£2013 by 2013

laura2481

Hi :hello:
This is my 3rd attempt at a diary, of sorts. Maybe it's my 4th... Anyway, I really need to make a definite dent on my debts and drag myself under control. My name is Laura and I'm 30 years old and I really need to get a handle on things again!

My total debt is currently: £11013 :eek:

This is an increase of £743 since the end of June this year- definitley not the direction it needs to be going in!





This is how my debt currently breaks down:

• Barclays Loan/ £6468.92
• HSBC CC / £568.47
• Virgin CC/ £836.11
• Santander CC/ £3139.63

My aim from now on is to overpay £2013 off of my credit card debt by the end of 2013- or sooner! I will leave the loan ticking away by itself, by the end of 2014 the outstanding balance on that will be around £2500, and the outstanding amount on credit cards will be around the same so by the end of 2013 I wil have more that halved my debt..

It is currently 779 days until 31st December 2013 so that means I will need to find £2.59 per day, or £77.77 a month to meet this target! This is on top of all my normal payments!

This should be entirely do-able as in 10 months in 2009 I managed to clear £2k of my debt which got me down to less than £4k- gosh I wish I hadn't let it slide back. That means I managed to add £7150 over 2 years! Thats terrible!! That's an overspend of nearly £300 per month! How have I managed that? I can assure I am not wearing designer clothes and shoes or having lavish expensive holidays.

Well, onwards and downwards!

Laura





DFW nerd #1087 Got married 29th May 2011! Debt at 1/7/11 £10270.03 :eek: Now £11013.13 :mad: +£743.10! every penny is a prisoner, from now on!

laura2481

The small DFW things I will do today are:

• [STRIKE] Eat the spaghetti hoop and toast I have brought to work instead of buying something else[/STRIKE] Done
• [strike]Drink free tea/coffee at work instead of buying diet coke (which I normally do..)[/strike] Done
• [strike]Try to sort out my paypal account so I can make use of ebay again at the next free listing weekend )this may mean cancelling one account and starting another as apparently getting married and changing my name really confuses things!)[/strike] Done- I have a whole new shiney paypal account with my married name Next step- next free listing weekend put up the wrappor shrug I bought for the wedding but never used. Should be about £30 back..
• [STRIKE] NSD the rest of the day![/STRIKE] Done
• Make a felt flower corsage to give to a friend as part of christmas present- sort of done, I in fact, experimented making a poppy for myself as I'm still deciding what type of flower to give her..
• [strike]Check online banking[/strike] done
• [strike]Update spread sheet[/strike] done
• [strike]Use the travelmoneymax tool to work out best deal for getting euros to take away next week...[/strike] Done- but in order to get best rate we'll have to get out more than expected
• [STRIKE] Make £25 payment to Virgin CC [/STRIKE] done

lvm

Hey Laura!

Just wanted to say good luck!

When I'm looking to save a certain amount of money, I look at how I'm going to do it - makes it seem easier.

I reckon if you tried hard enough you could easily do a lot more than £2014 in 3 years. What about committing yourself to doing £20 worth of mystery shops a month, selling £40 of stuff on eBay a month, making £10 of vouchers every 2 months through surveys. That's already £2340 in 36 months. Can you take on extra shifts at work? What about cutting back on some bills or switching to cheaper tariffs? You could use the savings made here to pay towards your debt.

Make sure you find out what APR is on each debt so that you're paying the highest first. You could give HSBC or Virgin a call and see if they have any balance transfer deals on that you could move your Santander balance too if that would work out cheaper.

Good luck!

laura2481

lvm wrote: »

Hey Laura!

Just wanted to say good luck!

When I'm looking to save a certain amount of money, I look at how I'm going to do it - makes it seem easier.

Thanks

You have also just made me realise that when I've been working everything out I have in fact being thinking 2014 is the year after next... which is of course wrong as it is 2013! Doh... so in fact I am aiming for £2013 by 2013! Off I go to amend all the dates... silly me:p

robsmum_2

Hi Laura,
Nice to see you again! Naughty girl for upping your debt not lowering it:p Don't beat yourself up too much about it, its done now and just needs rectifying.
Are you still making soaps? cause that could be another source of income.
Will subscribe and be your frwend/:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

laura2481

Hi Robsmum! Thanks for being my friend
I fell into that stupid stupid trap of getting a consolidation loan, then I didn't fully clear the credit cards like I intended and the money seemed to get spent on other stuff and then *boom* there I am with a loan and the credit cards... y'know that old chestnut. I thought I could handle that consolidation loan but no...
Anyway, that's a lesson learnt the hard way.

laura2481

First overpayment made today to Virgin Credit Card- £25 so £1988 to go.

laura2481

Here are my next 2 goals.. steps along the way to reaching my £2013 overpayment target and maybe improving my life a bit:

1. Total debt to be less than £10k by 1/4/12 (the day before my birthday)
2. To weigh less than 12 stone ASAP (with more weight to follow but this is just the first step along the ways..)
3. Spend the next 100 days using up as much bath/shower stuff as possible, and not buying any more! https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2986084
   100 days from now is 23rd Feb 2012

The weight target is due to the fact that since I got married at the end of May my weight has rocketed up! A little of that was due to the all inclusive wonderfull-ness of our honeymoon, but then I've put on another stone on top the holiday weight gain since! I'm hoping that by cutting down spending on junk food while at work and alcohol while at home (I have some extremely bad habits!) that the weight will also start going down along with the debt!



DFW aims for tomorrow:

• Take everything to work for lunch and breakfast
• Drink free tea and coffee at work- DO NOT BUY ANY DIET COKE!
• Have a NSD- leave bank cards at home, no debit or credit cards allowed!
• Take a book to read at lunch time.

and that's all. Shouldn't be too difficult! Hmmm, lets see. I'll report back tomorrow!

rupe34

Hey Laura - just checking in. :wave: One thing I have learnt about you over the years that we have been on this forum now (scary!) is that when you put your mind to something you are tenacious and get it done.

laura2481

rupe34 wrote: »

Hey Laura - just checking in. :wave: One thing I have learnt about you over the years that we have been on this forum now (scary!) is that when you put your mind to something you are tenacious and get it done.

Awww, thanks

The other thing I've learnt about me is that that is only true so long as I stay focused! As soon as I get distracted by something shiny then I completely loose the plot. I guess I've just gotta keep my eye on the ball!

yellow3

Good luck Laura, you can do it!

Yellow x