The "Pay ALL your debt off by Xmas 2012" challenge - PART 2!!!

mf0u1098

Superheavy wrote: »

Hi Jem,

Great work with your epic Sunday updates...I hope you can reward yourself with a roast (or maybe something lighter in this weather) later on.

I know you really want to get rid of the loan, and once those monthly payments are out of the way then you have more wiggle room in your monthly budget.

Are the credit cards that you have on 0% deals or are they at a higher rate? I put all my savings into an account where it is a little more difficult for me to get hold of it, which helps me to get over the temptation.

Personally I'm heading for my loans, but I agree having funds saved does make it more tempting not to be completely MSE all the time.

Now I know I've been talking too much when you call them EPIC :rotfl:

For a reward I'm actually going to Matalan later to see if I can get some cropped jeans/white trousers for the summer as I don't have any and am boiling. It's all coming out of my monthly spence though so all good!

I'm going to look at better savings options as I need to get this right for next year when I'm saving for a house. If I keep spending what I save then I'll asking Jakes-Mum for one of her cardboard boxes to live in! :rotfl: When you say you have savings that are a bit more difficult to get hold of, are they in another bank where you don't have internet banking or is there a withdrawal limit/delay in being able to access your account so you have to give so many days notice? How are you doing on your loan? xxx

MFWannabe

mf0u1098 wrote: »

I have enough money to pay off 1 card this month. The other card is not too bad as I can't remember the PIN for it! I've never had savings before so not too concerned about having any to be honest. I live with my parents so don't have to worry about saving for mortgage/bills in case of losing my job so I'm really lucky this way. The 0% deals end in August 2013 I think so plenty of time left on them. I really wish I could overpay my loan so that I could just pay the money off the loan each month rather than having it in a savings account that I can easily access... I find that a problem; i end up spending on something else and then afterwards thinking " That's x amount i could have paid off the card"
When does your loan end? Although you can't make overpayments are you able to repay it early with a settlement figure? If you are then i wouldn't pay off the cards as you have a long time left on the 0% deals but i would save until you have enough to pay off your loan through an early settlement figure.

It'll be a great feeling when it's gone, I agree! Maybe try the £500 per month option on yours until it's paid off before the 0% ends as you'll always have the backup option of using your savings but only if you have to. xxx

That's the option we're currently following; but i don't seem to be saving anything either at the moment; especially this month we've had so many things go wrong that have cost so much money

kerri_dfw

Canucksfan - you could try to put an ad in the local newsagents offering it as a service, every penny counts and it must be a really easy thing to do. Although I'd be really worried about getting a massive scary dog to sit eep! Congrats on another $600 paid off, you're doing really well

Recurrent-ostrich - I'm really sorry that you feel like that and I know that I am probably included in the people that are like it. I'm always the one on the outside when there's cliquey groups, so I know how you feel, and to think I've made you feel like that is terrible I'm really, truly sorry. I always read everyones posts and I learn so much, and I'm so happy with how everyones progressing. But I'm so caught up in my own sometimes that I post quickly and forget all the things I've read when I get to the posting part I'm now going to write replies to everyone in notepad as I go so that everyone is included, as if you feel like that then there's surely others. Really sorry again, hope you stay with us.

catmort - congrats on all the NSD's in March, wish I could get as many. I've managed 9 as my maximum so far, must try harder.

lemonpopsicle - I didn't even manage day 1 of no crisps/chocolate month oops!

debt-free-dave - congratulations you're almost 10% of the way and it's taken you a week!!! wowsers

Jemma - I don't know what's best for you to do, I'm terrible with saving and can't seem to do it at all so if it were me I'd cut up the cc's and throw the savings at it. You can always save again, but if you spent on those cards you'd feel worse than if you spent your savings IFYSIM. But then again they're 0%, so you'd be losing money by paying them off. However interest rates are pretty much negligible so wouldn't really make too much difference. What are the outstanding amounts on the cc's? If you're talking 4% savings on £1000 then it's £40 or a night out, if you're talking 4% savings on £10,000 then that's £400 or a small holiday somewhere in England.

Freez - I think I'd go for the £500/month option as well, so that when the 0% finished, the debt would be gone. Or put the £500/month into a savings a/c and offset my amount owed by that so I can see my total going down.

I've just paid another amount to my c/c, so my debt is now £2500/£5030 and I've just gone over 50% paid I'll be paying off another £90 when I get home, but I don't have the details to be able to do the online transaction whilst I'm at my parents house. I'm going to try to keep overpaying this month *fingers crossed it works out* I've got 20 days until the c/c tries to charge me interest and there's no way I want to pay it, so back on the fleabaying, scrimping, thrifting, homebaking, etc. If I scrimp from everywhere I can do this. I've really missed putting up updates, I feel like I've not done one in ages!

#005 £2530/£5030

Superheavy

Exactly...I've got an account at Barnsley Building Society where I put all my savings, and it takes three working days to get the money out, so that usually sorts the temptation problem for me. I also need to unlock the internet banking on it too, as I forgot the password a while ago!

I'm pretty sure some building societies still do passbook type accounts if you want one, but that's too much effort for me.

Both my loans have repayment figures of about 4k each, and I've got a sharesave with work (worth around 3k at the moment) maturing at the start of July, so should be able to get rid of one, by then, and still be well on the way to dealing with the other.

