Shortie's DFW Diary

lurvlyloz

Hi Shortie.
just read through your diary.

you're so kind with you chicken refund money. i'd of been happy with the refund & not lost a wink but i guess thats me thinking charity begins at home.

i'm going to subscribe so good luck with your journey .

Shortie

I've felt quite off-kilter / off focus since the weekend as I've been suffering quite a tiring cold (as in sitting at my desk nearly falling asleep, whoops) and quite a stressful weekend caused by someone who was staying over, which took a fari bit of my thoughts and energy this week..

So, I'm trying to get back in the swing now. I checked my online banking earlier and one of them has a little bit of extra money in it that can pay for Christmas meal that the girls on the school PTA invited me to (which I thought was really nice of them, and a good way for me to get to know people as we only moved to this area a little while ago and I'm not around during the day as i work up in London). Mr shortie had handed me £40 back on Monday after picking up the new flooring, as it had cost less than he had planned. I presumed it was the remaining cash from what he'd taken out of my account, but I've only just found out it was his Mum giving me back some of the money for the meal and I still have the extra £40 that was planned to go into the flooring. That feels a little bit better!

I am though already £97 withdrawn out of my main account which isn't great. I have another 2 weeks to payday, food in the house and my travel card is paid for the month, but we seem to be doing a lot of longer journeys in my car as Mr Shortie's battery has gone flat, so I'm ploughing through my petrol uber fast and I'm going to go over budget on that again this month .

Oh and I appear to have misplaced an envelope that had £30 in it at some point over the weekend. I had hoped it would reappear but I have a growning feeling it felt out of my pocket as it's nowhere obvious

When I've finished work, had dinner and the boys are in bed I might write my debt overpayment plan along with the snowball calculator on each. I did do it at work the other day and it was a pretty big eye opener. I might mot make the full overpayment every month, but commiting it to a post on here might help my focus. I'm getting past this month and January WILL be my month for cranking up the overpayments, even if I just start with £50 each - getting the routine up is important too, though making bigger overpayments would be great!

Shortie

Actually, I might quickly start up next month's budget sheet so I can try and be forewarned of anything in prep

Shortie

Now that feels a little bit better, I had a proper look at the online banking, and what payments had come out of the 'utilities' account, and there was some excess in there. I've moved that over to my current account that was overdrawn and I'm not a whopping £15 in credit, lol

I'm pretty sure I'll go back over drawn before payday on the 20th but at least my account is healthier right now. I need to try and be really careful with my money now this month. I know I will have extra petrol to pay for between now and then as we're going to a friend's LO's brithday and they live 2.5 hrs away :eek:

Shortie

Right, snowballing done, and being now committed to (e-)paper!

So, what I never mentioned before (as I didn't think it was relevant) is that I am renting my old house. It's on an offset type mortgage and the rent over pays the interest by quite a nice amount. I leave the rent to over pay as much as it can, I leave it self contained and don't consider it as 'my' money to spend. ... if that makes any sense...

Anyway, the loan I moved with is one I took out to get an extension built on the house, and it dawned on me the other day, that if this loan is because of the old house, surely I can allow myself to use some of the overpayment from the rent, to pay off the loan rather than try and manage it all from my own account??

So it got me thinking, and I've settled on it... I should be able to pay an extra £200 out of my own account, and I'm willing to take the £300 that I pay off the loan from my current account, from the rental money. I already pay £300 from my current account for my extension loan so that won't be missed. This means I will have £800 to pay of various loans instead of the current £300.

I took a look at the snowball calculator and I recon to maximise the effect, I'll go of the option in ** next to them:

Old 'Extension Loan' £20k at 7.9%
£302 pm 87 months --> Mar 2020 (current payment)
£400 61 months --> Jan 2018
** £500 47 months --> Nov 2016 **
£600 38 months --> Feb 2016


Bank of Parents Loan £20k at 4.0% (currently paying nothing towards this)
£200 122 months - Feb 2023
**£300 76 months - April 2019**
£400 55 months - July 2017
£500 43 months - July 2016



So that's the plan anyway!

Shortie

Oh my godders, I've just realised how long a haul this debt is.... and that's not even looking at the mortgage!!

It's good to see it could potentially go down that much but oh wow.....

Shortie

I just rechecked the rate on the Dad loan (it's tied to his mortgage so I checked the mortgage rate) and it's 4.0% not the 4.5% I thought it was, so I've just updated the snowballing details

Ideally, if I paid £400 a month off the Dad Loan, I could really knock another chunk off that, I just think I might be stretching myself too far...

Shortie

Okay, okay so I'm beating myself up a bit here (I know a healthy dislike for debt is good but I can really work myself up over it sometimes....) I'm going to aim at the extra £100 off my Dad's loan a month. I could add it to the 'Extension Loan' I know, but that only knocks off 9 months, whereas the extra £100 off my Dad's loan will knock 21 months which feels like a much more positive step..

I just hope I don't beat myself up too much over this if I don't make all the extra repayments... :think:

rising_from_the_ashes

*breathe"

Shortie sorry but I did have a wee chuckle as I've caught up on your posts of the past few days .... guess who you remind me of!:rotfl:

One step at a time - every little bit extra you can throw at the debts is brilliant but don't start tying yourself in knots if you can't one month.... and as for the mortgage - don't even think about that just now, as long as you're meeting your monthly payment on that, it will trundle along!:)

Shortie

Lol! Yes I do read your diary and feel in great familiar company

You are right though about chilling out slightly. Problem is, I've always been really hard on myself, (it would often appear on my school reports, lol) and I sometimes think I look for a reason to beat myself up - and guess what? This is a perfect excuse to get annoyed at myself, whoops!

I just really hate it now I see the far stretching end dates on them, even with snow ball calculator changes

But, every overpayment helps that bit more doesn't it? So I should be patting myself on the back every one I do make instead I suppose