Livin’ on fumes...

kindofagilr

Hey hun, how are you getting on xx

Avogirly

Hi kindofagilr, sorry I haven't been checking in for ages. I've had a break as it was all getting a bit too much for me and I had a couple of panic attacks, so I decided to stop being so obsessed with money whilst I sorted my head out.

I'm slowly coming back to normal now, although I had a bit of a panic during the night on Sunday. How are you doing?

kindofagilr

Aww I am sorry to hear you have had a few panic attacks over it, I think its very sensible to have a little break from the intensity of it all.

Nothing much is happening with me this month lol dont think we are going to be able to overpay which I am bummed about, but at least the bills are being paid on time, which is somtehing I guess xx

in_need_of_direction

Hi avo girly, just read through and think you're doing well. My advice is just do what you need to to be able to enjoy your pregnancy. Only deal with money to the extent that not doing so would agitate you. Take care.

Avogirly

So, I have somewhat neglected this diary for over a month now. However, I haven't neglected my debt busting duties and am really pleased with the progress I am making.

By some fluke I was accepted for a Santander 0% credit card. So I have managed to transfer the balance from my COOP card to this and now I have no credit card debt with interest! This is great as both CC's have got lengthy 0% periods on them. This means that I can pay off small chunks on them whilst I concentrate on getting rid of Raymond (my loan). Once Raymond has bitten the dust I will up my payments to the cards and pay those off. I'm not sure if I will be able to maintain the current level of debt busting for the whole time, but I shall assess the situation when it arises.

Current outstanding debts as of today are as follows: -
Sally (Santander CC) £2003.35
Bill (Barclaycard CC) £5986.33
Raymond (loan) £5258.93
TOTAL £13,248.61

I am still using You Need A Budget, which is a godsend for me. It is so helpful to really know how my budget is going for the month, plus I can plan ahead so much easier.

I had a few niggly bills that I wanted to settle this month, a bit that I owed to my Dad and an outstanding Next account. So these on top of my normal debts meant so far during June I have paid off a whopping £1325.16! :eek::D My normal monthly debt payment is £875.00.

Using the snowball calculator I should be debt free by October 2015, if I continue to pay £875.00. I cannot pay much more than that without eating into my budgets drastically. (I used up all the money that I have for monthly saves, baby, pet insurance, spends etc to pay all that this month). What I am thinking of doing is setting myself a target to have everything paid by the baby's first birthday (obviously not sure when that will be yet!). This will keep me really disciplined and put any extra income into making small over payments to reduce the DFD.

Originally I wanted to get rid of everything by the time the baby arrives at the end of August, however, being sensible and realistic this was never going to happen.

I won't loose any income once the baby is here as I plan to only take a short maternity leave and then return to work. Luckily because I work for the family business they are happy for me to do a couple of days in the office and the rest from home, meaning I can keep earning the same as I am now, plus I can be at home with the baby.

I can't believe I only have 10 weeks before the arrival of the baby! It seems to have gone by so quickly, yet I still have so much to do. I'm sure most expectant mothers feel exactly the same as me. I'm keeping my legs crossed so that little one doesn't arrive early before we are ready! :rotfl:

Few, marathon post! Thanks for reading if you have got this far and please give me a nudge if I get slack on updating again!

Avogirly

Just checking in!

Still going well this month and am really pleased with the progress I have been making. I have just packaged up three DVD's and a book that I have sold on Amazon which should net me £33. Hoorah, I shall put that towards Raymond. I sold another book this morning, but haven't bought that to work, so will post it tomorrow.

I received a letter from the bank that has my loan last week explaining that the over-payment I made earlier this month has saved me £29.27 in interest. That's good to read and keeps me motivated when I feel the urge to go spending! Lets hope that these letters continue to be a regular occurrence!

Budgets are looking tight, but should see me through to the end of the month. I'm loving YNAB so much, it really keeps all my finances on track.

Have a good day everyone. Thanks for reading.

Avogirly

I'm so excited, its the last day of the month which means I can have a good play with YNAB tomorrow! Very excited!

In other news, I'm still doing really well and am pleased with the progress I've made this month, coming in budget is such a good feeling and I cannot wait to make the payments out tomorrow! Although I have been paid I have like to wait to the first of the month to make my monthly payments! I'm sure I'll be up at the crack of dawn to do this!

There has been a couple of occasions when I nearly bought something on my credit card, although I have stopped myself just at the nick of time. I think I do it when I am a bit bored at work, so I have decided the key is to keep myself motivated and then the time flies and I don't even think about spending money I haven't got.

emmigrant-immigrant

I have just started reading your diary. Congratulations, and good luck with the debt busting.

I have only read the first few posts, so you may have had your questions answered, but I use washable nappies for my LB. I have used a few different types for him since birth, and from feedback I have had from other people, the only conclusion I can come to is all babies are different as to what fits well etc. I bought a load of second hand ones from facebook, and got some hand me downs. I particularly like totsbots easy fits and wee notions. Tots bots are birth to potty, wee notions are either one sized, or BTP. The savings are HUGE, even if you don't use them all the time (I use disposables at night, and re-useables during the day). It might also be worth you looking at washable wipes. I use cheeky wipes, as we were bought a kit as a birth present, and have NEVER bought any disposable wipes! :j
When we go away I put him into disposable nappies, but cut up an ancient t-shirt and use that for wipes.

Hope that helps, although I guess you probably have this sorted by now.

Good Luck

Em-im

Avogirly

Hi Em-I'm,

Thanks for your advice, it's great to hear what others have been using. I have decided to start off with disposables as I just think we need to settle down first and get into a routine, after that I think I'll try reusable ones and do the same as you. Have baby in reusable during day and disposable at night.

Thanks for the tip about the wipes, I hadn't heard of that before. Xx

Avogirly

Super excited this morning as I was able to make all my YNAB updates, plus my additional payments. It feels so good to see my debts coming down.

My regular payment to Raymond doesn't come out until the 10th, but I have made my monthly overpayment today, plus the regular payments to Bill and Sally. Therefore the total outstanding as of today is £12,726.66. Once my regular Raymond has come out I should be £12,359.00, but I'll have a little bit of interest to go on that. This loan will also be under the 5k mark, which is quite satisfying!

If I am careful with my budgets, I may be able to make an additional payment of about £30 this month, but I'm not going to do that until way through the month just in case there are any emergencies.

I have decided to keep the two empty credit cards open for the time being. The reason for this is to cover myself for emergencies until I have built up a bit of a savings buffer. One has a fairly high limit on it, and I will close it at the end of this year. The other has a small limit and I use this for business expenses which I claim back and pay off each month so I don't get charged any interest.

At the end of this year I'm going to close the higher limit card, and then come October 2015 (my DFD) I'm going to close all bar one of my credit cards. How nice is that going to feel, no loan, no credit card debt! I cannot wait for that day! I even have a countdown clock on my phone, with the number of days left until I am debt free, its currently 466!