Knocking it on the head in 2013!

Cloudy456

I’ve decided to start my own shiny new diary as the one I kept for a while a couple of years ago has long since tailed off and as I am starting a new phase in my debt-busting so I want a new diary to go along with it.

Quick outline of my situation – I’m 28, live with my OH (no kids or pets yet) and work full time. My debts were run up through university (mainly travelling in holidays and living beyond my means during term time) and overspending for a year or two afterwards. Since my LBM in early 2010 I’ve been slowly tackling the debt mountain and have knocked off about five and a half thousand from my original total of over 11k. So I’ve done alright so far, but have a long way still to go. I’ve not been in too much of a hurry to pay it off as I’ve been lucky to be able to keep it all on 0% deals and so have been keen to keep on living reasonably well at the same time; however I really want to buy a house with OH in 2013 and this means getting the debt cleared once and for all. He has no debts and is good with money and while he knows about mine (although not the exact figures, eeek!) I consider it to be my issue to sort out as I ran the debt up before I knew him and spent it on myself not him. Pride wouldn’t allow me to let him help me although I know he would if I needed. My credit rating should be fine as I have always been able to manage my debts and have never missed a payment or anything, but I know my debt to income ratio would not look good right now so I need to get it sorted. Plus I would absolutely love the feeling of my salary coming into the bank and it all being mine to do whatever I want with, not having the usual monthly mental struggle with how much to pay off my credit card and how much I need for other things. I work full time and earn a good salary and shouldn’t be in a position where I feel guilty about buying myself any tiny thing. I am determined to know what that feels like one day not too soon!

So, the situation as it stands – all my debt is on one CC and currently stands at £6,300. That is on 0% until January 2014 but I hope to have cleared it well before then. I am determined that I will never again do another balance transfer! I also have £500 in savings which I would pay off the card if it was charging interest but as it’s on a 0% deal I will be keeping the savings for my own peace of mind.
There’s no point doing a full SOA as I contribute a flat £350 each month to my OH for mortgage and bills (he owns the flat we live in). We also each put £125 into a joint account which covers groceries and the odd bit of petrol or another joint expense. My only other regular outgoing is my phone at £12 per month on a sim only deal and I use it loads so that’s really good value. Other than that all my income is available for paying off the CC and living day to day. As my income is £1,580 per month I think I can just about manage to pay off £750 per month from the CC and leave myself with about £340 to live off day to day. I know that probably seems like a lot to some people but when you’re living a twenty-something lifestyle in a not cheap city, it doesn’t go all that far! I am thinking of trying out Londongirls’ strategy of budgeting £10 per day living expenses from my next payday and seeing how I go with that. I am also keen to try the payment a day as sometimes I make a large payment on payday then sit waiting for the rest of the month until I can make another, feeling like I’m getting nowhere.

Cloudy456

So – first steps. I get paid on 25th of each month although this month I get paid on 21st December because of Christmas, so I only have 11 days to go before I can hopefully make my first big lump sum payment and will kick off the £10/day and PAD challenges properly. Until then it’s a case of getting to payday in as good shape as possible without going overdrawn, although I was so fired up from starting this diary that I sent £5 to my CC just so I have paid something off today!

I have most of my Christmas shopping already although I still need to buy for my Mum, Dad and Gran. I also want to send my Mum £50 towards the cost of feeding the whole family at Christmas as she is retired with not much income and given what I earn I feel it’s totally wrong to make things even tighter for her just so that I can send £50 more towards debts I ran up frivolously. So I have budgeted £50 for that, I think I will send it to her as a supermarket gift card so I will buy that tomorrow. I have some social activities planned on the run up to Christmas but they are mainly round at friends’ houses and my work Christmas dinner which won’t cost me much. So having looked at the figures in my spreadsheet (which I obsessively keep, did I not mention that yet?!) I am hopeful of having a bit left in the bank come payday which I will send off to the CC.

