My Diary Challenge

superted4

Hi,

After getting a bank statement with £85 worth of charges on for the second time this year, its pushed me harder for a resolution in becoming debt free.

The story so far.....

After the accumination of several redundancies and the credit crunch leaving my industry, Financial Services, in tatters me and my wife were deep in debt. I started an excel spreedsheet at the beginning of 2011 and it shocked me to see we owed £65000. Absolutely gutted. Overdrafts, loans and credit cards. Our mortgage is £156k interest only with no means of paying it back, although there is still 26 years left to run on that. But things needed to change.

Following on from that and taking steady steps, interest free options, paying off the higher interest first, switching suppliers and budgeting we've got it down to £43k this month. Have to admit as well that with at the time 3 kids and now 4 kids, that some months we do have to borrow again, but we have got this down to just Xmas. Although with the arrival of our recent bundle of joy we had to spend £2200 on a cheap 7 seater car. but unfortunately we had to. At present we are paying off around £871 a month off our debt and by my calculations we should be debt free by September 2015, but I have set the challenge to be debt free by December 2014, and would love to squeeze it a little more!!!!

The reason for this post is for me to feel like i've got this off my chest and to make a written record of my progress. Although I can sit for hours staring at the excel spreadsheet, sometimes I need to look back at where I started. My wife is great and knows how to cut back, but we both feel that we could, and will, be doing more.

So back to today, £85 fee;s from Abbey. Basically every monday £155 transfers to the abbey account to pay for food, petrol and the kids symnastics and swimming. Unfortunately we sometime buy things on the firday before having not checked the balance (our fault completely). So to change this I am going to find the best cashback credit card. The £155 will still get transferred to the Abbey account the same but we will buy food and petrol on the credit card and then set up a direct debit to clear it in its entirity every month (and hopefully make a bit of cashback as well).

Another thing is we have been trying to keep up with the jones, ie my wife's sisters family and my sisters family, despite those families earning at least twice as much as us. When I say keep up, its basically down to leisure activities such as weekends away with the kids, ie camping and caravnning. Usually this would have gone on the credit card or money from our wages would have to be saved to pay for it, but having booked a weekend away in september and 2 weeks in the isle of wight next year, totalling £430 outlay, we deciding not to save through our wages, but earn additional money. To do this we are selling things that we have hoarded and not used in ages. So far after 2 days we have got £116 and not sold anything of real value. Got plenty items on ebay and various forums and we havent even entered the loft or garage or sorted all the broken gold. By doing this way we will feel like we have really earned our holidays as we will also have to save spending money, but we can also leave the left over money in our account for either paying debts or by saving for events, such as xmas, that would usually be spent on the credit card.

Recently started a new job which has the scope for additional earnings

So thats where we are, and december 2015 is where we want to be, but debt free.

Any help gratefully received, if not this will be for my eyes only to keep me on track.

superted4

A little to add. The people im now working with all seem to have little side avenues to make a little extra cash, not much but extra all the same. Now for the next 6-8 months mines going to clearing the crap of the loft and garage (and believe me theres plenty) but after that going to try and get a little sideline. My wifes also looking at a few options to earn a few extra pennies.

Oh and like a llot of people on hear i'm going to try and shift a bit of weight and spend less time on facebook and football forums.

superted4

My first mistake already. At the current rate we'll be debt free by September 2016, and thats if we dont borrow anymore money, which is doubtful as having switched jobs, my new job pays on the 7th of each, when my old job paid on the last of the month. Mortgage and loans companies wont budge past the end of the month for the payment date, even though ive explained why i need to switch, and credit card payment would be late if I switched them, so 2 lots of near enough everything to come out this month. Deep joy and all that!

superted4

Well pushing on. Waiting until the end of the month to post how mush we actually owe and to where.

Got a few bits on ebay at the moment, currently up to £24 in total. The reason any money we raise additionally is going to treats/rewards instead of paying off debt is to inbuild for want of a better word a save culture and actually only reward ourselves once we have earned it instead of putting it on a card.

Read some of the forum regarding shopping and will be trying to put some of those tips into practice on the next big shop. If we could save an additional £10 a month, then that would give us £520 over the course of the year.

Registered for Swagbucks yesterday and so far it looks like a big con, as every survey ive gone to complete it doesnt like my initial answers and says im not suitable. Will have to look more into though, as most nights me and my wife spend a few hours just watching crap on the TV and on the laptop. Again this, if we can get it working for us, will reward us and install a work/save/reward ethic.

superted4

Well been away from it all for a few days camping with the family. We'd managed to save the money for a long weekend a few months ago, so felt really good knowing that we were speanding money we'd managed to save.

