Squeaky spreadsheet diary

Tiglath

With his permission, I've gone through 8 years of DH's paperwork and shredded huge swathes of it (a black bag full). I now know where we stand with his 2 loans and creditcard. I'll add them to my spreadsheet and the household filing but otherwise forget about them for now.

I'm in and out of my online accounts like a yoyo; no idea why, because nothing will have changed in the few hours since I last looked. Looking forward to next Friday's payday when I can cheerily rather than resentfully make some payments off my new statements (still got 3 to come in next week) and watch the balances go down.

rising_from_the_ashes

Just popping in to wish you the best of luck *subscribes*

Tiglath wrote: »

- The cats remain a huge expense (£250 month on food, litter and insurance) but I won't take any more on, and the population will gradually reduce as they age. The eldest is coming up to 15, bless him, so I hope he carries on for a few more years yet.

Ohhhh my - can I be cheeky and ask how many?

I thought my pet costs were bad @ £135 / month

Tiglath wrote: »

Thinking ahead to my trigger spends, it's definitely lunch at work; EAT and Pret are a real temptation,

*sigh* I love Pret .... thankfully there isn't one where I live or work (now!) so it's not quite as bad if I can't resist when I am in town

Tiglath wrote: »

I'm in and out of my online accounts like a yoyo; no idea why, because nothing will have changed in the few hours since I last looked.

:rotfl:I'm like this too! I love the payday juggling & moving money around & I must admit to being slightly envious of weekly paid people as they get to do it so much more often:o

Best of luck with your DF mission - the diary has helped me loads & really does keep me focused. It also provides an outlet if things aren't going quite according to plan but better the support of others & knowing you're not alone is priceless!:T

Tiglath

Thanks for the encouragement We've got 9 cats:

£135.25 insurance from Direct Line
£115 food - 250 tins @ 46p (Felix from Costco, 8 tins a day - our recycling people love us)
£10.24 for 8 bags of litter (£1.28 from Sainsburys)
A couple of quid on Dreamies from Wilkinsons.

That's £260+ - little beggars cost us a fortune!

I've worked out pay-off dates for DH's 2 loans and added all his debts together, and suddenly he's interested

Tiglath

Just worked out that once the debt is repaid, the spare money available each month will be the equivalent of a £22k payrise - yes please

rising_from_the_ashes

Tiglath wrote: »

Thanks for the encouragement We've got 9 cats:

That's £260+ - little beggars cost us a fortune!

I budget £65 for my 2 - £50 for food, litter, treats & toys, boosters, flea & wormer stuff and vet trips & £15 for insurance - so that's not bad for 9!:) (I have a dog too which is where the rest goes!)

Tiglath wrote: »

I've worked out pay-off dates for DH's 2 loans and added all his debts together, and suddenly he's interested

He'll be 100% on board in no time!:)

Tiglath wrote: »

Just worked out that once the debt is repaid, the spare money available each month will be the equivalent of a £22k payrise - yes please

:eek: Wooooooo, that's worth having!:T I'd pin that on the fridge or somewhere - just as a wee reminder if you're having a bad day / need a bit of a boost.

Tiglath

Gah - didn't include Frontline etc. That's about a fiver a dose from Costco (cheapest we've found), so £45 every 6-8 weeks. It just gets worse and worse

Yep, DH's eyes just lit up when I mentioned it. I'm dripfeeding him snippets on how our life will improve, and how he can have whatever car he wants as long as we save up for it first once we're debtfree. I've discovered he doesn't use all of his overdraft, he's not up to the limit on the CC and he does overpay a little bit on the CC (about £15-20 a month or so). It won't take long before he's shoving a tenner here and there towards it on top of what he already pays. We basically split the spare money in two after everything's accounted for. Technically I've had close to £300/month personal money and it's easy to blow that on work food and Amazon, but I'm slashing it to £80 (£20/week) in order to whack off the debts. If I manage to shave anything off the grocery bills, that's my little perk for putting in all this hard work and it will be ploughed back into my overdraft for now. I'm having to stop myself going out and scouring the pavement for pennies just to put in my pot I'll encourage Mum to donate her shrapnel before we take her home tomorrow. Taking pennies off a pensioner - I'm surely going to Hell for that one ...

Just counted up the coins in my tub - £14 for the bank on Tuesday + an extra payment off Simply Be.

Tiglath

Faffed around with the spreadsheet again and projected the credit card balances with monthly interest and planned repayments for each one. By the time I've paid off the debts late 2014/early 2015, I'll also have paid around £6600 interest from now if my calculations are correct. All the more incentive to pay off as much as I can as quickly as I can, so I'll be bunging in the odd extra £5/10 wherever possible, and I'm already paying above-minimum each so any minimum payment markers will hopefully come off my credit report. I'm not in a position yet to transfer anything to a 0% card but I'll look at it again next summer to see if it's feasible.

EDIT: I bought a couple of lottery tickets recently (my first flutter in years and before my decision to get serious about becoming debtfree - I don't usually do anything with the lottery), and I won a total of £15.10, so that's transferred to my current account for an extra payment off Simply Be. Added to my coins, that's a nice little over-payment next week I normally bung £40 towards Simply Be but next Friday I'm paying off £380, having already budgeted for Christmas. Simply Be and Next will both be completely paid off on 25th January.

Tiglath

Going to get an interest-free season ticket loan from work. Repayable over 12 months, and saving me £10/month on my monthly ticket, which is another £10 towards a debt. If I get it in on Monday, hopefully it'll come through so I can buy the annual ticket before 1st January when no doubt the price will rise.

Things to do today, having gone through the MSE Money Makeover steps:

- Talk to DH about getting a water meter, with a potential saving of £80/year;
- Work out the figures for paying home & pet insurance as an annual lump sum, thus not paying interest (for next year);
- Check my tax code;
- See if I can find any old mobiles in drawers for MobileValuer.com;
- See if I have anything worth Ebaying;
- Find a valuer for my violin which I won't play again;
- Sort through pension paperwork;
- Look at mortgage life insurance and see if I can find a cheaper deal for us.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS

Morning, you are on a roll. Doesn't it make you feel great :T

Have a good week. How many DIY lunches are you aiming for this coming week?

Tilly x

Tiglath

All of them I'm not taking my purse, just cheese and eggs into work.

Looking at remortgaging as our 2-year fixed rate ends in June - calculating figures now. We're currently paying 6.09% (which was a really good deal when we took it out) and Natwest (our existing lender) is currently offering 2-year fixed rate @ 3.29%; whether that deal will still be available in Spring, I don't know, but it would potentially save us £200/month on mortgage repayments, which could all be ploughed into the debts. It might even be worth our while dumping our current fixed rate deal early and going for a new one; I shall have to have a discussion.

I'm becoming a woman obssessed - I walked the house this morning trying to work out if I could sell my harp and my wedding dress on Ebay