The 300k debt-free diary!!!

chocaholic110

pandapaws wrote: »

It isn't actually brand new, but a 3yr old Citroen Picasso. Cost £4995 and got an excellent 0% deal over 5 years on it, which will cost us just £83 a month. The salesman didn't actually want to sell it to us once he had realised that he wasn't going to make a penny as we refused numerous warranties, GAP, PPI and about a million other extras they tried to sell, and initially tried to tell us credit at 0% had been declined, but approved at 14.9% - yeah, right!!! So we insisted he put it through again and funnily enough, it was accepted!

Well done you! I have a Xsara Picasso and I love it, even two years down the line. And what attracted us in the first place was 0% interest. Although we went to get it serviced a couple of weeks ago and really liked the new Grand Picasso - but as I told OH, ours is fine and really OH needs a new car before I do so we'll just have to wait

pandapaws

Thanks for helping with the justification!!!

New car is sitting looking lonely on the drive as it isn't insured yet and we've got some petrol in the old one that we might as well use up before we get rid!

Was lying in bed last night, just thinking about doing the revised SOA and dreading it! Going to get DS sorted out (he's eating individual pieces of Thomas spaghetti with his fingers at the moment and delighting in telling me what each one is - bless!) and then take myself upstairs for half an hour to get all the paperwork out. Wish me luck!

chocaholic110

Just think of how good you will feel when SOA is done and you know exactly where you are with things.

pandapaws

No news on the house at all sadly Lunar. Agents rang yesterday to say that there weren't any 'feature' spots available in the paper for a while, but they cold make a space and put a smaller ad in next week, so we're going to have open weekend next weekend (20th-ish?) and get the ad in the paper to try and attract attention to that along with the paid stamp duty.

Dreading the clean-up the day before - there's no point doing it any sooner as the place becomes a tip in 5 minutes! Any volunteers in the North Lincs area to come round and help clean up are warmly welcomed! It'll be fun...honest!!!

lunar

I need to revise my SOA, not looking forward to it really but it needs doing, good luck with yours.

pandapaws

Right, I've delayed for long enough. We've shuffled loads of the finance around, transferred balances etc. So here goes: SOA for 11th October (Does anyone know how to set tabs on here rather than using dots to line things up?!)

Income:

My wages.....2,177.97 (Gone down a bit for both of us as pension subs gone up)
DH wages.....2,196.00

Total ..........4373.97 (plus non-guaranteed income from Ebay business of 0-1,500).

Outgoings:

Mortgage......1,485.02 (But will reduce when (if!) house sells)
Council Tax......207.00 (Waiting for results of appeal and hopefully a refund)
Life Insurance....25.05
HSA.................16.46 (Keeping until baby born for maternity payout!)
Storage..........120.00 (Need to keep for a bit longer - will get rid when we move!)
Gas & Elec.......103.00 (Cheapest - recently switched and got Quidco cash)
Mobiles.............90.00 (but actually totally free - refunded every 2 months)
Sky TV/Phone....40.00 (TV £19 basic package, plus phone calls)
Water...............37.00
Broadband.........14.99 (contracted for 18mths, but got free laptop!)
BT...................14.50 (need to pay the extra £3.50 for call waiting & caller display)
TV Licence........11.41 (Bah!)

Total...........2164.43

Debt Payments:

HSBC Loan........396.09 (£24,161 owed inc int at 7.9%. 61 payments to go)
Citi Loan...........310.52 (£18,078 owed inc int at 9.3%. 58 payments to go)
Halifax CC.........155.00 (£7,628 owed plus int at 5.9% Life-of-Balance)
My Egg Card.......80.00 (£3,264 owed, 0% until Aug 08)
OH Egg Card.......70.00 (£2,306 owed, 0% until Aug 08)
N.Rock...............99.90 (£6,093 owed inc int at 10.9%. 61 payments to go)
New Car Loan......83.25 (£4,995 owed at 0%, 60 payments to go)
Citi Card.............39.52 (£316 owed at 0%, will be clear when 0% ends)
Sofas.................28.30 (£849 owed at 0%, 30 payments to go)
My Virgin............15.00 (£10,170 owed, 0% ends in Dec and payments will go up)
OHs Vrigin...........10.00 (£5,871 owed, 0% until June 08, payments will go up then)

