Shiny new debt diary - at the foot of the mountain!

marietje

Manage to make a £1.96 PAD today.

I should try not to get too obsessed with 5% this month. I shouldn't lose sight that I'm paying something off the cards rather than increasing my debt.

I'm going to look for new challenges to reduce my spending, any recommendations? I'm tempted to try an NSD challenge although I would have to exclude my OH's spending (he loves popping to the shops...).

Olderbutnotwiser

you are doing really well, keep chipping away

marietje

Thanks a lot! It feels very good to do something every day because the weeks to the next payday can feel very long and it's easy to get discouraged.

Just made PAD of £11.60 and I'm on track again to get to my target this month. My OH's invoices are a bit closer to getting paid now and he's promised me a big contribution to the cards!

By the way, we're on holiday in Paris at the moment, fully MSE style. Train were tickets booked months in advance to get the cheapest price. We rent an apartment so we can cook our own food and it's also much more comfortable than a hotel room. It's a shame not to cook in Paris and there are some wonderful bakeries around where we're staying. It's a bit harder to have a picnic in this weather so we try to pop back to the flat for lunch or have something cheap on the go.

We're doing a lot of walking around (free exercise!) and found a source of cheap but nice red wine. We both love going to the cinema and always go to one here that shows old black-and-white movies, they're different every day. The tickets are a complete bargain, €45 for 12, so we save some cash to go to a nice cocktail bar or a museum.

It really doesn't feel like we're losing out this way.

marietje

Ahem, well this is not exactly falling off the wagon but quite funny with hindsight.

I had a couple of glasses of wine two nights ago and looked at my bank account. I thought there was loads of money in it so I sent my PAD to the Amex card for the rest of the month (£49), transferred some cash to my non-UK account and joined another challenge. The next day I found out that the 'extra' cash was money I had taken out of an atm that day and I had no ££ left (still enough €€ though)!

The funny thing is that rather than a spending spree, this became a paying off the card and saving spree. How different from how it used to be...

The good thing is that I'm well on track with my PAD this month.

brummiebabe

Just read your diary.....sounds like you're doing really well!!! Keep at it! This is the first month I haven't put anything on the credit card or gone overdrawn-am so chuffed - funny how such a small thing can seem like such an achievement:j

marietje

Well done Brummiebabe! It's good to remember that it's a real achievement when you feel like you're not going anywhere.

marietje

Just made a £4.98 PAD. I can't wait to get my cc bill, not something I ever thought I would look forward to!

This is my plan for repayments in February, a SOA of sorts.
A few notes, I've got a couple of one-off repayments to make this month, totalling £100. The fridge payment is an insurance policy. We've used it 3 times in the last 4 years so it's been worth it for us.

I should be able to reduce my combined phone bills by about £10 a month being careful when I'm abroad in particular. I'm also planning to ask my OH to pay Lovefilm from now on because he uses it most. Hopefully I can drop bills below £1100 that way.

And...if my OH is lucky with his invoices, I might be able to pay more off the CCs.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if I can stick with £400 because I'm still learning to budget, but I'm going to be ambitious.

--
General spending (groceries etc.): £400
--
Account interest x 2: £24.50
M&S: £1020.90
Amex: £75
Total debt repayment: £1120.40
--
One-offs:
Savings: £20
Library fine: £80
--
Bills:
Mortgage: £751.08
Union: £21.93
Life insurance: £10.39
Fridge: £10.62
Council tax: £119
TV: £12.12
Home insurance: £24
Gas & Elec: £69
Water: £28.22
Lovefilm: £13.27
Mobile: £35.03
Internet/Landline: £27.94
Total bills: £1122.60

marietje

Six days left to pay day (not that I'm counting!)... I've converted all my £ into € so no money left for PAD until then. The good news is that my OH got paid some of what he's owed so things are looking up. I'm not entirely sure what will be left of this to pay off the cards but it means at least that I can pay off more next month. His phone bill, which he pays himself, is much lower than he expected.

Sammie_03

Well done on all those PAD's they soon add up don't they?
X

marietje

My diary is just over a month old and it was payday yesterday so time for an update. I'm very pleased with how January went and although February is going to be more difficult, at least my debt is reducing.

I managed to pay off £542 in January (my 'month' runs up to the 26th because that's when my second credit card statement comes in). I paid £239 in PADs and have paid £1329 (5.8%) of my debt at its highest.

This month looks a lot more difficult. My trusty old netbook packed up and needs to be replaced. My OH has offered to pay for most of it after I did some work for him, but I still need to reserve £100 myself. I also have a £80 fine to pay off, which really needs to be done this month. I also decided we need a bit more of a cash buffer to pay for travel due to a family illness.

Altogether I paid £110 towards the Amex card and £405 to M&S so it's not that bad! I have to continue psychological snowballing because my OH is already talking about using the M&S card to pay for a trip in the summer so I'm better off paying towards the Amex card and gradually reducing the limits. This is also to encourage him to save up for this trip.

The good news is that I sold two books on Amazon (a grand total of £4.49!) and I'm looking for things to sell on Ebay. I'm also getting a backdated pay increase next month so that should help pay off my debt.

I made a PAD of £5.14 today and I've given myself a new challenge. Every day that I don't get a coffee at the shiny new coffee bar around the corner from my office, I pay £2.25 to the cards. It's scary how expensive this coffee is!!