Clear £6342.00 in 6 Months! Personal Challenge

OliveOyl_2

Hypno, how much are you saving on your budget by giving up chocolate?

If I gave it up I would have an extra £20 a month........Nope, some steps may still be to far.

Seaxwyn

I decided to revise my by-Christmas target to clearing both my Sainsburys CC and my credit card. I've now done the maths and worked out that along with the loan and min payments that means paying off £6290 between now and Christmas.

Over 5 months (not counting December) that's £1258 per month. Crumbs.

hypno06

OliveOyl wrote: »

Hypno, how much are you saving on your budget by giving up chocolate?

If I gave it up I would have an extra £20 a month........Nope, some steps may still be to far.

I spend between £1 and £2 a day, so at £1.50 average a day, that is £45 a month :eek:

See why it is a motivator.....:o

Madnessa

Hi everyone

Haven't heard anything in this thread for a while. Just wondered how you are all getting on with the challenge and trying to keep myself motivated!

I had just over £6200 when I joined the challenge, in debts and now about one month later I am at £4776.36. By the end of this month after being paid I should be under £4200. I want to be under £4000 by the end of August.

So I've managed to pay off quite a bit. Still have 6 pay days left this year so need to pay off on average 796.06 per pay day. I only have about £620 available from my wages so the rest will need to come from other places.

I managed to pay off about £700 on my CC thanks to a deposit that I got back from my last flat. I've also found a second job bringing in about £150-£200 a month. Also OH might now have a full time job and he owes me £650. So if he pays me £100 every pay day that will also help and leave me a little margin for emergencies.

I keep recalculating how much I will pay off every month to keep myself motivated.

Seaxwyn

Hi Madnessa, and Hi AJolly - how's it going? Did you find a way to keep up the level of repayments despite the Norwich thing?

I am not doing well ont his challenge. To meet my target I should pay £1258 off debts this month but I think I will only manage £684, and my OD may well go up instead of down. It's been a tough month with a tax bill to pay, several birthdays, OH losing his job and a plumbing emergency.

Oh well, never say die. I plan to update my figs on 1 August and will just have to aim higher the months between now and Xmas.

OliveOyl_2

In 2004 I bought Martins book, and whizzed around transferring balance.
OH found Amex 2.9% LOB transfer and some went onto there in his name. Then a few months later he transferred a largish amount, assuring me that it was all at the original offer, which it was for three months! Then it reverted to their standard rate. And stupidly I never noticed, and even reduced the standing order last year to pay other cards.
So we were paying £1800 a year on this card, and reducing the os debt by £800 only :eek:

Yesterday I transferred ALL of it to a 13 month 0% and will be able to reduce it by £1000 by Christmas. (and in 13 months will tart a much reduced balance again). So I'm on target after all for this month (well, next month really)

I can't believe we were so stupid!

Madnessa

It's not you that is stupid Olive. They could scam anyone, it's what they are trained to do!

And Saexwyn, considering everything you've been through... I think your doing pretty darn well!

Seaxwyn

HI Olive
Ouch! That must have hurt when you realised you were paying the full interest. I think we've all done "stupid" things like that. I spent most of last year religiously paying all I could afford off my relatively low interest credit cards, while my 18%+ NatWest overdraft hovered around the 5k mark.
Well done for staying on target - hope to catch you up soon!



Oh well, we're

OliveOyl_2

Thanks for your encouraging words Seaxwyn and Madnessa, it was a bad 24 hours in our house I can tell you!.

OH returned from a night at the pub to be met with the grumpiest wife he'd ever seen, and despite his inebriated state I MADE him phone them up to confirm what I'd discovered. To my surprise they weren't able to tell him the rate he was being charged!!!! They "will write in 7-10 days with the information"
I didn't wait, NatWest agreed a new cc on-line and away it will go! But I await with interest their response.

Seaxwyn - were you interrupted?

Seaxwyn

OliveOyl wrote: »

Seaxwyn - were you interrupted?

Well it looks as if I was but I can't for the life of me remember what I was going to say. Something about we're much more savvy now, I suppose.