Have a nice afternoon!

mf0u1098

FREEZ wrote: »

That's the option we're currently following; but i don't seem to be saving anything either at the moment; especially this month we've had so many things go wrong that have cost so much money

I can't overpay but I can pay a settlement figure which should be about £5.5k in September (ish). I'm thinking it might be a good idea to give my savings to my parents as it will be much harder for me to have to face them asking for some of it back than even waiting 3 days to get it from a bank... It will cost me more money if I pay off my 0% credit cards, I just don't like them hanging over my head and being a temptation...

kerri_dfw wrote: »

I've just paid another amount to my c/c, so my debt is now £2500/£5030 and I've just gone over 50% paid I'll be paying off another £90 when I get home, but I don't have the details to be able to do the online transaction whilst I'm at my parents house. I'm going to try to keep overpaying this month *fingers crossed it works out* I've got 20 days until the c/c tries to charge me interest and there's no way I want to pay it, so back on the fleabaying, scrimping, thrifting, homebaking, etc. If I scrimp from everywhere I can do this. I've really missed putting up updates, I feel like I've not done one in ages!

#005 £2530/£5030

Congratulations on reaching 50% Kerri!!!! :j:j:j

Superheavy wrote: »

Exactly...I've got an account at Barnsley Building Society where I put all my savings, and it takes three working days to get the money out, so that usually sorts the temptation problem for me. I also need to unlock the internet banking on it too, as I forgot the password a while ago!

I'm pretty sure some building societies still do passbook type accounts if you want one, but that's too much effort for me.

Both my loans have repayment figures of about 4k each, and I've got a sharesave with work (worth around 3k at the moment) maturing at the start of July, so should be able to get rid of one, by then, and still be well on the way to dealing with the other.

Have a nice afternoon!

You too hun :A xxx

jakes-mum

mf0u1098 wrote: »

I'm going to look at better savings options as I need to get this right for next year when I'm saving for a house. If I keep spending what I save then I'll asking Jakes-Mum for one of her cardboard boxes to live in!

Right well I have an action man car boox, a Wii drum set one and various doll and kitchen appliance ones so you feel free to take your pick :rotfl:

With regards to your savings, it depends what kind of person you are, i'd hate to pay to BT to a 0% then pay it off a year early whilst keeping a debt that costs me interest, would really bug me. Others would just like to see that debt gone and dont really care about the extra money going to the fat cats. Totally your decision (how unhelpful was that paragraph :rotfl:)

Superheavy wrote: »

I'm pretty sure some building societies still do passbook type accounts if you want one, but that's too much effort for me.

I have savings accounts for the entire family with cambridge building society and they are all passbooks, have to admit its a complete balls ache to go down there and physically take money out, ive got to be desperate for cash to bother Highly recommend it for anyone who wants to save but is totally lazy like me :rotfl:.

mf0u1098

kerri_dfw wrote: »

Jemma - I don't know what's best for you to do, I'm terrible with saving and can't seem to do it at all so if it were me I'd cut up the cc's and throw the savings at it. You can always save again, but if you spent on those cards you'd feel worse than if you spent your savings IFYSIM. But then again they're 0%, so you'd be losing money by paying them off. However interest rates are pretty much negligible so wouldn't really make too much difference. What are the outstanding amounts on the cc's? If you're talking 4% savings on £1000 then it's £40 or a night out, if you're talking 4% savings on £10,000 then that's £400 or a small holiday somewhere in England.

I've got about £3000 on 2 credit cards, both 0% for at least another 12-18months. I keep lowering the limits so that I can't spend but then I spend anyway and transfer my savings across which completely defeats the object. However, it is a new month and a new budget and I WILL GET THIS BUDGET THING WORKING EVEN IF IT KILLS ME!!!

I need to get up now and go out as it's a beautiful day but I will sort out the following when I get back:

1) create the new thread (part 3) :j
2) go through budget again and build in Jemm-proof plans to stop spending
3) update signature as have sneaked under the £10k level now :T - 4 figures, haven't seen that since I became an adult I think
4) exercise!
5) book in for the race for life 10k and download podcast for C25K
6) do domestic stuff like tidying and washing etc ready for parents coming home from Wales
7) go out for a scrummy tea with my friend on a 2 for 1 deal so very MSE and I'm having a gorgeous chicken and bacon salad mmmmmmmm
....I think that will do for now but I'm sure I'll think of more.

You know, I'm actually thinking that my challenge for April should just be to only watch TV for 1hr per day??? I've got into the habit of just coming in from work, making tea then sitting down and finding that my evening has gone watching rubbish... In this time I could be fleabaying, exercising, tidying, gardening (it's getting lighter), seeing friends or even just pampering myself (I can claim things like massages and facials back off my health insurance!).

Yes so my April challenge is to only watch TV for a max of an hour per day! If i want to watch a film then I will have to use my quota for another day and so not watch anything on that day. It'll be sort of like budgeting my time!!!

jakes-mum

Jemma, you could do what I do and list your ebay stuff WHILST watching tv means I can have a carppy film on and still feel like im fighting the DF fight :j :j

twoboysmamma79

Hi all,
i am loving this thread and am proud of all of us :T

#170: Paid £250 yesterday

keep up the good work everyone x x

Canucksfan

Hi Recurrent-Ostrich, :easter:(<-the nearest smiley I could find to an ostrich!)
I do get part of what you are saying...I know if I look back in my postings, it's all about me, me, me. BUT I love hearing the back and forth conversations between the regulars here, the people who put so much effort and hard work into keeping the thread - and our mission of becoming debt free by Dec -alive, by taking the time to post frequently, when it takes an effort for me to find the time to do it once a week. All my life consists of is working v long hours and taking care of my children...that's it - sad but true. :eek:The chit chat about petrol pumps in the UK, travelling up to Scotland etc etc has provided me with a valuable lifeline to Home. I do take on board what you say and I promise to take extra care to involve all on this thread -sorry hun !:grouphug:
PS Two long-term contributors to MSE, Dinah and N.I.M., had a v premature baby girl this week. Sending thoughts and prayers to the little family x