Start of the DF Journey

Benji03

Hi All,


After a recent decline at the bank for another debt consolidation loan I was finally forced to confront my bad spending habits and how I plan to get rid of my spiralling debts. So I have gone through everything I pay for what I owe and have made some huge inroads in the past 3 days.


Present debts:



Halifax CC - £2505 (£45 pm)
Halifax Loan - £6800 (£101.50 pm)
Coop Loan - £7226 (£191.00 pm)
Barclaycard - £7700 (177.00 pm)
Santander - £2080 (£179.00 pm)
DFS - £2500 (£54.50 pm)
Next Catalogue - £260 (£26.00 pm)
Mortgage - £230000 (£1268.00 pm)


I did a full budget planner to ascertain what exactly we were paying out for and at the same time knocked £150 off mortgage by fixing it for 2 years at 3.29% which I figured would give us 24 months to pay off debts.


I then went onto the cheap energy club and found a better rate and as a bonus when I checked with Scottish Power it turned out we'd overpaid by £766 (so plan to knock that off the Next bill and the rest will pay for Xmas prezzies.


I spoke to Barclaycard and they agreed to transfer entire debt onto 9.9% (was 21.99%)


Our present expenses for everything totalled £3442 per month and by reviewing/cancelling unnecessary stuff ive managed to get this down to £2900.


I have put my boat up for sale so the £8000 I hope to get for this will pay one of the larger debts off.


We earn £4010 jointly so I plan to use £500 of this to pay off additionally on each debt and then use that plus debt paid off amount on next etc etc.


I have done my calculations and believe I should be able to clear all debts bar the mortgage by Oct 2016....is this realistic or am I being naïve?


Would also like to use £750 i'm paying on debts to then pay extra on mortgage as according to mortgage overpayments calculator it will knock 7 years & 9 months off the mortgage and save £40000 on interest!

crunch_time

Well done on everything so far! You might be able to clear it more quickly by snowballing and being frugal??


Crunchyx

Benji03

Hi Crunchy


I assume by snowballing you mean the money freed up that was being spent on another debt is added to the amount being paid off the next?

Benji03

Its amazing after reviewing the bank statements how much we were wasting each week on takeaways etc....we haven't had one fr a week and have actually used up all the shopping we purchase rather than the usual chucking away on Saturday.


Also having reviewed a few more of the articles on the MSE site ive now sent a letter of complaint to Barclays account we closed last year as I noticed I'd been paying £6.50 for an account fee I never authorised. Will hopefully get something good back fro them.

judi24

Hi Benji - happy new diary - good luck on your adventures. It sounds like you have a plan! Snowballing is paying your highest intrest debt first while paying minimums on the lower interest ones then moving to the next highest - there is a link to the tool on here (will try to post a link) that allows you to play around with your figures and shows you when you would be debt free etc it is quite interesting and helps you see what those extra few pounds gained by cutting back could do when you throw them at your debt!


Might also be worth doing an SOA (statement of affairs) showing ALL your incomes and outgoings and some lovely people on here will post suggestions of things you could cut back on etc - it really does help!


Anyway - good luck

judi24

http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php


http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx?country=uk

Swampy3k

firstly well done on realising you were leaking money and secondly all the best! will be keeping watch to see how you do *the pressure is on*

PinkPoppies

Well done! Feels great to be getting in control of things doesn't it!

I don't see why October 2016 can't be a realistic goal if you knuckle down and keep up the focus- good luck! :j

Benji03

Had a stroke of luck today and received £2000 inheritance (I know sounds like monopoly) so the Santander loan is now history! I have also decided to give up smoking and have started on Champix. If all goes well that's another £200 in the pocket each month.

Thanks for the support, im not much of an IT person so not sure how to add a SOA or the subtext which details OS debt and what has been paid?

Benji03

After a few weeks of dispute with David Lloyd leisure over their failure to cancel my gym membership as requested in May and also them telling me that I would have to continue paying till Jan next year I was pleasantly surprised this morning at receiving this email:


Good afternoon XXXX


Thank you for your patience in regards to your cancellation with us.

I have spoken with our General Manager who has had discussions with head office in regards to your query with us.

It has been agreed that due to the non usage for some time we will be able to cancel the membership with immediate effect so no further payments will be taken.

We will also refund September and October payments in line with the cancellation letter sent in May 2014. this will total £290 and will appear in your bank within 10 working days please do not cancel your direct debit in this time.

If we can help further in the future then please do get in contact.

Regards


Louise Lord
Member Relations Manager
David Lloyd




Just goes to show that sometimes going in and speaking to someone face to face can achieve more.

in_need_of_direction

Does that mean that the next bill could be history?