Debt free by October 2017

MrsSmith2013

Hi Steve,

Just catching up with diaries and thought I would pop in and see how you were getting on. It looks like you're making good progress since your LBM.

Good news that the DP card is cleared too, I always find it a massive boost when you actually clear things completely. I think it feels like your making progress when you have less accounts, but that could just be me!

Glad to hear that the overdraft will be gone by the end of the month, which is only next week - go you!!

Hope to catch up with you soon,
Mrs S x

AshfordSteve

The last six or seven weeks have not been the best. My grandmother was terminally ill and passed away earlier this month, with the funeral last week. Because of this we have had several 400 mile round trips recently which has not been good for our fuel budget. My wife also needed new tyres for her car which came to £280, and I finally purchased the GAP insurance for my car for £115.

However, on the bright side I banked a check for £360 from the staff incentive scheme earlier this month, we have still got money left in our christmas account after buying all our presents, and we should be just about on budget at the end of the month even though we are doing Boxing day for 12 people. Best of all we have not needed to borrow any money to buy things for christmas.

The RBS overdraft has now gone, and it does feel like progress is being made with each account cleared. The next target is Next which is at 26%, but only has £670 owing on it. We won't have much money left at the end of this month, but it should be cleared by the start of Feb thanks to my christmas bonus.

AshfordSteve

I've been a bit frustated over the last couple of weeks. DW got some tickets for Monty Python, but she paid for those and a pair of shoes on one of her credit cards. Because of that and also due to the higher than expected expenses in December we only reduced our balance by just over £300 in December.

I've also been frustrated with credit card companies. DW applied for a MBNA 0% card but was declined. I've had a Tesco CC for about five years and haven't had a balance on it for the last year. As Tesco are doing some very good offers for new customers I phoned them to see if they would offer me anything to stay with them. I think it would have been easier getting blood out of a stone, so that account is now closed. I then applied for a Nationwide card as I have a 0% deal ending soon. Nationwide do a soft search that doesn't show on your credit file and although they accepted me I would only get a £1k limit, which didn't really seem worth doing.

In brighter news I had a nice xmas bonus in my December pay packet so I thought I was able to clear the Next account. However the statement has come through today and there is £90 left on it from things DW bought last month. I'll clear that in the next few days, and am then going to ban DW from buying anything from Next.

DW is picking up her new car tomorrow, which is a cheaper monthly payment and comes with three years free servicing which saves us paying out £300-£400 in March. DWs insurance has also come down considerably and we will be getting £170 back next week, as well as needing to put less aside each month. We hopefully will not have to make a car payment this month either as DW's settlement figure should have been calculated excluding this month's payment and the new one doesn't start till February.

Our new target is DW's Halifax card which has just under £1200 on it at 25.95%. If all goes to target this should be cleared by the start of March.

My target for this year is to reduce what we owe to £24k, with a stretch target of reducing it to £20k.

AshfordSteve

January has been a tough month. DW has been having a difficult time at work since her boss returned from maternity leave just after Xmas. DW was being made a scapegoat for other's failings and it got so bad that she was signed off work for two and a half weeks because of stress and anxiety. DW said that there was no way she could go back to work, so were faced with the possibility of losing her income once her sick leave entitlement finished, which would have made life very tight.

Luckily DW has got a new job starting on Monday. It's only maternity cover, but they have said there may be a role for her in the future as other members of staff are looking to leave. Although it is less money, the travelling is far less - 50 miles a week compared to 200, so it will save us some money. The hours are also more sensible than in her previous job. We now have some security for the short term as we know DW will be getting paid until August, and lots of jobs in her sector come up between Easter and June.

I've just had my payslip through at work and have got a 1.7% pay rise. I view this as the starting point for negotiations with the boss and should be able to get it increased to 2.5 or 3%. January was the first month of my employers work place pension, but I only lose £30 a month.

Despite the difficulties last month we have managed to clear the Next account. Our next target is DW's Halifax card, which has £1200 on it. We should be able to clear this by the end of March if all goes well.

MrsSmith2013

Loads been happened with you since I last checked in Steve. So sorry to hear about your Grandmother, its always sad when you lose someone

Feel for your wife too, thats not good if she has been having a hard time at work, but sounds like its all back on track with the new job - hope it all works out for her!

