What to pay first?

JimmyTheWig

Shame about the gold (or lack of!) but well done for keeping going with the debt reduction...

fed_up_of_debt

Thanks JYW I am so motivated at the moment,( all the lovely help on here :A and the snowball calculator in my mind:j) I paid another £20 off Halifax, so now £100 :T

fed_up_of_debt

Had a week off - self employed so no work no pay.. back to it next week

crunch_time

Well done fed up of debt!!
You are being so positive! Life really does slow down when you step back and take stock of things. I have moments when I feel stressed about it but so long as it keeps going down and not up that is the main thing!


Subscribed!! We are in this together!!
Crunchyxx

fed_up_of_debt

Applied for a barclaycard platinum 0% - took 2 minutes and was granted a £12400 credit limit :beer:

Have simplified debts:j 0% is for 34 months, so happy with that:)

Mara_uk7

Thats brilliant news and will be a huge help in paying it down ! Youre doing really well. Stay motivated and keep us posted.

fed_up_of_debt

I had a conversation with friends about food costs and was shocked to learn how much some people spend on food! :O

I am quite frugal when it comes to food shopping and hoped that the question would not be asked of how much I spent!

I asked myself the question and so decided to download an app on my phone called spending tracker (free of course!)

I have added every time I have spent (esp the corner shop trips for milk etc) and hope that at the end of the month I will have a better understanding of what I actually spend

Getmeoutofdebt

hi there!

Just popped in to read your diary after you popped in on mine.
Wow you are doing really well! Loving your focus and enthusiasm!

Wish I had known about the snowball calculator when I first started!! It's a bit late now as I'm (as of today) down to my final debt!

You are very similar to me in the way you wanted to pay off the debts that were smaller and made you feel better. I was exactly the same and I could have probably saved more money by working it out a bit better as I paid all the cards that froze my interest at 0% first, and left the 2 Barclaycards that were charging me interest (although very much reduced) until last! It cost me more in the long run but I found it better for me to do it that way. I preferred to feel like I was achieving something on a more regular basis and think that I was getting somewhere by paying the lower balance cards off first. Plus, by the time I had paid the lower cards off, the higher balanced cards had reduced quite a bit too with my minimum payments and they didn't look as bad when they were next in line to pay. I think it is each to their own and each person has to do what is right for them. It can be a really long hard process to pay debt off and you need to find things to motivate you along the way.

I found that having a diary on here / following other diaries really helped a lot. You do get addicted to logging everything and changing your signature and you get some fantastic support. Plus you learn a lot of tips too! I don't think I would have done half as well as I have without the help and support through the forums.

I have subscribed to your diary so I will be popping in to catch up.

Good luck with your journey!
GMOOD xx:)

JimmyTheWig

Getmeoutofdebt wrote: »

I think it is each to their own and each person has to do what is right for them. It can be a really long hard process to pay debt off and you need to find things to motivate you along the way.

I completely agree with this.
There's normally a "pure money" way of doing things best to minimise interest. But often the savings made by doing it that way are dwarfed by savings you can make by doing it the way that works for you.

fed_up_of_debt

I coming into my 5th month... I received one £0.00 balance credit card yesterday

Since starting this journey, I have closed a catalogue account, a next account and now a credit card.

I have another credit card with £84 interest charge ready to be paid off and another (waiting for statement) with an approx £10 balance

Bringing my credit cards down from 5 cards to 2 by the end of this month :j

Thank you to everbody here for their support and advice:T