Also managed to sell a few items on ebay over the weekend so thats another £65 to the holiday pot.

This weeks task are to;
-Sell Gold (been recommended a few local jewellers, so will look at who gives the best price)
-Ebay - find a few more bits to put on Ebay or local selling forums. Need to do a bit of research though on Ebay, as want the items to finish at peak viewing times, also need to check more details on the P&P to make sure i'm optimising that and not charging too much or too little.
- Food shopping - At present we spend around £95 a week on the supermarket shop. Now whilst not bad for a family of 6 (which includes a newborn) we are sure we can get it down by at least £10 a week. This extra £10 a week can then go towards the debt issue. Going to try and go past an Aldi, instead of tesco and try and pick the basics up from there.
-Swagbucks and the like - need to be looking into these more to try and reduce the huge expense of xmas.

All in all though in a good mood, and feeling positive. Bad at my desk this morning. Job role changing slightly today, as having someone hear now to take over some of the admin, so I can move more towards earning a little extra.

Baldybear

Hello, thought would drop by and wish you good luck, sounds like you are doing really well. Ebay has definitely helped me out of some tight spots, really need to start doing that again.

Survey sites and cashback sites are all good too, very boring and sometimes only few pounds and pennies but have found the vouchers help out for birthdays etc. I use quidco, topcashback. For surveys use pinecone (but hard to get on), valued opinions, toluna, springboard, mysurvey, panelbase, opinionbar, pure profile. Hope these help. I usually do them when watching tv in the evenings so dont waste any time

superted4

Baldybear wrote: »

Hello, thought would drop by and wish you good luck, sounds like you are doing really well. Ebay has definitely helped me out of some tight spots, really need to start doing that again.

Survey sites and cashback sites are all good too, very boring and sometimes only few pounds and pennies but have found the vouchers help out for birthdays etc. I use quidco, topcashback. For surveys use pinecone (but hard to get on), valued opinions, toluna, springboard, mysurvey, panelbase, opinionbar, pure profile. Hope these help. I usually do them when watching tv in the evenings so dont waste any time

Thanks for the heads up on the survey sites. Me and the Mrs will definitely be getting online with these. Need to reduce the xmas bill as much as possible this year.

Been using quidco and topcashback for a while. Just got £146 and £100 marks and sparks vouchers for swapping phone and broadband to Sky and also upgrading to HD. The HD is not a necessity, but its free for 3 months, and not tied into a contract. Also switched Gas and Electric and got £100 cashback. This was easy as phoned current supplier and got the last 12 months usage, asked them if they could do better which was £2 a month cheaper. So switched and got it on average £15 a month cheaper and the £100 which will come through in the next few months.

beanielou

You Gov is another opinion gathering site.

superted4

Well received 2 knock backs yesterday. 2 letters on the doormat. The first is advising us that our mortgage is going up by £65 a month and the second is that the cost of our overdraft is increasing by 50%, for £60 a month to £90 a month.

Without selling the house, which we tried for the best part of a year and not one viewing, I cant do much with the mortgage as we're not in a position to re-mortgage at present.

The overdraft though needs to be reviewed. Its with the Halifax and the £90 charge stands for £3 a day you are overdrawn over £3500, which we are up to the £4750 limit. So I need £1250 to keep the cost at the same £60 a month. But this isnt paying anything off and is costing the most money each month. My only issue in concentrating on the debt first is that nothing extra will be paid off until we manage to save £1250 during which we will still be £90 a month interest. The only way around this is to either try and transfer it to a credit card or take out a loan. Issue with gaining new credit is that I've only started a new job within the last 7 weeks and I know for a fact this would go against me. So will need to look at existing credit cards and see if any would do a balance transfer even if it isnt on a promotional rate it would still be cheaper thatn £90 a month interest and then we could start to chip away at the balance itself.

moneywaster-nomore

Hiya superted, did not want to read and run. Read your posts and want to wish you luck. Well done on the reducing your monies owed up to now. Big chunk gone yeaaaah. I will keep reading and chip in when I can.

If you can knock off 20k you can do it again and again, then your home free.

My DH lost his job a year ago and at the age of 63 not likely to get another and cant pick up his pension until 65. Its a tight squeeze but we getting there bit by bit. Its amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it

Re keeping up with the Jones, been there done that too. Its just not worth it.

Good Luck to both of yous on your journey

triple_choc_chip

Ref: the gold selling, check out the income / family link top right of the page and click on income boost and gold selling.

The top recommended company is Hatton Garden Metals. Todays price is over £12 per gram for 9ct. I used them and had the money in my account the same day they received it - sent 1st day by special delivery and was paid 2nd day.