Brainfreeze's DFW diary

brainfreeze

WOW....talk about 'feel good factor'. I just went and put in my CC debts into whatthecost and it worked out we can be free of these by March 2010 - talk about a result. They look so huge at the moment, but I can see a way forward now. Our Northern Rock loan finishes April 2011 so I can see 48 months of scrimping and saving like mad - but that doesn't seem so bad - not when compared to taking out a loan over 84 months was.

Things I have done today towards being debt free......

1. Sorted out a filing system for the bills - no more piling them up unopened in a drawer!
2. Checked out the freezer and the larder and planned this weeks meals without even having to visit a supermarket! (I will need bread (sarnies for work) and milk, but that's it).
3. Started a list of things to ebay...started getting the ads ready on turbo lister and will wait for next cheap listing day.
4. Registered with Caio for online surveys.

Thank you so much everyone. This site is *B*R*I*L*L*I*A*N*T*

brainfreeze

Hit my first downer today....and two days into DFW

Having sorted out a filing box for all the bills and agreements I checked all the agreements, % rates, etc and the Lloyds one which is 0% (and thank goodness it is:T ) that I thought it finished this Dec (2007) - actually finishes Dec 2008 - so calculating the 12 additional payments has increased my debt by £1,275.96

Still - my pile of stuff for ebay is building - nowhere near the £1,275 that this has added - but at least I'm working on it now.

chevalier

My comments are in blue

brainfreeze wrote: »

Anyway – enough rambling (embarrassment does that to me!). Here is our SOA
Monthly Incomings:
My Salary £2,036.00
Partners Salary £1,900.00
Rent from son £340.00
extra from son for AA & internet/TV/phones package £150.00
Total £4,426.00


Monthly Outgoings:
Mortgage £932.00 You say that you are coming to the end of the tie in. It will not be long before you do have 3 pay slips with good money on it. However it doesn't hurt to ask your current provider what deal they can give you. Even if it is just 1% below base then that would still be better than paying full wack. Also was there any insurance on the mortgage, and did it pay out when you were ill? If it didn't is it worth it?
Council Tax £125.00
Gas £50.00
Electric £150.00
TV License £11.41
Mobile phones (son pays for 2 @ £15ea) £30.00
Phone/Internet/TV (son pays for this) £95.00 I know your son is paying but perhaps a package isn't the best way to buy these things? That is the highest cost I have seen for a package. I am not very techie, but I can't see that having only say a 6mb connection rather than 10mb, is going to make THAT much difference, but will save you some money. Also you could phone and say you are thinking of cancelling and they might give you a deal anyway. Doesn't hurt to ask.
Food/general shopping £380.00 This is for the two of your? I think you can make some big savings here.
Car Insurance £59.64 Is this just for one car? May be worth checking via quidco to see if you can get a better deal.
Petrol £100.00
Life Insurance £40.26
Water Rates £30.00
AA breakdown cover (son pays for this) £28.49
Buildings & Contents insurance £28.59
British gas home service agreement £10.50 do you really need this?
Car tax, maintenance £40.00

You mention that you can't change to better rate cards. Is this the case for both of you? May be worth getting both of your credit files, to check that there are no errors on them. You can get a free trial, I think, via quidco, just have to remember to cancel before the end of the 30 day free period.

Total expenditure £3,884.54

Therefore our monthly situation from this point on is as follows
Income £4,426.00
Outgoings £3,884.54

Available funds per month £541.46 Do you actually have this over at the end of the month? If not then both of you need to do a spending diary for a couple of months to see where this money goes. You may find that a paper a day and a coffee say ends up costing you a lot per month. And they are easy things to cut from your lifestyle.

You mention that you don't have any charges to reclaim due to your OH's diligence. Ok. But have you checked to see if you house is in the right band for council tax? If it isn't and you make a claim, it is for all the years you have been in the house, not just this year. So could net you a significant sum.

