In hell: the B.W. Fox debt journal

weeg

Weeg's top anniversary present tip: (shamelessly stolen from my Bro at the height of his debt).

Photo collage. Get a large frame - A1 ideally. From a cash and carry or shopfitters, if you can as they tend to look classier forthe price. Arrange a collage of photos of you over the years - as a couple and as a family.

My sis-in-law loved this, as it is personal, and thoughtful.

A weekend away might be nice, but the financial hangover wouldn't be worth it.

Seaxwyn

BW, how about trying to win a weekend away? Here's a competition where you could win a weekend in Paris, Barcelona or Krakow: http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/competition/july07/amyshoneymoon/prizedraw.html

You could just adapt your first post in this thread a little.

Good luck

B.W._Fox

Long time away!

A quick update:

New permanent job, paying c. £26k.

Barclaycard Initial has been paid in full every month. My credit has grown by leaps and bounds.

Just was accepted for Egg Money card, with great terms (7.9%, £3000 limit).
Looking forward to moving my American student loan soon with an SBT to the Goldfish life-of-balance-transfer card (3.9% until 1 July 2010) plus extra to get off the Barclays Additions. Will eventually start rotating 0% BT cards to knock that down further.

Expecting second child imminently.

Arguing the toss with a certain London bus company, one of whose buses took my bike for a 100m scrape after I was nudged off of it (loss of £500 and cheap transport).

Gotta run to the meeting!

BWF

dreams_R_free

How lovely to hear from you again B.W. and with so much success to report:j . What a distance you've travelled on your debt-busting journey in such a short period of time. You must be really proud of yourself.

What a pity the accident to your bike has spoilt a 100% success rate, but you'll probably be reimbursed for the bike and hopefully other costs. I hope you weren't hurt in the accident. If you were, get a compensation claim in asap.

I'm sending my very best wishes to you and your wife for a trouble-free birth. Please let us know when the baby arrives.

Take care
Imp

chevalier

hi there
good to hear from you. And well done on fatherhood. Glad to see your debts are going down too.

If you live in London don't forget about gumtree for any baby things you need. Also freecycle.org. No point in paying when you don't have too:D . Whilst I know that you will get the money back on your bike, you sometimes get them offered on freecycle so this could be a stop gap in the meantime
chev

B.W._Fox

Thanks guys!

I've been wanting to get this SBT over and done with. I had thoughts of negotiating to extend my A&L overdraft by £500, putting that in my Barclays account and then negotiating the credit limit of the Goldfish card so that I could use the SBT to cover both the student loan (£4000) and the Barclays overdraft (c. £1000).

Dream a little dream.

B.W._Fox

I'll admit a few butterflies over this SBT. Mainly, if I don't get the credit limit.

Having just read Martin's essay on what to do if you don't get all of the credit you wanted, I've daydreamed a scheme that I'm happy with.

If I only get a balance transfer window of £3k from Goldfish (assuming I get the same limit as I did with Egg), I'll sink £2k of that into getting rid of the Barclays overdraft and the rest will fly Stateside.

That leaves £3k over the pond - in three or so months I'll swing another SBT. I'll apply for either the HSBC card (4.9% 'til Jan 2012 with 2.5% fee) or a 0% fees nominal and start tarting. The choice really depends on how life is going with the first balance transfer.

I'm still going to look into increasing my A&L overdraft, but I have to watch that carefully because the 6.5% interest on balances in credit expires in July '08. Increasing the overdraft gives me a smidge of comfort should something disastrous occur.

And I will apply to Goldfish as soon as I get all the info from Egg. My scoring seems to be all right at present and as long as I don't go for too much (applying for three cards in a row is the red line, according to Martin) I should get what I need.

I feel much better for that. 8)

B.W._Fox

Oh, and I've just applied for childcare vouchers! So that's ~£900 saved per year (less in the long run due to the salary sacrifice touching the pension, but okay for now).

I like having more money. Call me selfish.

B.W._Fox

Really depressed.

The Goldfish card changed its terms, but that's not as bad as ...

I was refused by HSBC for their long-term card.

That's a wasted credit search. I now have to wait six months before trying something else.

Meanwhile the money rot continues and will continue over the holidays, just when I want to be cheery and ebullient. I can continue with the small savings, but I really wanted to be saving hundreds of pounds instead.

Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish ... all because I was far too eager to get started with a clearer slate and ignored the rules.

Roll on June.:(

B.W._Fox

I've put the refusal behind me and got on with it.

I've just paid my Barclaycard Initial off in full as usual (27.9%). As soon as the balance is cleared in a couple days I'm going to cancel the card and cut it up.

I'm now putting all my purchases on the Egg Card. 7.9% is better than 9.9%, or 12.0%, on the Additions overdraft. As soon as I am firmly out of the Barclays overdraft, I'm going to cancel Additions (and its £11.50 monthly fee) and start putting money into repaying Egg.

Meanwhile I'm going to use the Egg card to apply for my citizenship (£655) and after that to purchase my passport (c. £55). As soon as I have the citizenship in hand, I make sure that I'm on the electoral roll and that the three credit agencies know about it.

And by the time I'm ready to start putting more than minimum payments onto the Egg will be about time for another card application, with a clear credit footprint.

The only snag in the works is that come May, until September, we'll be paying double childminder fees when my wife goes back to work. The vouchers will be in place but another £260/mo on top of everything else. I'm starting to put aside everything towards that time. After this month I'm paying minimums on everything to get out of the overdraft double quick. Fingers crossed that I will be out by March. No booze for me!

The great surprise I got this weekend was in checking up on my one remaining US credit card - Discover, a North America-only card with cashback, which I thought I'd use for my US prezzies. I haven't used it in 6 years. My credit limit? $10,400!!! Incroyable!

Now how can I use that to my advantage? Must check the APR ...

B 8)