Getting clarity on my finances

fantastiyk

CC2 statement arrived in the post - they had added on another £1.36 of interest - bless them.
Have been to bank and paid it off so hopefully that's it cleared FINALLY!!
Unless there's interest on the interest :rotfl:
well, you never know!!!
Am waiting patiently to see if I have managed to leave enough money in the bank to put towards Christmas - am hoping to squirrel away something each week/fortnight.

Mamato3 - if I find any of those seeds, I will share them on here :j keep looking.

I'm itching for another challenge but know now is the best month for us to try and put something away for Christmas. I might join a challenge for saving as that has motivated me more over the last few months.

Have been reading the other threads on this forum to keep me motivated - ie not spending - and some of the posters are achieving amazing results. I crave having more money to throw at our debts so I can be one of them. In the meantime I think I'll just keep plodding along knowing we will get there.

Happy Sunday everyone

fantastiyk

Just used the snowball calculator to work out when I'd have cc1 paid off by - November 2014 :eek: :eek: :eek:
I could go on with the :eek: but I'd be wasting valuable money making time

I couldn't work out the overdraft as I pay £9 month for the £300 overdraft. It doesn't reduce it - just leaves it hanging there.

I had been waiting (not so patiently) for the chapter 10 of 1 debt vs 100 days to save my £250 for christmas but I SERIOUSLY need to get started. - not sure what happened there with the capital letters, my keyboard seems to be jamming but it was very appropriate. I will make a start anyway and I can join in with the challenge when it starts up.
Kids don't have anything in mind for what they would like for Christmas so was going to aim for £50 each and have another £50 saved for extras.

Am really going to up the ante on trying to reduce this debt - I know now why I have been avoiding doing the snowball calculator for so long. I used it at the start and didn't record how long it would take me

I've had a few queries from potential customers this morning so I am keeping fingers crossed that some work is about to flow my way. :T

fantastiyk

New challenge has begun!!
1 debt vs 100 days part 10
Day 1
Pledged £200 to pay by January 16th.
£2 a day (sounds easy when I say it that way)
Would love to accomplish this along with the £250 aim for Christmas!!

fantastiyk

Christmas Fund: £5 /£250

Day 2 - 1 debt vs 100 days part 10: £5 / £200

mamato3

Well done on joining you 2nd 1 v 100 day challenge - I haven't joined any yet, not sure how good I would be to sticking to one at the minute I seem to get distracted a bit too easily! My fingers are crossed for you also in relation to the work hope everything else is good with you:)

fantastiyk

Hi Mamato3,
It's not that I get distracted from the challenge, I just have great difficulty getting any spare cash to pay towards reducing the debt. I found the last challenge really pushed my boundaries and uncomfortable at times. Our food store supply is still really low as I'd never let food run low before to pay a cc. I would have just bought it on the cc if we didn't have enough left for food or diesel.
That said, I know that if I hadn't have joined the challenge last time I would still have that £460 in debt and possibly have added to it. It was actually exchanging euros, selling jewellery and a sale on eb@y that all came to somewhere in the region of £180 in total that made the difference. Although I did each of these at different times during the challenge. I couldn't have done it on our income.
Also I must confess that I have been siphoning money off from our budget in the areas of clothes, hairdressers, entertainment, saving towards car tax and insurance. This may not be the best way to tackle the problem but I'm not earning any interest on that money sitting waiting for the bill to arrive and will make it a priority when the cc is paid to replenish those funds. Car tax is up in Nov but we decided to take it for 6 months this time and save for the 12 months disc for next May. If we could get the cc down it would mean less in interest payments, leaving us with a few pounds extra. cc1 is over £34 a month on interest which is a lot on our income. It's a lot on any income. But we are both a lot wiser with what we spend on now.
At times its hard to keep going with it all and I'd love to buy something on the cc, like 2 dvd series I need for work at about £140 but I've told myself that when I buy them I will be paying for them with money that I've earned from work.
I have some work coming up between now and the end of Nov that should bring me in about £300 after expenses so fingers crossed. Unfortunately most of that will be accounted for in work expenses (yearly renewal stuff) but there will be some left over for a repayment.

Gosh, when I start on here I write an essay!!!!!
I use this diary to record my progresses, ask for advice or to pick other people's brains, but most of all I think I use it to keep me occupied or distracted from going out to the shops - and that works for me!!

fantastiyk

Just had another LBM!!!!

Added up payments on cc1 since June:

Paid: £284
interest:£138.94
Actual amount paid off debt:£145.04

48.92% of my payments on this cc in this period of time have gone on interest :eek:

This is a 17.99% interest card so I must be paying this on old debt

Gosh I'm getting rid of this as fast as possible - scrap christmas!!

fantastiyk

Gotta love am@zon - had my first sale of £13 for a book a couple of weeks ago. money couldn't be released until yesterday so I went on yesterday and clicked to start the payment process - got an email from them this morning to say they couldn't release the money as my details were incorrect - logged on my details are totally correct for my bank account - they wanted cc details now too. Entered cc details and clicked to start the payment process, a note popped up to say that they can't release the money as disbursement can not be applied for twice in 24 hours.

They are priceless!!
They will probably release the money into my bank account anyway like they used to do. Just one more hoop for them to make people jump through.

fantastiyk

On a lighter brighter note - 2 of our kids have been away on school trips this week and are due home today !!

I have noticed I haven't had to shop as much - ok there's not much in the cupboards at the moment but we managed which was great as there is nothing to spare at this stage - I might have been a bit premature paying the £5 to christmas fund and £5 off cc. Next pay day monday.
Its a beautiful sunny but cold day in NI so I'm going to go and get some washing out - there'll be loads of washing coming home with our two later!!

Gonna hoke out some CDs for the ebay listing and check the remaining books I had on am@zing :rotfl:
they've been on there since start of July and just 1 has sold so not a quick money making scheme at all. Will check and see if eb@y might be the place to put them.
Oh well, we live and learn.

fantastiyk

Have loaded some cds onto eb@y - due to start on Sunday. Then realised they charge me 6p to postpone the start time - ugh!

Will leave the rest to upload tomorrow and Sunday. You can make money doing all this but you really earn it. It's slow due to a dodgy internet connection, a woman who doesn't really know what she's doing and the intricacies of online selling :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

That said, if they sell I might scrape up another £10 eventually - hopefully -

I have been a busy bee contacting people who had queries about work related stuff and generally putting out to the universe that I am available for people who require the type of work that I do. A nice little bit of interest ( of the people who want to pay me kind - not the kind that gets added to my cc bill)
so that's lovely.
I have been really missing my work and am really looking forward to working on it again. Its the kind of work I'd still do if I won the lottery - which I haven't done in a while either. Hmm.
Skint - won't be doing it for another while then.

I love these little guys :A They remind me of my work - helping people - so I think I'll pop them in here to cheer me up when I next check back :A

Have a lovely weekend everyone :A