The "Pay ALL your debt off by Xmas 2012" challenge

suzitiger

SpagBol wrote: »

Great idea! I'm in, we need to shift £10k by next Christmas. I'm hoping it will be more but that is a nice round number and will be a massive dent in our total.

I've never done a challenge before, how do I keep up to date with it? Any tips?:)

Hi Spagbol, you can subscribe to this thread by looking in the green bar at the top. I think it says thread options and then you click subscribe, I only found this out the other day tee hee, but it means I get daily updates to my inbox and it reminds me to come on and check :j

Well, I am excited to announce that this morning I have paid £100!! off the three biggest interest rate cards. Two of them will be cleared very soon as the balance is small, so that atkes my new total to £5253 I believe, even tho i am not much of an accountant. I will need to be making a spreadsheet of this I think. It also means that once Capital 1 is cleared I will have an extra £20 a month to put towards clearning other debts!! Im really pleased to have done this and i will be taking other steps to try and pay off more before Xmas this year too

Oh and LOL to you Mf0u I feel that way about Natwest, BT and HSBC hahaha. Totally understand the rant, once you get going you just can't stop!! :rotfl:

Can't remember who posted now about Santander and getting lots of money back but WOOP WOOP :beer: well done, so pleased for you. (I have a mind like a sieve, I apologise) D'oh, that means I now have 30p in the 10p pot for too many sorrys lol

suzitiger

Ohhhh didn't see ur post Iristhedragon cuz i was writing mine, I kinow I added mine up properly and realised that my sig had been at 5,000 since august and my debt was actually more than that now, so not good, but we are staying positive because we ARE going to pay it off Good luck, Capital 1 are also pretty nasty, I don't like them lol

mf0u1098

idristhedragon wrote: »

Oh thanks guys! I love the support of you guys- we dont even know each others names,genders, races, lifestyles, jobs but the support is so heartfelt and cmonforting *wells up*
I am armed with a marmite sarnie, a diet coke and some ready salted crisps and feel a lot better (sarnie on white soft sliced "plastic" bread too- bad for diet but soooooo good for comfort)
TBH Im a bit Maths phobic and dont really understand the interest etc *shame*
I will have a look at the statement and see if I can work it out. Can you explain it for idiots for me please. I need to ring my manager with my (pitiful) figures for the week now so will be back in half hour or so.
Oh, and I can see the top of my desk now so my sorting is coming along....albeit slowly

Hey Idris, how long have you had these cards? On my c/c's they tell me what balance is at 0% and any that is at the normal APR. I always make sure that I pay of any balance that is not at the 0% so I don't pay any extra. If you do not have any promotional offer left of 0% then would it be possible to apply for another that is? The only reason I say this is that the balance transfer fee may not work out to be more than the interest you are currently paying so you've be better off. I've done that will all my debts. I got a 0% credit card on balance transfers for about 18months and put my overdrafts and c/c's on that weren't 0%. Now I am only paying back what I owe and NO Interest.

The one thing to be careful about this is that if you ring up to pay off a c/c debt with another c/c (i.e. one at 0%) then this CAN be seen as a cash purchase instead of a balance transfer so it not subject to the promotional rate of 0% and instead is a ridiculous %. Best bet in this case is to get a 0% card on purchases and then pay for everything except direct debits on it such as groceries/fuel etc so you build up a pot of cash in your current account and then use that to pay off your high interest c/c's. Remember though that many of the c/c's allow 0% for 18months (for example) BUT they are only applicable on purchases made within 3 months of the account opening. This means that if you buy something in 4 months then you would have to pay interest at the standard APR (e.g. 18.9% say) unless you paid this off in full that month. If this is going to be an issue then this is when a 0% balance transfer card comes in. You then move over your balance from your purchases card for anything not included in the 0% promotion (i.e. anything you've bought after the 3 months initial period) and pay the transfer fee (usually about 3% depending on provider) and then this stays 0% for usually up to 21months (I have this with Barclays).

It probably sound a little confusing if you're new to this so if you don't understand anything above then please just ask or even PM me if you don't feel comfortable in front of the others and I'll be glad to explain... xxx

kerri_dfw

idristhedragon wrote: »

But Id need to clear the existing balance or Id never be able to pay it off in full. Or does it mean for example Ive spent about £130 on my Capital One in the last 2 weeks so if I pay off THAT 130 I wont get charged for that? Im sorry Im so dense- maths really makesme want to cry

Oh no, I mean that you'd have to clear the vanquis one completely then use the cleared amount to pay your bills and groceries etc. It only really works if you have the funds at the beginning to clear it, then use the c/c as a debit card if you see what I mean.

Basically if you pay a card off in full each month you don't incur interest.

HelenPie

I was only going to update monthly, otherwise I get upset when the interest is applied (payments made first, so balance goes down, then back up )

But....pay day today and I've cleared my overdrafts. Because I've used some of the wedding money to do this (high interest on o/d than on savings), those overdrafts (hopefully) won't be back so....

I've paid £1,017.29, bringing my new balance to £15,505.50 (6.16% down) :T:T

Off to update signature.

H x

strawberryR

Afternoon everyone, I have been and closed an old account that I had with Santander after them trying to persuade me to change to a current account with them how many times I said I am happy with my current bank I don't know, so now paid off £5.27/£5,900.56 :j:j Not pay day yet but very soon just get to get through the weekends.

antonia1

idristhedragon wrote: »

Oh thanks guys! I love the support of you guys- we dont even know each others names,genders, races, lifestyles, jobs but the support is so heartfelt and cmonforting *wells up*
I am armed with a marmite sarnie, a diet coke and some ready salted crisps and feel a lot better (sarnie on white soft sliced "plastic" bread too- bad for diet but soooooo good for comfort)
TBH Im a bit Maths phobic and dont really understand the interest etc *shame*
I will have a look at the statement and see if I can work it out. Can you explain it for idiots for me please. I need to ring my manager with my (pitiful) figures for the week now so will be back in half hour or so.
Oh, and I can see the top of my desk now so my sorting is coming along....albeit slowly

Hi Idris, as others have said: congrats on being brave enough to open your statement! Don't worry about being maths phobic, millions of people are. What I would suggest is :

gather together the latest statement for each of your debts and check the balance and somewhere it will say XX.X% APR (see note below for what APR means).

put that information into the snowball calculator (http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx?country=uk) to work out what to pay off first.

this will also tell you how much interest you are paying each month, so you don't need to do any sums yourself.

If you have very high interest (29.9% APR etc) cards and a good credit rating then a balance transfer to a new, interest free (0% APR) deal might be a good option, and the main site has some good details on those. If you need more info, just ask on here or by PM.

(fyi, APR stands for annual percentage rate and explains how much interest you'd pay over a whole year. It is useful for comparing cards, loans etc, but using it to calculate how much you are paying monthly is a challenge)

mf0u1098

Great work Suzitiger, HelenPie and StrawberryR at paying off some of your debt!!!! :T:T:T

I'll update your totals now xxx

loubie_lou

I have been looking through some cashback sites as I have to buy some breakdown cover this month. I came across Quidco and I had £9.50 sitting in there from a Lovefilm subscription I had 4 years ago I had totally forgotten about!!!

BONUS!

:beer:

strawberryR

Can I ask for peoples opinions, spoke to my bank re loan I have with them, found out that I have PPI on the loan and wanted to see if I could cancel to reduce the payment, the lady at the bank called someone and stated that in order to cancel I would have to reapply for the loan and this may increase the payments??? Very confused and unsure where to post this. I hope someone can point me in the right direction, been reading MSE details about complaining re PPI.