read through my old diary on here (under my old username) and it made me realise just quite how far I had come. I don’t even mean just money and debt wise, just as a person generally. I think being ill last year has certainly taught me what is important in life and what is worth getting wound up about and not. I was so stressed back then about my (not insubstantial) debt mountain, student loan, mortgage payments, work stuff, weight issues, relationship stuff – it really isn’t surprising in some ways that I ended up getting ill. These days I am a lot calmer and really only try and worry about the stuff that I have some influence or control over...which I probably manage about 75% of the time! And life has improved too, my relationship is stronger and better than it has ever been, my weight is healthy, I’m healthy and I have a new job that has its off days but most of the time it is good and it is actually leading somewhere career-wise.
Had a really good fun riding lesson last night, we were doing a combined mini showjumping and dressage competion and I came 5th out of 11, not too shabby! Really enjoyed it too, came home absolutely buzzing and slept really well last night. Makes me think I never want to spend my money on buying “stuff” again...there really is nothing you can buy that can give you that feeling.

needingaccountability

What a lovely positive post. :T

lotti379

I agree!

What a great feeling! Ah, riding. Nothing else quite matches it I find... it can just be a very expensive hobby. :rotfl:

About the overdraft - I can undersand not wanting your OH to clear it for you, but it might be sensible if they are charging that much! The only potential problem I could see is if you then don't feel you are in so much "real debt" as it were, as OHs have a way of being understanding... If you know you'll clear it by August for sure, and your OH has the spare money floating about and is willing (which I assume he is! ), I would say go for it. But then, if you would feel more proud of clearing it yourself (which I do understand) it is just £10... a lot in interest I know BUT if that is all that is added to it before you pay it off it might not seem so bad?

Sorry, not sure I've been particularly helpful there! :rotfl:I tried!