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

marietje

Time for an update! Things are still a bit up and down money-wise so I find it difficult to do proper PADs. I made on of £8.42 to make up for missing them the last two days. I'm going to make a minimum PAD of £1 until pay day (28th).

I also decided to shift my monthly balance check day to my main target credit card (M&S) so my 'month' finishes when the statement comes in on the 12th. My grand total is £896 paid off (or 8.75%) now. A bit lower than I had wanted but a £142 balance transfer fee was added to my debt. I can't complain given that I'll be saving a lot of interest from now on.

I also rang the new credit card bank to ask when exactly the 0% rate finishes and this is on 4 November 2014. I'm glad I asked and wrote it down, otherwise it's easy to forget.

The other thing is that I'm going to have to pay extra towards my energy bill because I'm switching. I don't know exactly when the switch happens but I think I'll have to pay between £100 and £150 to pay it all off. Most of this is already budgeted for but it's still a bit of a pain...

marietje

A PAD of £2.02 today, not much but every little helps as they say.

Money is pretty tight unfortunately but we have enough food to last us at least until pay day so we should be fine. I'm also on track with my 'no fancy coffee' challenge but I'm struggling a bit to pay the money I save off the credit card.

marietje

PAD of £0.48 today, not much but it's better than nothing! It's probably going to be a NSD today for me. All the shopping is done and I'm going nowhere near fancy coffee shops.

A bit of good news is that I spotted a 0% balance transfer offer (17 months) on the Santander website (where I have my current account). It said guaranteed acceptance and I applied on Saturday: the result is a £5900 limit showing up on my account today, so plenty of space to move my remaining interest bearing balances!

This means that my debt picture is going to look a bit different now and I'll have to rethink the way I repay everything before the 0% interest runs out. The good thing is that £19347 of my debt will be on 0% interest for at least the next 17 months.

The best thing is probably to pay off my overdrafts (£300, 19.9% APR and £1500, £20 a month fee) as soon as possible. That will also be nice psychologically because the only debt I've paid off so far is a £80 library fine (don't ask!).

The other thing is that I hereby pledge to do the following:
- close down the Amex card once the balance transfer comes through
- reduce my credit limits as I pay off the balances so I can never run the debt up again
- close the overdrafts once they're paid off (I don't really need the safety net...)

marietje

I've just done the balance transfers online and I'm amazed that it happened without any hassle (I expected endless phone calls to call centres...). I will still have a small balance left on my Amex card, which will need to wait until the next statement date. Pretty exciting I have to say!

The provisional plan for my next pay day is:
- pay off the balance transfer fee of £145 on the Halifax card (I pay interest on that!)
- pay off OD1 (£300) and close it
- pay £200 off OD2
- set aside an extra £50 for energy bill

Let's hope there are no unexpected bills...

marietje

All the balances are now up-to-date and the Amex card is ready to be closed when I get the statement next week. I have a plan for next month to pay off my smallest overdraft.

My OH wants us to prioritise paying off his overdraft because it will have the highest interest after I pay off my smaller OD. I've reluctantly agreed so I'll be paying £250 off his, he will at least match this and I will get evidence every time that he's reduced it. I'll keep paying off my own overdraft in secret (well, without drawing attention to it) so all our debts should be on 0% interest by the summer.

I'm still on track with the no fancy coffee challenge (19 out of 22 days and £42.75 saved) and I've made a total of £191.05 in PADs despite the finances being quite tight this month. Some of this is money saved on coffee and bringing in packed lunches, most of it just rounding down my current account. It all adds up!

The challenges I had before don't really work anymore due to the 0% interest cards, so I've come up with the following:
- £1500 paid off in 2013 (March)
- Total debt below £20000 (April)
- OD3 below £1000 (April/May)
- Keep up "no fancy coffee challenge" and PAD target of £200

My PAD target is my largest overdraft so I'll put the money in a savings account and reduce the balance every month. I thought about saving £1500 in cash but I think that's too much of a temptation...

marietje

And a cashback cheque arrived today from my last mobile phone contract, months overdue. I had to chase them but it was well worth it!

marietje

PAD of £5.25 this morning by rounding down my current account. I have enough cash to keep going until pay day. I've decided to start paying the PADs into my savings account on the 1st of March to pay down my overdraft. Hopefully I'll get to £200 extra payments and reduce it to £1100 in March.

marietje

Just had a look at flights for my OH and me around Easter. We're planning to fly to his home country first (£36, OH has already paid for his), than to mine (£86 for two), and back to the UK (£72 or £78 for 2 depending on time of the day). That will be about £210 altogether if we book in a bag on the way back.

Before I got my act together we would spend ages saving up the money to buy our tickets, always overpaying as a result. I'm glad we can just buy them when they're relatively cheap. It really makes life a lot easier. Love them or hate them, low-cost airlines are also a lifesaver for us...

marietje

It's payday today, so it's time for the monthly financial shuffle. I just paid off my smallest overdraft (£300) and I paid £145 towards CC2 so as to minimise the amount of interest I pay on the balance transfer fee. I also had £31.51 interest on my Amex card, which I will close when this clears.

Due to all the extra travel expenses, I think I'll just aim for as much PAD as possible on top of what I've paid. My new target is OD3 so let's see how I get on with saying towards this one.

Just about managed the no fancy coffee challenge this month and saved a total of £49.50. I'm continuing the challenge this month!

marietje

A quick update, I had some visitors over the weekend so I had very little time online. My total PAD stands at £27.61 so far this month, including £9 that I saved by not buying fancy coffee (not myself anyway, my visitors took us out for coffee and cake!).

My PAD goals is a bit conservative this month because of all the extra travel costs over Easter but I'll do my best to raise more than £100. I'm going to close Amex today and hide the M&S card somewhere. Paying off my Santander overdraft doesn't seem to be straightforward unfortunately. You can't seem to do it online (getting an error message when I try) so I'll have to call them. I guess they make more money out of people being in debt!

Goals for the next few months:
- £1300 paid off in 2013 (March), £99.39 or £4 a day to go!
- Total debt below £20000
- OD3 below £1000
- Keep up "no fancy coffee challenge" and PAD target of £200 (£100 in March)

Hope everyone else is doing well with the debt-busting!