A Lil bit a day makes the debt go away

Lil306

Intro

Hi everyone, thought I may aswell make a diary here, I've decided that me resorting to using my small overdraft each month means my outgoing is more than I can afford and I need to sort it

I'm stubborn as a donkey times but I've always been smart with finances and know that I need to sort them out now whilst I get the chance. I've fallen into the trap of using credit cards when I could have just saved up and bought stuff cash. I do believe credit cards are useful for extremely large purchases as long as you pay them off but don't want them as much.

I'm single, no kids, no dogs, don't smoke and rarely drink so have good amount of cash available since I don't waste it very much. I'm very family orientated so tend to lead my finances based around my heart. It's bad at times but it's a choice I make.

Nobody likes to admit they need help or in a financial crisis, I only have a small overdraft £100 but I'm basically maxing it out before paydays so I'm in a crisis because I'm struggling now.

I'm not a new person to this board, as I mostly go around the techie section, but there's always lots of free advice available and that's what I love about this site.

Anyway, enough about me - the next post will be my snowball and hopefully what I plan on doing to fix it.

Lil306

1. Mortgage £350.00
2. Water £30.00
3. Gas £39.00
4. Electric £49.00
5. TV £12.12
6. Council Tax £82.00
7. Food £200.00 {buy for 3 people and I eat like a horse}
8. Cards £150.00 {bit lower than this but I rounded}
9. Lotto £40.00 {only money I really "waste"}
10. Contacts £18.00
11. Family £60.00 {non-flexible and I'd rather not disclose this}
12. Tumble Dryer £12.00
13. Internet £54.50
14. Loan £242.00
15. Spend Money £40.00

Total Outgoing £1378.62

My standard yearly wage is £21,500 from my company which means my basic net monthly wage is around £1390. I'm lucky enough to get a minimum of 6 hrs O/T almost every month due to the business I work in but it's usually a fair chunk more than this

{I normally avg around £1450 each month}

Sorry I couldn't get the calculator to work properly so did a copy and paste from Excel and had to edit it.

Most of the payments I have are flexible and allow overpayments. I have a couple of bills that are high outgoing monthly payments but they had outstanding bills on them when I switched to direct debit so I've been paying them off.

Lil306

Finally to the nitty gritty of things and how I plan on sorting out my finances. Please note that it's nearly 2013 and xmas so my funds will go a bit crackers due to xmas so I don't plan on starting this really until 2013 as a new years resolution. So don't expect many changes as yet!

Anyway, instead of paying off the highest apr/balance first. I'm going to pay off my lowest ones first. Firstly this is because it's a short-term goal and will give me an immediate boost. Secondly as noted above my outgoings almost match my ingoing pay and I don't have much free money so have only a small amount each month I can sacrifice for overpayments. I plan on working on a compounded money basis, pay off one, use the payments from the newly paid off item to fund more
{and maybe keep a small amount of that for breathing room}

Revenue Sources:
YT Videos - Will use £25 p/m for overpayment
Slicethepie - Can easily make £10+ p/m from this
eBay - Not sure, don't really like it now so probably £5 p/m

I plan on attacking my smallest c.cards first (vanquis/cap1) once they're paid off I'm going to pay off outstanding bills on my direct debits (about £50 lump sums) which will reduce my outgoing bills my about £5 per month per bill.

I'll try and post at least bi-weekly updates into the progress of how I'm doing throughout the course of the dfd

Lil306

Made £80 so far on eBay selling two items. I'm going to hang fire for a week or two before I deposit them into my bank to make sure I don't get any follow ups on my sales.

I have another two items being watched atm so if they sell it should net me another £70 or so.

I'm going to pay off the outstanding bill for my BT as this should drop my DD by about £5-6 per month and possibly the electric if I have much left over. Going to continue paying my Capital one card on the £30 DD I setup until xmas over or I make more sales.

Igamogam

Good luck

beanielou

I challange you to pay off Capital one by the end of 2012

Lil306

beanielou wrote: »

I challange you to pay off Capital one by the end of 2012

Pfff easy, I'm trying to focus more on my HSBC tbh to dry and drop the minimum payments

P.S Consider it done

Lil306

Transferred £80 from my Paypal account into my bank, have paid an additional amount of £32.85 onto my phone bill, this will clear my oustanding bill so in 3months by DD should reduce.

Have also paid £30 additional to my capital one card. The £30 DD will come out later this month.

I'm keeping the other £20 in my bank as I need to buy a couple of tools to service my car. I may need to play around with finances a bit for the next couple of months just to clear balances but then I should be home free.

I'm also starting my movember challenge this month with my team at work, continuing my weight loss progress.

I should get paid out next month on youtube so I'll keep half and put the other half towards debts for the moment. As it's a new month aswell I'll start reviewing music on slicethepie which should net me £20 or so towards cards (I'll put this purely on vanquis as the interest is a killer)

Lil306

Making a "sundays" dinner type meal for work today as I have loads of stuff in the cupboards, but not much meal food so couldn't decide what to have. Ended up just chucking some stuff in.

Reviewed another 11 songs on slicethepie today, helped net me a total of $1.86 bringing my current total to $8.11

I'm trying to work on around 10-20 songs per day, I can't do many because I get bored and switch off. I hate the debt but if I review lots the quality of my reviews suffer and I get offered less songs. So I'd personally rather obtain a small amount from here monthly $30-40 and use it to chip away at the debt I've got so far as it will soon add up as I've always believed in quality > quantity.

choppy34

Hi Andrew!

Good luck on your DF Journey! and with the Movember challenge.. my brother is doing it with work collegues too!!

Lil306

choppy34 wrote: »

Hi Andrew!

Good luck on your DF Journey! and with the Movember challenge.. my brother is doing it with work collegues too!!

Thanks, I'm going to do a timelapse on my youtube when it's finished. I'm expecting some grief over it, but for people who don't know what it is I just ignore them:D