I work in a financial role and so do not want to do anything with regard to making financial agreements that may affect my careerIt may be worth checking just what you can do. Ie some financial services company won't allow you to go bankrupt or have an IVA, but do allow you to to on a debt management plan with CCCS or Payplan.

Well done on coming out the other side of this illness. Best of luck with sorting stuff out
chev

Snaggles

My first reaction when I read your post was 'wow, you've battled cancer, that's pretty amazing, clearing your debts should be easy'. In reality, I know it's not that simple, but do keep in mind what you HAVE accomplished, as it's easy to get dejected once the initial glow from the lightbulb moment fades.

Your kids sound great by the way - I only hope that I can bring my children up to be such lovely, caring people.

With the eBay stuff, get a big box and put everything you are going to sell in it - as you do this, take photos and store them in a folder on your computer - that way, when you come to list everything, you have already got the photos ready and waiting - it's a lot less hassle. Then set yourself a target of, say, listing 5 items a week (more if you can manage it, but I struggle to stay organised with postage, answering questions etc if I list too much at once).

Good luck and I will look forward to reading your progress.

immoral_angeluk

Is your AA cover really 28 a month????? I pay £35 a year!!!

brainfreeze

Hi Chevalier

Thanks for the support and advice; my thoughts/actions written below in green

Monthly Outgoings:
Mortgage £932.00 You say that you are coming to the end of the tie in. It will not be long before you do have 3 pay slips with good money on it. However it doesn't hurt to ask your current provider what deal they can give you. Even if it is just 1% below base then that would still be better than paying full wack. Also was there any insurance on the mortgage, and did it pay out when you were ill? If it didn't is it worth it?I've phoned our lender and they will transfer us to a new package fixed for two years which is 0.75% lower....all helps and thanks for the suggestion - I would never have thought of it otherwise.

Phone/Internet/TV (son pays for this) £95.00 I know your son is paying but perhaps a package isn't the best way to buy these things? That is the highest cost I have seen for a package. I am not very techie, but I can't see that having only say a 6mb connection rather than 10mb, is going to make THAT much difference, but will save you some money. Also you could phone and say you are thinking of cancelling and they might give you a deal anyway. Doesn't hurt to ask. As I said, my son pays for this and for this huge sum of money he gets three cable boxes (one for us in the lounge, one for his bedroom and one for his brother's room). two phone lines (one for us and one for his job - which is reimbursed for anyway), and 10mb broadband which he won't do without. He pays for the whole kit and kaboodle of TV channels which again is his choice. I think he must be tied into a recent contract as he has only just taken the option of the additional cable boxes.
Food/general shopping £380.00 This is for the two of your? I think you can make some big savings here. This is for 4 adults - but I agree and we have decided to aim for £300pm but hope to reduce on that figure as well (I don't want to put too low a figure and feel defeated before I start IYKWIM:o )
Car Insurance £59.64 Is this just for one car? May be worth checking via quidco to see if you can get a better deal. This is for two cars - however we have just sold one car and so this will reduce to £33.52 from next month (something else I had forgotten to allow for but at least this one is a positive:T )
British gas home service agreement £10.50 do you really need this? I have to say I think we do - it's more than paid for itself already as it covered a problem with our drains in the last six weeks. I will definitely reconsider renewing it though but that's not until next December.
COLOR="blue"]You mention that you can't change to better rate cards. Is this the case for both of you? May be worth getting both of your credit files, to check that there are no errors on them. You can get a free trial, I think, via quidco, just have to remember to cancel before the end of the 30 day free period.[/COLOR] We both missed payments on CCs from Dec 06 onwards as the income just wasn't there and so although we are now straight, we did apply recently for new cards but were both declined. I will look into the free trial to check the files though.