Total.............1287.58 (Total Debt £83, 731)

Spending

Fuel/Car Costs....400.00 (Mostly due to commuting. Will go down loads when we move)
Nursery ..............58.50 (£13 for one session/week. Will be free when he's 3 in Dec)
Lottery................10.00
Spending............400.00 (This includes food, entertainment, gifts, repairs, clothing, general 'stuff')


Total Spending..868.50

TOTAL INCOME...................4373.97
TOTAL EXPENDITURE...........4320.51

Leaves £53.97, which if I'm brutally honest will probably be spent, but where possible this and any additional income from Ebay, matched betting, Quidco, mobile phone refunds etc go straight into a second bank account and are then (supposedly) paid straight towards whichever debt is being targeted - currently my Virgin card as the 0% is about to end! All overdrafts have completely gone though, which feels good - they've been transferred to 0% CCs so at least they'll get paid off rather than ignored, and the interest on them was quite high.

The total debt figure has increased by quite a bit because we have added 5k for the new car finance, and also because I have obtained some more accurate balances from some of the finance companies which include the interest that will be paid, and I have included this in the totals.
Bit of a bummer though - on paper 8k more debt than last month :mad: but at least it isn't through spending.

I've also been keeping the spending diary online, and it is REALLY scary - so far this month we've spent £490 (including fuel) out of a monthly allowance of £800. This includes hubby's birthday and one-off cost of £95 for washing machine repair, but still...need to work on that. Have been doing the stop shopping challenge, and not really bought anything frivolous at all (£10 at most), but it is eating out that's the problem - lunches mainly. Might start my own challenge, even if it is just me that does it!

This has taken so long that I don't have time to update the signature now. It's something I normally love doing because totals are coming down but this time they're going up - not impressed! Will do it at work later!

:T Thanks again to everyone for the continued support :T

pandapaws

lunar wrote: »

I need to revise my SOA, not looking forward to it really but it needs doing, good luck with yours.

Ta! It took ages, but feel better for doing it! Good luck with yours - it is a great feeling when you've finished - I feel sort-of clear in the head for the first time in several weeks!

pandapaws

Phew, just updated the signature and feel much better now. I decided that rather than having the massive de-motivation factor of having a much higher debt than I had published as at my original LBM, I'd re-do the original debt amount to include the revised totals that I have put in my new SOA, many of them having gone up as I've included interest to be paid in them which I hadn't originally. After all, it is still money that I owed back then, so it should be counted!

Also decided just to totally delete anything that has been balance transferred and show the new debt instead as an original total, rather than changing them to green, as I haven't really got rid of them, just moved them. I'm going to keep everything in green that has actually been paid off though as that's hugely motivating!

Wow, amazing how much thought something as insignificant as the sig is, but updating it is one of my favourite things so best to have it accurate (yes, MSE has officially made me sad!)

lunar

wow your soa is so detailed, i love updating my sig too. I also have a spread sheet on my computer that i fill in every time a payment is made. I become obsessed with every detail on it, even if i overpay £5 i have to update everything on it. your right its a bit like spring cleaning organising your finances.

wish i could get my head round the matched betting thing, i know my oh could do it but he wont listen to how its different to gambeling so wont look at it with me. he is so supportive in everything else that i dont really want to push him on this one.

now you have added the interest on your totals will be coming down by slightly more each month in your sig, so from now on it will be more fun updating your totals!

pandapaws

That's a good point about the interest - hadn't thought of it like that! So even though it looks as though there's more to pay, it will go down faster. I like that!!!