My wake up call

pinkpinkuk

Hello all

I have been doing some major planning (I have spreadsheets and everything!). By reducing how much I spend per month on food and not getting the bus to work I think I can easily free up £200 per month for now, £250 per month after my pay rise, at the end of November, and £300 once my council tax arrears are paid in around March 2012. This is my "debt clearing money".

My first priority (apart from minimum repayments on my credit card, of course) is my uni fees. I know there's no interest on these so they would not be everyone's priority, but I do need to get them paid if I want to submit my dissertation, which is very important to me. So I'm throwing all of my spare cash into paying those. Allowing a break in December for travel to my parents and Christmas presnts, this should be paid off by approx March 2012.

Further to my credit report I phoned the Council, who confirmed that I am on the electoral roll, but only recently, and probably won't be notified to the credit reference agencies until 5th December. So my plan is to get another statutory credit report in December to check this is all okay, and then probably in January apply for a credit card with a 0% balance transfer period, and transfer my current credit card balance on to that, continuing to make the minimum repayments.

My next priority is my overdraft, the APR being higher than I thought it was. So after paying my law school fees I plan to throw my "debt clearing money" into that. If my calculations are correct *geeky grin* my overdraft should be paid off by around September 2012.

I will then be left with just the credit card, and can throw everything at that until it is paid off in around February 2013.

All this is based on my current income and me not getting a pay rise after November (which I would hope would not be the case). I am still planning to look around for some bar work for the evenings, plus planning to look around for cheaper accomodation come March 2012. Any additional income will enable me to throw a little bit more at my debts (...and maybe go on holiday. Just a little one, but only if I can fund it through additional income, I'm refusing to dig into "debt clearing money")

If I consolidate I'll have this all paid off by the time I'm 30. If I do it this way I can be debt free by the time I'm 28 without incurring additional interest on a loan. Its going to be harder. I'm not going to be able to spend money on luxuries. But I'm determined to do this.

Thanks guys for all your help, I'm always grateful for any advice on flaws in my plan etc I will keep you updated on my adventure :beer: