Debt free before I'm 40 snowball calculator says yes

buddiebabe

Hope you feel better sashybo

Didn't have a good sleep last night and not feeling great today but working soon so need to get ready for that

One of the girls at work was looking for a basket so I have one for my sweeties I've told her she can have so that's one thing out the house and £1.99 coming in

Got £6.75 from quidco today so added to that and paid £18.78 as my payment today to my credit card so balance on this is now £5400 a nice round number going into the new year

I need to have lunch before I get to work need to move!

Buddiebabe x

Igamogam

Just dropping in to wish all........... Blywddyn Newydd Dda

buddiebabe

Happy new year

Can't believe I actually forgot to update my diary on the 1st :eek:

Well 40 mins into the 2nd January isn't too bad :rotfl: really need to start going to bed earlier I'm never going to make it up for work on Monday morning

Ok so am starting 2015 with my debts outstanding as follows:

Barclaycard £11000 on 0% for 33 months and I have every faith I will clear it before then... I'm just going to have to!!!

RBS MC £5400 on 6.9% until they decide to increase it!

So my total outstanding debt is £16400 which is the lowest it's ever been :j

I'm happy with the way things are progressing just need to keep on track. I had a no spend day yesterday which was good and have managed to declutter a box of after eights to my mums as a New Years gift . Had a lovely dinner at mum and dads and off to the in laws for dinner tonight with a bottle of claret (a gift from my dad to my husbands dad) and a bottle that my mother in law left at my mums at Christmas so that will be another 2 items out my house today :T just a shame none of them were mine to begin with!

Had a lovely Hogmanay up at a friends house there was a crowd there but nice and civilised a few drinks and some nibbles so no hangovers.

I have lots of things I want to write about and get down either on paper or on here but think I should probably head to bed now try and get some sleep so I'm not still lying in bed at 12 again :rotfl:

Buddiebabe x

buddiebabe

Good morning

Well am still lying in bed but I have had a coffee, some toast and am now on a cup of tea so am awake. I couldn't sleep again last night lots of thoughts going round my head

Must have fallen asleep at some point as I woke up around 10 and actually felt quite good for a change.

I've been wanting to move house for ages we live in a one bedroom flat which is reasonably sized however I want my own house with a front and back door.

When I remortgaged the flat I took out 120% of what it was worth so I've not even been able to think about moving at all due to negative equity. Now I have no idea what the flat is worth but if I base it on what it was valued at in 2005 when I remortgaged it was £55000.

I got my mortgage statement in during December with my balance outstanding including discharge fee as £52954.90 which if the flat was worth the £55k as it was in 2005 then there would be £2000 to play with! Now I know that's not a lot or anything like what I'd need for fees and other things it means that the end is in sight...only problem is would I be able to get another mortgage based on the level of my outstanding debt and then where would we be able to find a deposit to get us started.

So I have a few things that I need to find out:

1 How much is the flat worth?
2 does the lady that rents out other flats in building still want to buy mine? She has mentioned it every year so I could have a buyer already lined up.
3 could I get a mortgage?
4 how much of a deposit do we need?

Before I can do any of the above I need to get this house completely cleared out and decluttered. This has to be the upmost priority as if the house isn't cleared then I can't have people in to value it.

Also if I'm decluttering I could possibly raise some cash for much needed deposit from this...then again should the money be used for the debt or the deposit???

Or do I try and clear the debt this year and declutter the house resigning ourselves that we staying here for a year.... Too many things to think about.

The other thing to think about that I write about every year is that I'm not getting any younger will be 37 this month and we would like to have kids but I feel like I'm letting all that slip away due to worries about money and houses and debt.

Have so much going round and round in my head just now it's no wonder I can't sleep or think straight!

Going to go play about with some figures and sort out what I need to pay this week and see what money in bank is like this morning!

Buddiebabe x

in_need_of_direction

If you don't mind my tuppence worth, I'd say get rid of debt esp since you have an almost guaranteed offer available. Hopefully your equity will increase slightly while you do this. Believe me, no matter hoe much you want them, children bring stress. If you are still in debt with higher outgoings due to a move, this could be a nightmare.

buddiebabe

Thanks in need of direction

I think that's what puts me off trying for children as I would rather be debt free with just a mortgage when we have them as I know the added costs.

