I am new here and need help

gallygirl

Iwanttobedebtfree wrote: »

Gallygirl - thank you for your very useful suggestions and the link to the calculators. I use excel for everything. The interest I am paying for the Overdraft is high, but I didn't think that it was as high as 39%! I will check with the bank on Monday. I like the idea of turning it into a challenge. thank you.

The interest rate alone won't be 39%, but I took what you were paying in interest plus charges and based it on that. Basically I reckon you're paying 39% of the debt, however they break it up.

Iwanttobedebtfree_3

I have to change my bank account. It is one of Natwest's Private Banking accounts. I opened it when things were good and I had quite a bit of money in the account. In addition to the charges for the overdraft, I also pay approx £300 annual fee each October. There are lots of perks that come with the account that are worth a lot more, but I hardly avail myself of them. I will change the account to avoid the next annual fee.

Gallygirl - what does Mitt 11 mean? (in your signature).

Cheers

gallygirl

Iwanttobedebtfree wrote: »

I have to change my bank account. It is one of Natwest's Private Banking accounts. I opened it when things were good and I had quite a bit of money in the account. In addition to the charges for the overdraft, I also pay approx £300 annual fee each October. There are lots of perks that come with the account that are worth a lot more, but I hardly avail myself of them. I will change the account to avoid the next annual fee.

Gallygirl - what does Mitt 11 mean? (in your signature).

Cheers

It refers to the Mortgage Free in Three (years) thread, I am no. 11 on it but have gone a bit 'off road' with it .

Good luck. Like I said before you have a lot of debt - but a lot of income also so can fix this in a few years :T

curlytop12

gallygirl wrote: »

I think notatvstar is possibly referring to THIS site. Register on there and on the left hand side is something called snowballiing. Basically the principle is you bung in all your debts, monthly payments and APR's and it calculates when you will be debt free. It assumes that when the 1st debt is paid off you 'roll the payment' over to the next debt, so it has a snowballing effect and you can see what a difference that makes.

You should pay off the highest APR debt 1st, though sometimes it can give a psychological boost to pay off a smaller one so at least that is one crossed off. In your case I suspect it's one and the same - if my calculation is correct your overdraft, with interest & charges, is the equivalent of 39% APR :eek: so that should be first.

It depends on how much you want to go for it really as to how quickly you can pay it off. You have a v good income & fair bit of spare cash so you are in a relatively good position, though it may not seem that way.

I would turn it into a game - note your debt free date then set out to beat it (in the same way you do with the sat nav arrival time :rotfl:). If you normally spend £12 on a bottle of wine then spend £6, and pay the £6 off a credit card straight away. If you have a £5 shopping voucher then use it & pay £5 off etc. You'll be surprised at how quickly it adds up.

If you're good with excel, maybe set up your own spreadsheet, showing all the debts, adding interest automatically plus your regular payments & planned overpayments. Again, calculate your debt free date and try to beat it. The beauty of that is you can scroll down to when it hits 0 and see how much it will take to knock a week off (assuming your payments go out on different dates of the month). If it's only £50 or so it's amazing how you can manage to find that . Even better when it's a smaller amount (I have £12 coming from paypal and know it will knock a month off my mortgage free date :T).

It's all about trying to have a positive outlook and making it an interesting challenge, with milestones to achieve, rather than a worry and millstone round your neck (which I know it is ).

Good luck :T

fantastic reply-am stealing all those ideas for myself!:)

gallygirl

gem68 wrote: »

fantastic reply-am stealing all those ideas for myself!:)

Em yes, years of experience behind me :rotfl:

Magpie23

Hi Iwanttobedebtfree,

With regards to obtaining a further cc or a 0% option, we have found that there is usually a promotional offer every month from some cc company in the post. Also, ironically, when we paid a grand off of our Egg Card, within less than a week they up-ed my cc limit by an extra £3k!? Not that I need any extra help getting myself into trouble ;-) Have you tried phoning the cc comanies to see if they can offer you any better deals or rates, tell them you're looking to change companies for a better rate but you'd thought they'd might like to keep your custom? Anything's worth a go in this climate and we've got nothing to lose by asking x

Best of Luck
Magpie23
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jellybean39

Good luck with sorting all your debts out. If you feeling down come on here for inspiration!!! i only started last month and look at what i have paid off cant believe it! Am starting the 100 day challenge tomorrow perhaps you would like to join. save what you can in 100 days from earning extra money. i am aiming for egg card 1 to go. I done the snowball and its great every time you add a payment and it comes down but it also shows you every month when you have to put in the interest how much you are actually paying. That in itself is enough to make you want to become debt free another 300 a month in intrest payments not good. Have done a car boot sale first time in 15 years and set up ebay account have sold 600 quid worth of stuff and i mean stuff!!! Ask your self everytime you buy something do you really need it if you do wait til the end of the week and if its a whim the urge is normaly gone! Changing bank accounts is good idea, if you find cc company suddenly puts rate up you can opt out (which is whay i have done) they close account at current interest rate and you pay off monthly as normal until account is closed. Hope we see more of you people on here a real inspiration!! gl xxxx

Magpie23

I'm also on the 1 debt in 100 days challenge and I must confess I'm suprised how focused it's made me become!

I was able to come a very long way on my own, but it has been extremely loney and scary at times, constantly trying to make the right choices whilst facing up to all of my cc balances in the meantime. I'm so glad I've found MSE and can share and offload with my new virtual friends.

A problem shared truely is a problem halved, and I feel the weight lifting off already, you will too. Remember, we're all in it together no matter how we all got here .

But do join in on the challenges and turn it into a game. I never thought debt-busting could be so muck fun! LOL

Magpie23
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