Positive actions for today:

Started this diary.
Completed a few surveys on Onepoll taking the balance up to £11.60.
Had a NSD by walking to and from work and taking my lunch from home.
Paid £5 to CC bringing balance down to £6,295.

beanielou

Happy shiney new diary

Cloudy456

Thanks beanielou!

I've had another good and positive day today - walked to work and brought lunch with me so I haven't spent any money so far (with no plans to do so tonight as I'm staying in) and I've done a few more surveys - Onepoll is now at £12.60 and I did a 50p survey on Valued Opinions (which I'd been neglecting lately) so I'm now only £2 away from claiming a voucher. I also booked in a mystery shop for Friday lunchtime which will earn me £3.75, that will go straight to the CC when I get it.

I also decided that I will be sending my Mum a £40 supermarket voucher towards our Christmas food rather than £50 as I talked to my brother and he is taking stuff over too. So I sent the £10 difference to my CC bringing the balance down to £6,285. I can see how so many people find this PAD idea so helpful, it feels really good to chip away with these smaller amounts that you find here and there and over time I think they will really add up. Some days I might only be able to send 1p but it's a nice idea that each night I will go to bed in less debt than I was when I woke up!

Cloudy456

Today I had a credit on my CC for something that I was due a refund for from work, for £6.32 so the balance has gone down to £6,278.68. I was going to make another payment of £3,68 to round it down but there seems to be a problem with the online banking system so I'll have to leave it at that for today's 'payment'.

I did a few more surveys, and booked in another mystery shop for Saturday which should earn me £4.75 and will again go straight to the CC when it's done and paid.

Another NSD with walking to work and brining lunch. I'm going to a friend's house tonight for a Christmas drinks thing but won't cost anything as it's within walking distance so no taxis, and OH is picking up drinks for us to take on the way home from work. So that's three in a row now, not bad! Especially as it's almost Christmas, which always seems to mean money flying out in every direction.

I am spending quite a lot of time reading other diaries on here at the moment and am so inspired by so many people's progress, especially those with young children to support. Makes me feel that I am actually very lucky.

Cloudy456

I haven’t updated this over Christmas due to being away with family but things have been going really well. I was very lucky to get a surprisingly large Christmas bonus from work - £1,000! So with that, a chunk of my normal salary and a few bits and pieces of extra income I have managed to pay off over £1,400 from the CC so far this month. The balance now stands at £4,903.31 which I am really pleased about given that it was over 6k a couple of weeks ago, but I’m still hopeful of getting it down further to my aim of £4,750 before the next payday. This will come from additional income earnt here and there and hopefully under-spending from my day to day spending budget…

At the start of the month when I got paid (21st December) I worked out that there were 35 days until the next payday so I kept £350 for my spending budget and paid the rest of my salary (after the normal direct debits, rent etc.) to the credit card. So far I have easily managed on this budget as I have spent very little over Christmas (we buy food out of our joint account which I have a direct debit to for £125 per month, so I don’t count that in my day to day spending). I took stock yesterday and found I had spent less than £30 of the £110 that I was budgeted to spend at that point (11 days into the month) so I paid the excess to the CC and left myself with exactly enough for £10 per day for the remainder of the month…hopefully that will be enough! I don’t have too much planned between now and 25th January but I don’t want to get ahead of myself and I know I need to stay on the ball. Unfortunately I then proceeded to spend £12 this morning paying a friend back for a play ticket she bought for me, so I have spent today’s budget and £2 from tomorrow’s. As I have no other plans to spend anything tomorrow I should be able to pay the remaining £8 off the BC then which will put me back on track. Actually I might pay £4 just now and £4 tomorrow as that will mean I’m also on track for making a payment a day (my new challenge for 2013!)

I have a couple of mystery shops booked in over the next week which will make me about £10 or so (plus a couple of freebies) and I am still doing surveys like a madwoman. I also claimed £3.33 from Topcashback yesterday which went straight to the CC.