Available funds per month £541.46 Do you actually have this over at the end of the month? If not then both of you need to do a spending diary for a couple of months to see where this money goes. You may find that a paper a day and a coffee say ends up costing you a lot per month. And they are easy things to cut from your lifestyle. Don't know if we will actually have this as the income has only this month had my salary (over £2k) back into the equation as I have been on sick leave for so very long. However, we have been very careful with our spending recently and watch every penny - although I do have to keep on at DH to stop buying me 'treats' (silly things like the fattening bar of chocolate or something nice to go with a cup of tea). So our aim is to have at least £500pm available to throw at our debts.

You mention that you don't have any charges to reclaim due to your OH's diligence. Ok. But have you checked to see if you house is in the right band for council tax? If it isn't and you make a claim, it is for all the years you have been in the house, not just this year. So could net you a significant sum. Hadn't even thought of this. Do you know where I can look to find out how to check the banding? This would be brilliant if it was the case (fingers crossed tightly and hoping:rotfl: )

I work in a financial role and so do not want to do anything with regard to making financial agreements that may affect my careerIt may be worth checking just what you can do. Ie some financial services company won't allow you to go bankrupt or have an IVA, but do allow you to to on a debt management plan with CCCS or Payplan. At the moment we think we can get through this without making any plans and therefore I don't even want to approach anyone at work to ask the question (embarrassment kicking in here) but if it comes to that then I will bite the bullett and ask.

Well done on coming out the other side of this illness. Best of luck with sorting stuff out
chev[/QUOTE] Thank you so much.

brainfreeze

Snaggles wrote: »

My first reaction when I read your post was 'wow, you've battled cancer, that's pretty amazing, clearing your debts should be easy'. In reality, I know it's not that simple, but do keep in mind what you HAVE accomplished, as it's easy to get dejected once the initial glow from the lightbulb moment fades.

Your kids sound great by the way - I only hope that I can bring my children up to be such lovely, caring people.

With the eBay stuff, get a big box and put everything you are going to sell in it - as you do this, take photos and store them in a folder on your computer - that way, when you come to list everything, you have already got the photos ready and waiting - it's a lot less hassle. Then set yourself a target of, say, listing 5 items a week (more if you can manage it, but I struggle to stay organised with postage, answering questions etc if I list too much at once).

Good luck and I will look forward to reading your progress.

Thanks for the support. I have to agree - my kids are amazing. Fantastic people and I am so proud of the people that they have become. Don't know how I did that when bringing them up but something was obviously working right:T

Brilliant ebay tip - thank you so much.

I am going to make this by debt free diary as I am finding it motivates me so much to do something each day towards changing our lifestyle and clearing the debt.

brainfreeze

immoral_angeluk wrote: »

Is your AA cover really 28 a month????? I pay £35 a year!!!

Hi,

Again - no.1 son pays for this. But, yes it is £28 pm!

For that he gets Option 400 which gives us Roadside, Relay, Homestart, Relay Plus AND breakdown repair cover on our car. He gets cover for all four members of the family living at home.

Snaggles

You're very welcome! I love reading the diaries on here, they do help to keep you motivated, and sometimes putting things in black and white makes it seem so much clearer.

If you can manage £500 per month towards the debt, you'll start to see progress really quickly. If you get any extra money along the way (from eBay etc), it's really inspiring to put the new figures into the whatsthecost website calculator thingy and see your debt free date getting nearer.

brainfreeze

Thanks to the tip from Chevalier I have spent the last hour or so checking my council tax banding against my neighbours'. It's a bit difficult to do as my house is the only one in the area of its' type but I phoned the valuation officer for the area and explained why I thought we are being overcharged (used Martin's step by step guide)
The gentleman on the phone said he felt I might have a case and so has taken the details. Apparently a valuation officer will look into it and I will get a decision in approximately 10 weeks. If they decide I am in the wrong band I will get a rebate back to 1993 which is when I moved in. If they decide I am in the right band I can appeal the decision.

Thank you so much for the pointer - I would simply never have thought to even ask the question.