£37k to £0 in a (determined to make them wonderful) few years!

Ladybird.

Not a bad day

• New house has a water meter which is new territory for us! Registered our account online today and submitted meter reading. Set monthly reminder on my phone for the future, be good to monitor our use and see how much we can save there.
• Posted ebay parcels
• Had fairly productive morning working from home.
• Checked most expensive CC balance and updated our spreadsheet... we should go back under the £29k mark come payday :j

There are a couple of things I have been debating with myself... the first is £100 worth of Premium Bonds I have held since I was a baby! Logic says I would of course be much more sensible to cash them in and chuck the money at a CC (and I could easily re-buy them once we are debt free) but I feel strangely attached to them given the ancient holding numbers, and also wonder whether maybe, just maybe, they could win me something to help! Irrational but there you go!

The second thing is my iPhone. I love my iPhone. It is a 4 so not a swanky new model but it is in excellent condition as I had it replaced in the spring and bought a case that covered it completely (replaced due to cracked screen- lesson learnt), so it still looks immaculate. I could sell it, seems £150 is about the going price. I would miss it though... and my kids would too...

Sometimes it is hard to find the balance between serious debt busting and 'a little of what you fancy does you good' I'm finding!

OrangeFairy

My iphone is my luxury that I am not willing to give up!

It is my entertainment, social crutch. camera and organiser I would if i really needed to but at the moment I love having it

The £100 in bonds I would keep if you feel strangely attached to them If it was £1000 I would have a different opinion

Well done on your ebay sales. I noticed the quick paypal transfer too!

Tradergirl

Hi Ladybird

Have just read over your diary and you are very inspiring:T. You have given me renewed energy to carry on.

Thought I would mention re John Lewis Vouchers i'm sure you can use them in Waitrose so it might be a nice idea to buy some christmas luxuries in using these vouchers wine, chocolate even the Turkey.:)

Ladybird.

Me too OrangeFairy! At least my contract is up soon, looking forward to a nice cheap giffgaff tariff rather than my expensive iPhone one. If I make the effort with the Field Agent app I might be able to make it earn it's keep! (Field Agent website here by the way- http://www.fieldagent.co.uk/)

Hi Tradergirl :wave: really nice to know that my ramblings are spurring others on, it is nice to be inspired by other peoples diaries, there are lots that motivate me when I am feeling fed up of it all too

Waitrose is a brilliant idea re the vouchers. I love Waitrose. Love love love. It's a dangerous place though... me + purse + Waitrose are not a good MSE combination :rotfl:

Quiet day today, housework mainly, looking forward to a nice family weekend

Have a great Friday everyone :beer:

Ladybird.

Arrggghhhhhhhh! Yet another stumbling block!!! :wall:

I wrote a few months ago that we were super pleased to have got a shiny new £5k 0% card, with Barclaycard.

Set up online accounting for it, organised balance transfer. Thought all had been set up, direct debit in place etc etc. First contact we had was an e-mail saying we had missed the first payment! We didn't even know it was due and assumed it was all sorted! Quickly phoned up and paid it, cursed ourselves, and have been paying on time by DD ever since.

The other day I was updating all my spreadsheets and happened to notice that they were charging interest, and thought I must have got the 0% deal wrong, was it only a few months? Went to go and have a look just now and they have been charging interest since the first missed payment, obviously used that as a reason to remove the deal. No mention of it made when we called to make the late payment!

GUTTED. We are so so careful with payments (neither of us have EVER in our entire lives made a late payment before) and while I'll put my hands up and say we missed a trick here (obviously it's ultimately our responsibility to make payments regardless, we understand that), I do feel a bit screwed over given the lack of bill and the fact an online dd was set up when we registered the online account and arranged the transfer. It was an honest mistake

Card is in my husbands name, he is going to phone and see if anything can be done. What a waste of a transfer fee if they won't let us have the 0% back

I shall be sat stewing until he rings me back after he's spoken to them, won't be until later as he is stuck in meetings most of the day. Gah.

[Deleted User]

That is gutting Ladybird- these CC companies make me so angry by their greed. Makes you wonder if its all set-up to make sure you miss a payment. Really hope that DH can sort something with them. Trouble is you can even say your taking your business elsewhere without paying another blooming transfer fee.

Let us know how you get on- will keep my fingers crossed.
GL x

Ladybird.

My husband didn't get a chance to call them on Friday so rang at the weekend, apparently has to wait for someone else to call him back later this week with a decision about it.

So I am still in a bit of a strop about it! Fingers crossed, if anyone can talk them round it is my husband so I'm leaving him to it!

Got a fair price for an ebay item that ended this weekend, and have another auction going well so should have at least another £80 to pay off the CC this time next week, so not all bad here

ETS oooh just seen that I have a £25 Quidco payment to come to me this week too, so that should only leave about £20 to find before the end of the month to hit my £400 overpayment target this month Hmmm what else can I sell around here...

Fae

That's a pain about Barclaycard, fingers crossed you get the decision you want.

Good news on ebay, sounds like you are well on the way to hitting your target

Fae

Ladybird.

Yeah, it's a b*gger. At least the % rate is still about 10% less than the card the balance was transferred from, so I suppose even with the transfer fee we aren't worse off than before the card... that 0% would have made an enormous difference though, all that money going off the debt rather than down the drain in interest. Sticks in the throat rather

Not the first time we have managed to shoot ourselves in the foot and I'm sure it won't be the last :cool:

We have plenty of room on a couple of other cards so if Barclaycard don't share our take on it then perhaps it's time to see if we are able to get a nice low rate with another of our existing card providers.

[Deleted User]

Good luck with the cc- I've got my fingers crossed for you.

I am now hunting for things to eBay too- got lots for the car-boot sale on Sunday- fingers crossed there'll be lots of shoppers there!!