Hows the plans going for having the credit card cleared by the start of March? Hopefully its going well for you.

Mrs S x

AshfordSteve

Thanks for your thoughts Mrs Smith. Nan had been ill for a while and decided to stop taking her medication, so she went at a time of her choosing which helps soften the blow. DW is really enjoying the new job and says it's a completely different environment to her previous one. She seems to be back to her normal self which is a great relief.

Halifax card is now down to £540. We should be getting £350 back from Audi for the car payment they took last month and should have enough left at the end of the month to clear it. If it isn't cleared by then it will be gone at the start of March. I've moved some money around to take advantage of 6 month 0% I was offered from RBS and Barclaycard and will deal with those in the summer.

AshfordSteve

The £350 from Audi came through this week, so that was paid to the Halifax card straight away. That left us with £190 owing, which looking at our budget we will easily have left over at the end of the month. I've therefore paid the remaining £190 off of the Halifax card so that one is gone! We are now down to seven accounts, which feels like a lot of progress made considering we had 17 when we started.

Last week was a good one at work. I should now meet one of my key targets by the end of this month which would be a month early. Meeting that target will result in a payment of circa £700 net at the end of March. I'm going all out to hit this target in the next 2 weeks as otherwise the payment will come at the end of April.

The weather has been a bit windy down here and we woke up this morning to find that two of our fence panels are flapping about. I don't think the can be repaired, so they will need to be replaced next weekend although it shouldn't be too expensive, but it is frustrating.

MrsSmith2013

Wow 17 accounts to 7 is a great acheivement - you should be really proud of that! :money:

I hope you manage to get your target at work, that would be a nice boost to the debt busting in March for you. I'm hoping I will also have a bonus in my March salary but will have to wait for confirmation.

Fingers crossed the fence is a cheap fix, the elements are giving the country a bit of a hard time right now

Mrs S x

AshfordSteve

I hope you get your bonus Mrs S, it all helps.

A day off work today, but due to illness. Hopefully work won't dock my pay for the day - sick pay is payable at management's discretion, but it is the first day I've had off sick since June. I have managed to persuade the boss to increase my pay rise to 3%, but there's been some confusion over what my rate was last year due to some miscommunication from payroll. When this is all sorted out my take home pay will increase by around £50 per month.

My target should be hit today, as long as the person covering me can do something simple, which will result in an extra £700 at the end of March.

Thankfully the fence should not be too expensive to repair. The posts need digging out and replacing, but the panels are ok. Its not urgent as the fence is standing up at the moment and the ground is still waterlogged. Dad's going to give me a hand with this when the weather improves.

DW has been emergency taxed this month so has brought home about £100 less than she should be getting, so we will make a bit less progress this month. I'm not very happy with DW at the moment as she did not tell me that she had had a pay rise in September, when in fact her take home went up by £90 per month. That would have been an extra £450 for clearing debts, but she's spent it without telling me. I only found out as I saw her bank statement today - she used to get paid into her account and then transfer money to the joint account. With her new job this has changed so I now know exactly what she gets paid, but I think we will be having words over the weekend.

Our target now is DWs Barclaycard, which currently has just over £3k on it at 24.99%. I'm going to set a five month target, which means being paid off by the end of July. Hopefully we will beat this target, but we need to see how we go with DWs lower pay.

AshfordSteve

DW claims that she had not noticed the increase in her pay. I don't know what would annoy me more - her knowing about the increase and not telling me or her not noticing it. The fact she has not noticed it is not encouraging as it indicates that she is not keeping an eye on her current account.

DW also annoyed me today. She purchased some new headphones when we went shopping, but she paid for them on her credit card. When I asked her why it was because she is having her hair done next week and is off to football today and didn't know if she would have enough money left to pay for the headphones. I just don't understand this. DW has £400 a month to do what she wants with. She gets her nails done twice a month at £20 a go and her hair is done every 6 weeks for £60. I don't understand why she can't budget for these and why she doesn't check her account regularly. DW has gone off to the football today so at least I've got some time to myself, but I think we will be having words tomorrow.

My 3% pay rise has all been sorted out now - I got a rather apologetic phone call from the head of payroll last week, and it is being backdated to the start of the year. This means my hourly rate is now £25.74, but I am a 40% tax payer.