Crunchy's Debt Deletion Diary

Crunchy_Nutter

Morning all, and Happy New Year! :beer:

I've already started a thread in the main DFW section, but I figured I may as well start a diary while I'm at it. I'll use this thread to congratulate myself every time I manage to reduce my debt :T

So... the story so far...

State of debt as of 31/12/2011:
Littlewoods Catalogue..£4286.01
Capital One CC.........£ 799.30
Aqua CC................£ 299.97
TSB CC.................£ 363.42 (last month's statement)
Vanquis CC.............£2472.93
Barclaycard CC.........£ 367.90
TOTAL OWED.............£8589.53

There is also a Provident loan, which is shared with someone else, so I've included it as essential expenditure below as it can't be paid off early - it finishes around July anyway so it won't affect my debt-free goal :cool:

Depending how much Overtime I can do, I take home between £1300 and £2200 every 4 weeks (limited to maximum 72 hours per week, which limits my maximum earnings).

Essential expenditure:

Rent........................£260
My share of broadband bill..£ 10
Mobile......................£ 40
Lunches/dinners at work.....£ 80
Bus fares...................£ 15 (or less - walk to work and get free train travel)
Provident loan..............£100 (shared with someone so can't pay off early)
Treats......................£ 20
Total.......................£525

I don't smoke and rarely drink or go out so I don't feel too guilty about the treats budget. My intention is to use everything over the essential budget to pay off debt, with the aim of becoming completely debt-free by July.

I've looked at snowball calculators, and although I know I should pay off Vanquis first, with their astronomical APR, my determination will get much needed boosts if I can clear the lower amounts first - so I'm planning to pay TSB off next payday (20th January), and go about it that way.

I've already started 'being good' - I found £2.29 in my bank account yesterday - so instead of it languishing there earning no interest, and therefore doing nothing, I made an extra payment off my TSB card - every little helps, as they say

Hiddenidenity

Helllo Happy New Year

Look forward to reading *subscibes*

LAM2011

Hi Crunchy Nutter - welcome and good luck

freebyfifty

Hi Crunchy,

Happy New Year and Good Luck with being debt free by July (lucky you)

Crunchy_Nutter

Evening all,

I'm still at work, and there's not a lot to do, so I figured I'd update this thread with a little bit about me...

My plan to maximise overtime this month is off to a flying start - today I've managed to turn an 8 hour OT shift into 12 hours - with minimal work too! I've said before I'm restricted to 72 hours a week, I'm also limited to 12 hours a day. Luckily at the moment there is plenty of OT available so maxing out is not too difficult.

This much OT should be knackering me out, but in truth, I've never felt so positive about my future. I've put my dream holiday on hold for six month with the sole intention of being able to pay for it with cash savings - instead of blowing my CCs and having massive bills to return to. Knowing that in less than 12 months I could be sitting on a beach in the far east is making these 12 hour days more than worthwhile.

Anyway, I'm rambling... so a bit about me as promised...

I'm a 30 year old bloke, single with no kids (luckily). I live with my ex's family (who are more like parents to me than mine ever were, but lets not go there) - it's far less awkward than you'd expect and we all get on.

My main interests are photography and travelling - I've already mentioned I work for a train company so luckily travel is free / cheap for me

I'm determined that 2012 is going to be a good year - but I know it's going to be hard work - I reckon I'm gonna need that bl**dy holiday by the time this lot is paid!

I have made sure I've got a couple of things to look forward to before then though - I'm going to Dublin for a few days to saty with friends in March, and I'm going to see Pearl Jam in Amsterdam in June (tickets all paid for - just need cheapo flights...)

So thats a little bit about me, my motivations, and what makes me tick... Sorry it's a bit rambly - I've still got 50 minutes to kill before I can go home...