So overall it’s a very positive start to 2013 money-wise. I have spent some time playing with my spreadsheet and I think that if I remain extremely strict and am lucky enough to get another good bonus in my April salary (which is our main annual bonus time) I might just be debt free by 1st May…that would be incredible.

So here’s to a happy, healthy and financially frugal new year to everyone!

Cloudy456

I managed another NSD today - forgot my lunch but remembered I had a full loyalty card for the baguette shop near work so redeemed that and managed not to spend. So I've paid today's £10 spending budget (plus that 5p that was missing yesterday, found it when I did my figures this morning!) to the BC, taking the balance down to £4,885.31.

Hopefully this weekend will be cheap as I'm staying in with OH tonight, meeting friends for afternoon tea tomorrow (£8.50 plus the bus fare of £4) and going to see my parents on Sunday (hopefully no spending). So I'm hoping to pay about £7.50 from the Saturday/Sunday £20 spending budget to the CC.

Having rejigged my spreadsheet, I think that if I stay on track like this with very low spending and get a good bonus in April (which I should), I may just about be debt free after the 25th April payday...that is really not long!!! It is a really strange feeling imagining having all my money to myself each month and I keep thinking about what I would do! I think I have trained myself for so long not to spend without serious consideration and guilt, I would probably carry on being naturally frugal, plus I need to build up some savings but still....can't quite believe that this chapter might be behind me in a few short months! I'm trying to use that feeling as motivation as I know from experience how much the drive to clear debts can come and go in phases. Not this time though, I'm on the home straight and planning on staying that way!

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Cloudy456

Just realised my previous post didn't actually mention the missing 5p - does anyone else obsess over figures and go crazy if they are even slightly out? I really think I should have gone into accountancy, I spent about half an hour yesterday trying to work out why my total 'wealth' was 5p less than it should have been....I really need to get a life!

Cloudy456

So another week has started! The weekend went really well money-wise, I stuck to my plans and actually spent less than I expected as when I met my friend for coffee on Saturday she gave me £5 I forgot she owed me from ages ago, so that paid for most of my spend that afternoon. Went to visit family on Sunday and only spent 52p on a pint of milk for my Mum! So overall I was able to pay about £15 from the £20 I had budgeted for spending on Sat and Sun to the CC. I also had NSDs yon Monday and Tuesday so I’ve sent both of those day’s £10 budgets to the CC as well. So after all that, the balance now stands at £4,850.13 – not too bad considering what it was looking like a few weeks ago! I have been feeling a little bit less motivated by these daily payments now that they have become a habbit, and I've had to remind myself that if I had just paid the lump sum from my salary the balance would now be £5,018 – so I’ve paid off about £170 so far this month already through overpayments alone. Had I not paid off those small amounts day by day, I very much doubt my bank account would be up that much, it would have just got frittered away. So I’m sticking with this method as it seems to be working for me for now, even if progress feels a little slow. Can’t wait to make my next big payment on payday though – just over two weeks to go!

Tonight I am out with friends after work, which I have got the day's spending budget of £10 for, so anything left over will go to the CC. Then I'm hoping for a NSD on Thursday, maybe one drink after work on Friday (so about £5) and the rest to the CC. The weekend will be expensive as I need to spend about £50 on a tank of petrol for OH's car as I am borrowing it to go and visit family. I won't spend anything while I'm there, but that's five day's worth of spending budget used up in one go.

ButterflyBee

Hello fellow DFW. I too have returned to try and "knock it on the head" so as to say.
I'll subscribe to your thread and pop in from time to time as I know how lonely it can be in the land of debtbusting!

You are doing well, keep it up! :T

Cloudy456

Thanks ButterflyBee! It looks like we have similar amounts to pay off, good luck to you too!

My friends have decided we're going to a place where there is a £7.50 dinner deal tonight (main course and drink), so I've paid the other £2.50 of today's budget to the CC, so daily payment done and balance down to £4,847.63. Slowly but surely creeping down....!