Scrimping behind the scenes - with debt of £31,000!

Seasidegal58

Well still haven't heard from Post Office about the 0per cent credit card. This is getting silly now. I've never waited so long to hear back from an application - even if it is just a no go! I'm off to DD's tomorrow night for a long weekend - back on Tuesday so if I haven't heard by then will tell them to leave it!

It was somebody's Big 0 birthday at work. He works on our desk and to be honest I don't have a lot of time for him for various reasons but everyone on the desk put in a tenner to get him a present. Never felt less like contributing in my life but hey ho if you don't then there's all the office politics to contend with!

Apart from that only bought paper today so that's something !

Seasidegal58

Evening all!

Just got back today from a lovely long weekend with DD and her OH. Ended up not spending quite as much as I thought, so extra bonus on top of spending time with her.

So it’s the end of Week 2 of Scrimp Month 3 today and I am overbudget on ad hoc spends by £8.84, but because I’ve hardly spend anything on food this week I came in underbudget here by £10.79 :j .

And I had a nice surprise when I got home because after waiting nearly a month I finally received my Post Office credit card! :j It’s 0% for 18 months with a special offer low balance transfer fee of 0.7% (which I understand is on offer until 31st July if anyone is interested). My credit limit here is £5,100 which will pay off the Halifax (with its nasty 21.9% interest). The only thing is that when I applied for it I was asked if I wanted to make a balance transfer so I put down the Halifax balance which was £4,992 at the time. Trouble is as it’s taken so long approving my application I’ve paid off some of the Halifax since then. I telephoned the Post Office customer service this evening to see if the balance had gone through and they told me it looked like it had. They said if I ended up with a credit on the Halifax card I should instruct Halifax to send the credit amount to my bank. So I’ll have to wait and see what happens – I can then send the credit to my Marks and Spencer card which has the next highest interest rate at 18.9%.

The other good thing is that the last monthly minimum payment on my credit cards has been calculated and so I know how much extra I can pay off this month which has come to £506.49. :j
This will be winging its way over to the M&S card as well as it will now be the next card I’ll be concentrating on getting down. I’ll update my signature on the 17th of the month as usual as everything should have gone through by then.

All in all a very successful day in Seasideville!:D

Dobbibill

Good news on the Post Office Card. At least at 0% it gives you breathing space to reduce the capital rather than interest each month. Really happy for you :T


Well done on coming in under budget too :j Everything is coming together nicely at the moment


keep up the posts, your progress is fantastic and inspirational :j


DB

Ninno820

Hi - I have just come across your diary and I am another dobbleganger - good job, good salary but horrendous debt. Everyone thinks that I manage money so well - duh!!!


I've started my own diary but will need to do it behind the scenes and so will be following your progress as it seems so inspirational - well done.


Thanks for the heads up re YNAB - am just downloading a free trial as we speak!

in_need_of_direction

Great that you had a lovely break and fantastic that you returned to good news. Isn't it ironic that one issue for you is your debt being lower than expected. Can't wait to see that sig on the 17th.

Seasidegal58

Hi Dobbi and inod :wave: - thanks for popping in. Yes I was really chuffed about the Post Office card – didn’t think I would ever get one again!W!ill make such a difference getting rid of 21.9% interest!

Hello Ninno :hello: . Thanks to a fellow “behind the scener” for dropping in to and reading. You will find YNAB so useful, but very addictive!

Week 3 of Scrimp Month 3 – well the new week hasn’t started that well on ad hoc spending as I had to pay for my concert ticket and minibus for Saturday which came to £67! What with newspaper, deodorant and collection in work for someone getting married I’m £7.19 overbudget already on day 1!:eek:

Ninno820

I'm intrigued by YNAB - and your use of it. Essentially it's a monthly budgeting tool but you clearly break it down further into a weekly one for the adhoc spends - which I think that I would find useful. Is this a facility within the programme or something that you personally do outside of YNAB?

mooomin

Ninno820 wrote: »

I'm intrigued by YNAB - and your use of it. Essentially it's a monthly budgeting tool but you clearly break it down further into a weekly one for the adhoc spends - which I think that I would find useful. Is this a facility within the programme or something that you personally do outside of YNAB?

I use YNAB too. It is a monthly tool, in that when you get paid you would allocate all the spends that you plan on making in the current month, but in terms of daily spending you can also work it using the app on your phone too. I log all spending in it as I do it and categorise it. This lets me see how I'm doing to plan and also to adjust my plan for any unexpected expenses.

This could all be done on a spreadsheet, it's not new or rocket science, but for some reason the software makes me more accountable and as I don't have to figure out formulae in a spreadsheet it's more appealing.

The software costs £30 or thereabouts, but I got it on sale for £7.49. I did the trial first though and would probably have paid full price for it - having budgeted for it, of course

Chrysalis1976

Hi Seasidegal, glad you had a good break and yay to the card finally arriving you are doing really well. A little blip on day one of the new month but I'm sure with your special budgeting powers you'll be right back on track over the course of the month.

Well done, C x

crunch_time

Hi seasidegal


Well done on the post office credit card!! Hopefully this will make a big difference to interest!!


You seem to have such an exciting life without getting bogged down in debt repayment! Such an inspiration to me - thank you!!


keep it up!!


Crunchyxx