Crunchy

Crunchy_Nutter

Morning all,

January 2nd, and my first NSD :j

OK, I cheated a little and bought stuff for work lunches last night, but it was a good job I did as the shop was shut when I passed this morning

At first, I thought waiting til payday to get stuff paid was going to be a real drag (after all it usually is once I've spent everything on tat...) but reading some of the threads on here has been a real inspiration. I've realised that even if I'm not actually paying a bill today, or this week, there are still plenty of things I can be doing to save money / cut down on spending.

So far I've challenged myself to spend only £25 this week - thats got to cover all travel (bus fares basically), food for work, and anything else I buy this week. So far I've spent £12.30, and my work lunches are sorted until at least Wednesday, maybe Thursday - so I''m well on target. Plus I ended up with 70p loose change which has gone into my Sealed Pot. The intention is for anything I don't spend out of the £25 budget to also go into the pot on Saturday night.

I'm planning to reduce my weekly spend to £20 next week, but I'll see how this week goes first...

Sorry - I'm rambling again... But getting it off my chest and written down kind of motivates me to get it done - know what I mean?

Regards,
Crunchy

alibob30

You're off to a great start, good luck!

Crunchy_Nutter

Just found another incentive to get my act together...

Over the last few days I've been using the snowball calculator at www-whatsthecost-dot-com to work out the best way to maximise my payments (ie I've been using it for it's intended purpose!)

However, just out of interest, I've just been plugging in a new set of figures, based on my pre-LBM monthly payments on all my cards.

Ignoring my catalogue, my monthly payments if I paid my usual amounts came to £300 / month.

If I were to snowball this amount, with those same minimum payments, it will have taken me until September 2013 to pay everything, costing me £1,150 in interest over that period. Assuming I didn't spend anything else on my cards, and pre-LBM that was an unlikely scenario!

Of course, pre-LBM, snowballing that £300 would have been just as unlikely, so I tweaked the figures, and made overpayments barred - I'd be looking at a debt free date of April 2015 (again assuming the unlikely scenario of having spent nothing else in all that time on my cards!), costing me almost 2 grand in interest!!!

Sobering thoughts indeed! :mad:

Crunchy_Nutter

2.75 hours of overtime earned today - that's £28.74 extra in my pay on 20th Jan. Also found a penny (hey it's better than nowt!) - so that's £28.75 extra to pay my bills off with.

I've joined Mr Bloater's 2 stone / 2 grand challenge, as I'm a bit of a fatty - ideally I need to lose more like 5 stone - but lets start with a target then I can think about beating it.

Maybe thats another way to look at my debt - the thought of finding nearly 9 grand is not a good one - but 2 grand? I can do that - that's 2 or 3 months worth of overtime makes looking at it much easier.

As mentioned earlier (I think) I've also got a short break in Ireland to look forward too in March - hopefully it should coincide with meeting Mr B's 2 grand challenge - and maybe even the 2 stone one two!

Also, I managed to keep today as a NSD - tomorrow should be as well, but lets take it one step at a time eh... :beer:

On the downside, I'm getting low on supplies of Jack Daniels (like to have a little in the evenings to help me wind down) - but I must stand firm - not buying any more until payday! :cool:

Crunchy_Nutter

Not a good start to the day. Woke to the sound of strange music. It wasn't Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana, which wakes me most days (best alarm ever)... It was Stargazer, by Mother Love Bone. After a few groggy moments, I realized it could only mean one thing... my phone was ringing. Who on earth would be ringing me in the middle of the night. One look at my phone told me what I dreaded. It wasn't the middle of the night. It was 06:34. I should have been at work 49 minutes ago. Oh dear

So my planned NSD was torpedoed by a £1.60 bus fare, and the loss of an hour and a quarter's overtime...

And all my lovely passengers are moaning that their rail fares have gone up - don't they realise that someone has to pay for my pay-rise in April?! :rotfl:

Crunchy_Nutter

Browsing through the tax forum here on MSE I discovered that, as my company provide me with a uniform, and insist that it be kept clean (obviously), I may be able to claim a tax refund on my laundry expenses. Only costs the price of a stamp to find out (46p) so might as well send HMRC a nice letter. :j