my boring but essential (for me!) new diary

kbl

Hello anybody who might stop by :hello:
I've decided to start my diary on here, in an attempt to keep myself on track, I've tried in the past to keep an actual diary with spending section etc, but have failed to keep it up. The reasons for starting this is I had sooo many plans at the start of the year, but we are now half way in and I haven't achieved the majority of them. I know if I get into it, I will be a lot better off at the end of the year, but it's getting motivated. I've so many plans, but either I don't follow through, or real life kicks me back and scuppers them (having to use my pitiful start of an emergency fund to pay for an unexpected school expense for instance, only €20 but still a lot for me).
My aims for the second half of this year is to get the credit card and catalogues paid down to at least under 500 (at moment, adding estimated future interest, we're talking paying off about 2000 to achieve this), build up a €500 buffer in my account, stay on top of my bills, overpay a further 2250 on my mortgage and clear the house of some of the years of junk I've gathered.
Now that it's all written down, it looks a lot, but it might just be doable with consistent effort.

longtermplanner

Why would you overpay the mortgage? Wait until all you credit card and catalogue debt is gone?

Best of luck. July 1st is just as good a day as Jan 1st for a major resolution

asparagus1968

welcome:)
what are the interests on the credit cards and catalogues and your mortgage?
you would save a lot of money by paying off whichever has the highest interest rate first, it's called snowballing. just pay usual mortgage and minimum payments on all but biggest interest debt, to which you throw every penny you can. once that's paid off, use that money to pay down the next biggest interst debt.
there is a snowball calculator on here somewhere which works it all out for you!

kbl

thank you for your replies, you are right, I need to get the debt paid off first, it's just not that long since we were in horrible arrears with the mortgage and over 7000 in debt with the cc, still have nightmares about the house being taken off us tbh. had a look at the calculator, given the interest involved it's worst case gonna be next March before I'm free off the debt, (the interest rates are horrendous, 39.9 & 39.6 on the catalogues, and 26 on the credit card, no options of transferring balances or lower rate cards) but am hoping to have it done by November fingers crossed. So my plan is to stick to the snowball (thanks for the heads up about that btw, good to see it mapped out without me trying to wrap my head around rates and guesswork), and next year try to get ahead of the mortgage.

LondonGirl252

Good luck kbl!


Good plan to get the largest interest debts down first and then concentrate on the mortgage, I found the snowball calculator so addictive when I first started debt busting!

kbl

thank you longtermplanner, asparagus and londongirl for the encouragement and setting me straight, just want to make a quick post before getting ready for work, my aims this month are:

• Clean out son's room completely
• Clean out daughter's room completely
• Organise my wardrobe
• List 30 things on free selling site
• Pay off catalogue 1 and cause serious damage to catalogue 2
• pay minimum on credit card (round it up though)
• pay mortgage (also round this up, approx €3)
• recycle 2 bags unsaleable clothes

asparagus1968

oh I do love a good list!
sounds like a good plan with the debt busting. would be fab if you could do it by November.
good luck with the selling.
with the "unsaleable clothes, could you take it to one of those "buy by the kilogram" clothes places?
Also, if you have any childrens toys, they seem to do well on netmums website, and its free to place the ad.
have a lovely day

skea56

asparagus1968 wrote: »

with the "unsaleable clothes, could you take it to one of those "buy by the kilogram" clothes places?

I did this last week - 2 bin bags of clothes got me £28 and cleared a space in the hall (now we can walk straight down without having to hold our breath in lol)

sk56

LondonGirl252

My life is one long ever-changing list... I love it!

Sounds like you're well on the way to causing some serious damage to debt, kbl. Go for it!

kbl

Thanks folks, just up believe it or not, only got to bed at half 7, absolutely shattered. Am taking the unsaleable clothes to the ones who buy them by the kg, but over here the best they pay is 65 cent per k, still it's better than nothing. I was going to say that unfortunately I don't have any toys for sale (my youngest is 16) but I started clearing my 20 yo son's room last night and found a wii in a sports bag, hopefully all leads etc are still with it, I know it wouldn't have got much use. It's hopelessly outdated now it's so old, but if it works, surely I'll get €20 for it at least?
Away to get my breakfast (at half 3 in afternoon ), thanks for the support guys

kbl

Was planning on getting €20 credit today as my free calls for the month have expired, but checking my credit I still have just over 9, so am going to text as much as possible instead of calling with that and hopefully get an extra week/week and a half out of it? Reckon by doing this I can save a potential 40 a year, pretty embarassed I've only just copped onto this now though Hate texting, am really s**t at it!! In other news, have put 30 off one of the catalogues, so it's officially begun!!!