My Graduate (Post-Student) Debt Diary!

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

MrJester wrote: »

TODAY I will also make a final payment to EON! and that will be a year of debt repayments done with! Lets do a high five dance, its a small debit but a victory none the less :T :j

MrJester wrote: »

Eon energy bill/debt paidd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great news MrJester. Well done. :beer:

Malc

MrJester

>12 Months

E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc wrote: »

Great news MrJester. Well done. :beer:

Malc

Haha thank you Malc.. :beer:

MrJester

>12 Months

blehhh that tax rebate shows on my statement already but it still hasn't cleared, might have to ring the bank about it, it showed two days ago and still not available.

System

If it's a chaps payment it might take a few days to clear, any news yet?

MrJester

>12 Months

nothing yet, i'm going to give them a ring tonight just to ask they might be withholding it temporarily as its been long enough now surely.

MrJester

>12 Months

gulp I just paid just over £600 off my capital one card!

Tough pill to swallow to have to give that kind of cash over to a card, but I know its very much for the best. The money finally cleared and I've sent it straight to this card, the remaining balance will soon be around the £270 mark. Wow, that is an amount I can really tackle and have it paid off really quick.

I'll just ignore the other cards until I can begin to tackle those. Going to do a quick snowball calculator update...
Right so lets see how this looks now:
http://i.imgur.com/GdSgE4L.png

^Based on paying £200 a month towards debts. The rates and min payments are a bit iffy because the calculator doesn't take into account particular repayment types like "1% of balance plus interest" so I've just had to opt for the highest possibility, and Halifax card is set to £50 min repayment due to this as currently it doesn't go above £50 but is close so is about the same as a monthly min repayment.

So now we can look at this reflected in my monthly outgoings:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ghHh24J_UfG5t4vzFOeIrbd-hzSEVOnx3wlhRPooztU/pubhtml?gid=254349557&single=true

^Updated to be effective as of August paycheque.

Even with a £100 monthly lunch budget (this is on the very heavy side) I end up with £350 odd disposable cash. I've been buying £5 lunches recently which I don't like to do and I'm putting this in my budget to show myself that if i carry on doing it i'll have much less disposable cash when i could just walk a bit further for cheaper lunches or bring in/make my own lunches.

We making movements here! :beer:

System

Huge congrats on paying off that lump sum, know it must have been a killer to do it!! Such great news about that capital one card balance, one less card to accrue interest from October and this’ll make a big difference to your overall debt accrual!

Know what you mean about lunches at work, it’s been a test of strength for me not to go and go nuts buying food (and clothes, gadgets, makeup etc.) on my lunch breaks now my offices have moved from the countryside to a town centre. To start off with maybe treat yourself to one £5 lunch a week? I hate packing lunches/making lunch and carting it in to work/doing dishes etc. but I’ve found making huge batches of soup (for £3-4 for all ingredients) and wraps etc. means one preparation for 2-3 weeks worth of food. Every now and then I’ll treat myself to a subway or something if I’ve not had time to pack lunch/have run out and haven’t had a chance to cook more. Saves me a load of money plus is heaps healthier. I also have a box of cereal in my desk and have cereal every morning using work milk (they even buy soy milk so I get to have dairy free breakfasts most days), sly money saving!

Next payday plan looks great, good chunk off the debt woop! V Jealous that your rent includes utilities and is still cheaper than mine :').

MrJester

>12 Months

thanks sauce. I felt myself thinking "hm the things you can do wit that sort of money.." and thus immediately paid it to the credit card haha.
Yeah I think I did the right thing because come october I could be one card less! Which will be huge. Possibly down the line I can use capital one again for a 0% deal, but if I ever do a 0% balance transfer it will be extremely thought-out and ensuring that I can pay the amount per month to pay it off in full within the 0% duration. Before I did the 0%'s to give myself some breathing room but there was no plan, and thats why I got to where I am now.

ahh yeah being around shops all the time is seriously not helpful, I try to limit spending generally to over the internet just because you typically spend alot lot lot less (the price comparison in you hunts out the best deal) and its the instant gratification of buying something and having it right away is removed which is what i think makes us buy things in person. when you buy online you have to wait and so you weigh up pros and cons more.

yeah theres this wrap place that does £5 meal deal and now that im cycling into work im really hungry at lunch time. before i could eat half wrap a day (they're big) but now i dont eat crisps or fizzy (cleaning up my diet) which fills you up more so i have to eat the whole wrap and theres £5 gone :P
i only half half hour lunch so the closer the shop for food the better, and it has to be wraps or pasta dishes or something as ive cut out bread from my diet too (i can overeat on it). ill find somewhere! theres a sainsburys a little further walk which i can probably go to and they do the £3 meal deal. but i like to have fresh food as much as possible.. haha always a battle between moneysaver and mr healthy.

my work has like free fruit, crisps and chocolate/sweets but cos of my diet clean up all i can have is the fruit and it disappears in like a day now! so i dont benefit all that much from that.

and thanks, yeah looking solid isnt it i mean now it has actual specific payment amounts to what i am going to pay towards each credit card, and i will match it according to my snowball calc month by month!
haha its cheap isnt it, which makes it tricky for me to even think about moving again anytime soon - but yknow maybe thats a good thing i just need to abuse this good deal i have for as long as possible and just get out more. cause the places id like to live are at least £750 all inc and they wont be as nice.
remember i rent straight from the homeowner, whereas you have your own place!

System

Yeah the cost of my flat is worth it most of the time!

Do you have a kitchen at work with a microwave etc? Could you take in salad items and some tortilla wraps and make your own? I'm spoiled here because there's only 8-9 full-time staff and we have a huge fridge-freezer, 4 slice dualit toaster, microwave, full clean crockery sets, cutlery, knife block, chopping boards (you get the idea...) so I keep Vogels bread in the freezer and bring soup in pretty much every day and don't have to worry about fridge pinchin'! Plus I sneak my tupperware in to the dishwasher and have it on a cycle of picking up yesterdays in the morning and putting it in my bag, putting today's in the afternoon and continuing the cycle till I have my full set back and that's when I make more..... Okay, super embarassed of how dorky I sound.

Yeah I pretty much exclusively shop online, at uni etc. I was an impulsive shopper if I was in the city, now I just say 'I'll look online' and read reviews/get cashback etc.

MrJester

>12 Months

Hahah your plan sounds like the enigma code. But for tupperware.
Yeah here we have a fridge with ample space (but no freezer), and there is a microwave and cutlery etc to make/cut. So yeah I could do that, on a monday buy bulk of some meat, salad, and wraps and id be sorted for the week. This also helps cos id find it difficult to bring lunch in too as i bike to work and shower at work so i bring in like a towel and change of clothes in a backpack so its pretty full already.

ive begun an extension of the money mantra 'do i need it, can i afford it' etc etc cause even when online stuff, if i have some cash ill quickly buy stuff even then, but now if i add it to my basket, ill do that and then wait a day. or instead add it to wishlist and wait a day, so then i know the impulse has worn off and can think about it properly!
i nearly bought a back support thing off amazon but then thought just add to wishlist and think about it and i havent bought it yet cause its not mandatory, i have essentially the same in the form of a rolled up cushion so i dont NEED it. i want it. ha

just having some porridge, and lucky me a brand new fruit delivery just came in, so with banana.
cycling into work my heart rate was heavy this morn over these two killer hills, but my legs hurt less and have definitely already grown ha! but think i was just a bit sluggish from satuday which was a long day of drinking at a blues festival!