The Ultimate Hard and Fast debt clearing mission

Dinah93

I haven't had a pay rise in 4 years We used to get annual increments for the first 3 years as we gained experience (about £700 a year before tax) but that ended a while ago, and then the normal wage increase only happened once since I joined the council and then we had pay freezes. In real terms I'm sure my wage has taken a decent dip since I started work.

I'm not too worried about the student loan any more, the main reason I'd like it cleared is if I start working for myself in any capacity it's going to be a real headache doing the self-employed route of paying it by all accounts. If I stay at the council or similar I couldn't really care any less!

Poolie

Dinah, having a student loan and doing your self assessment is as easy as ticking the box saying you have one to pay. HMRC will work out what is due based on your inputted numbers and ask you to pay the amount due with all other taxes. Towards the end of your loan it gets a bit more tricky but we can cover that when the time comes.

N.I.M

Poolie wrote: »

Dinah, having a student loan and doing your self assessment is as easy as ticking the box saying you have one to pay. HMRC will work out what is due based on your inputted numbers and ask you to pay the amount due with all other taxes. Towards the end of your loan it gets a bit more tricky but we can cover that when the time comes.

Your a useful one to have about.

wendz86

Sounds like a lovely weekend Archers. Sounds like a really good idea.

I have been lucky to get a a couple of payrises with my job but good job as will be pro rata for the four days i am doing when i go back and wasn't that much to start with!

Dinah93

We've had a mega spreadsheet evening (don't you wish your life was as glam as ours right now? ). As well as updating the spreadsheet to not include student loan and the baby fund, we also made a monster spreadsheet which calculates our income from now until Christmas 2013 so that we know what to expect by way of salary, SMP, child benefit etc. The good news on the first spreadsheet is our initial debt is now under £25,000, and we should be under £20,000 on the 1st Feb, which makes NIM happy as he thinks £25k owing is a lot less scary than £35k (fair enough). We also took the stove bill off, as we never placed the order in the end so it's not really fair to say we cleared it when we in fact just saw we couldn't afford it and backed out the purchase. The sad news is we've not hit our target on any single month now we've taken SMP and baby fund out of it.

On the second spreadsheet it is good to have an idea of what is to come. On NIMs current wage we're just under £400 of making things balance for the year (assuming we ebay nothing, do no mystery shopping etc. Unfortunately it also assumes we don't tax or insure the car...). If he gets a job he is hoping for we have a £3800 surplus, so should be able to tax and insure the car. I'm going to waddle about with everything crossed for a few weeks that he hears good news.

Birdie85

Sounds like you had a lovely weekend Archers, what a good idea to make attractions free for a day!

My weekend was nice but I do like coming back up North after any time spent in London! We went to Notting Hill and Portobello Merket on Saturday... saw nothing really as it was so busy! Comedy night was pretty dire but dinner was nice. Yesterday we went to the Museum of Childhood which was really nice, quite sad to see toys we used to own displayed as 'antiques' though! :eek: My friend's flatshare is a really odd set-up, she rents a room from a woman who owns a 1-bed flat, she couldn't afford the mortgage on her own so she rents the bedroom to my friend and sleeps on the sofa in the living room! So weird, there's no way I could live like that, I don't even want to rent out my spare room because I don't like the idea of having someone in my space, so to not even have a bedroom must be awful.

Spreadsheet weekend sounds very excting Dinah! Hope NIM hears the good news he's waiting for

Dinah93

I couldn't do it either, I don't think it's worth owning a house for that to be your quality of life. Glad you have a nice weekend though.

Been looking at some options on re mortgaging this morning. With the work we've done to the house hopefully increasing the value, and rates being a lot lower now it looks like we could save £140ish a month if we re mortgaged. We would need to find about £1500 to exit the current deal, but even taking that into account we'd save roughly £10,000 over the 7 years of this fixed deal I've seen. That's a lot to be able to overpay by for no real effort. So we're looking a little further into it but I'm aware our debt could be a issue when calculating the LTV.

I'm going to struggle today, woke up at 5am with NIMs elbow in my neck. As a result I can't actually turn it in any way, so sat here with a hot water bottle on it but it's not doing much.

1. Wrap up next/bra shop items which are going back.
2. Tidy coffee table
3. Put another load through the wash (if I can bend to it), wipe hob, placemats and counters, do dishwasher (also a bit bend dependant)
4. Answer ebay questions
5. List everything not in the big bags on ebay

For tomorrow: Package up all Amazon/ebay parcels sold over the weekend

This list seems a monster to me today, although I tried to play it safe, as right now I can't even turn my head to the table to the side of me, I have to turn my whole body!

Birdie85

Ooooh that sounds painful Dinah, I hate having a stiff neck! You can't even load up on painkillers Hope it eases soon... and make NIM do all the bendy jobs since it's all down to his darn elbow!

The remortgage deal sounds good. Our fixed rate is ending in February/March (need to check the dates!) and apparently our repayments will fall by about £120pm so I'll be happy if that does happen!

N.I.M

Birdie85 wrote: »

Ooooh that sounds painful Dinah, I hate having a stiff neck! You can't even load up on painkillers Hope it eases soon... and make NIM do all the bendy jobs since it's all down to his darn elbow!

I do 90% atm anyway, got her wrappedin cotton wool most of the time.

Dinah93

I'm too much of a worrier not to be on a fix atm, I'd be a lot more willing to take the risk if the next year wasn't going to be so tight. I do flirt looking at trackers and things but I always come right back to the security of a fix.

Of the 14 different styles I got from the first bra shop only 1 is a good fit, I'll be glad to get that money back on the card! The order from the second shop hasn't arrived yet.

Neck is feeling a bit better after a few hours with a hot water bottle and more importantly a nice hot bath. Sadly the bath was cut very short as my dad and granddad popped in for coffee. It's an incentive to keep the house tidy though!

Watching a tv programme about a first time young mum who found out at her 20 week scan her baby was very severely disabled, and the show is following the babies first few months. Why in the name of all things holy did I think it was a good idea to watch this 2 days before my abnormality scan?!