I've found out that our sofa payments will be finished in March so these come out my husbands account and he usually gives me £160 a week cash and then once a month I only get £140 to cover my share of the sofa. So instead of him giving me £60 this week I have told him to keep that which pays my contribution to the sofa so that from now on I get £160 per week which leaves me £20 a month better off :j

I have also just entered my gas meter reading and I'm still in credit :j by £6.01 but it's still a credit! We have had the heating on all day during the last two months so was expecting to owe them money but so far so good :j

I've put all my savings away for the first week in January which is unusual for me as I usually wait until I get paid and do them all together but doing them now seems so much easier.

Just had a thought I may need to get petrol today not really used the car this week so If I top it up it might not need the full £40 I'm allowing for this week.

I'm allowing myself £200 this month for petrol and £310 for shopping I think I will add these to my signature so I can keep a track of what I'm spending this month so I can accurately record it.

Still haven't made my payment a day yet but then again still haven't checked bank yet

Buddiebabe x

buddiebabe

Well I've finally made my payment for the day £5.42 to my RBS credit card. I figure that if I can use my payments a day to this card and I can pay £30 a month buy doing it that will cover the interest that's added to the card every month which means my payment of £200 a month will reduce the balance so my debt will actually go down by £500 per month.

I worked out that if I wanted to pay off all my debt this year the full £16400 I would have to pay just under £1400 a month so by paying £500 that would leave me £900 a month extra to find :eek:

Don't really think that is physically possible! I am however going to try and aim to repay £650 a month which means I need to find ways to make an additional £150 a month which works out at approx £5 per day.

At the moment my debt free date is in 35 months and works out as November 2017 which is less than 3 years and keeps me on target to be debt free before I'm 40 by 2 months :j

If I can repay my debts at £650 per month it would mean if be debt free in 27 months and debt free by April 2017 :T

I'm going to leave the snowball calculator at £500 per month at the moment and see how the first few months if this year go before changing it.

Have spoken to other half about decluttering and moving etc and we have decided that we are going to set ourselves a target of the 31st March 2015 to get this house decluttered well at least enough to be able to have friends over! At least now we both have a goal to work towards.

Off to get ready to go to inlaws for dinner will update with any spends later

Buddiebabe x

buddiebabe

Petrol spends £21.25 for 19.16 litres at 110.9 per litre

Quite surprised that I had just over half a tank left so glad it's full now although will use some on way home tonight. Fingers crossed I can come in under budget.

Buddiebabe x

sashybo

Hi BB, I can understand stress with wanting to move from a flat to a house but worrying about negative equity etc. We had to take 12k in loans to cover the negative equity when we sold our flat last year. Hopefully you won't be in that boat! :eek:

I think you would be right to focus on clearing the debt and decluttering. March sounds reasonable and then once you've had the flat valued you will have more information to work with re possible profit.

Also understand about the worry of debt vs children and when, if ever, is the right time to just go for it. It's a difficult one.

buddiebabe

Well I survived dinner at the inlaws it was a lovely night but was glad to get home the weather is wild here tonight!

I deleted my old snowball calculations tonight as they went back to 01.01.13 which wasn't really an issue as it showed I had paid off £20000 in two years which I think is great but it had lots of debts that were no longer relevant so I now have a nice shiny new one with just two debts on it.

I have made my payments today £5.00 to RBS MC and £9.58 to Barclaycard. I realised when I redid my snowball calculation the debt I should be prioritising is the 0% one as if I don't clear this one before the 0% offer runs out then I will end up paying interest on it! I have 27 months left at 0% so what I've decided to do is I will continue to pay the RBS one until I have reached £30 (which should cover the interest charged) and then concentrate on my barclaycard as it is the one I need to clear first.

I have checked all my bank accounts and I have £10 left in one £100 in another and £100 in my purse. I am going to try and keep as much cash in my purse as possible and use my Tesco credit card for all petrol and shopping so I can get my club card points then I will pay this off in full every month.

I've got slimming world at 9.30 and am really tempted to give it a miss and save myself £4.95 however I need the fact that I am accountable to someone to push me to loose the weight so although I know I will have out weight on at least I will know how bad things actually are before I start again on Monday .... Give myself the weekend to break myself in gently :rotfl:

I better get to bed or I will be going no where in the morning and that includes work at 12. I hope the bank is open in the morning so I can pop some money in to pay my credit card for the petrol I've used

Buddiebabe x