Snowscreamer's debt reduction efforts

snowscreamer

Thanks Beanie. Little funeral and burial for him this morning in our back garden; planted a small bush on top surrounded by colourful primroses. Although it was ultimately his downfall he loved the outdoors

lcc86

Sorry to hear about your cat snowscreamer, I know how much losing a much loved pet can affect you, I've lost two pets in the last few months myself and it knocks me every time

MoneyMission2015

Hi Snowscreamer, it's been a long time!

Sorry to hear about your cat. I've never had pets myself but know how upset people are when they lose one, they become like part of the family.

My balance transfers are all done now too, so interest free debt now. It just feels so good knowing the banks won't get any more money on top of what they're already getting. I hope your OH can clear his card soon, I bet it will be so much easier for you when that's sorted.

Good luck with the debt busting : )

hummingbird

So sorry to hear about you little boy cat snowscreamer. Hugs to you xxx

snowscreamer

Thank you everyone! Got to try to keep my chin up and carry on plodding along as it is no good wallowing. I have told our little girl cat we are expecting at least another 15 years please as I can't take it again!!

snowscreamer

Hi all,

Well another long break but still getting used to being a one cat household... definitely starting to feel better though finally. Being quite a worry wart about our remaining cat though, even though she doesn't go near the road am totally paranoid!! Hoping the longer she stays safe, the easier I will feel.

April doesn't feel like a particularly spendy month so far, although YNAB tells me so far we have spent £1471.13 already - where does it go?! Main culprits mortgage £647.23, joint gym membership £110, council tax £233.85, wine box (our first since December - 4 months is somewhat of a record for us to hold out - so not feeling too guilty!) £88, cesspit emptying £102.38.
Our spending is always very front-loaded due to the mortgage and council tax so I am not expecting the spend to have tripled by the end of the month.

Final figures are in for March - and bummer the credit card balance still went up even though I made some almighty overpayments on my card and a small overpayment on our 0% card; OH put £625 of work expenses on his credit card... and the reimbursement won't land in his current account until this month. So we won't get charged interest on it or be any worse off but damn it it would have been nice for the overall credit card balance to finally start going downhill!!

Scores on the doors [this is including expected work reimbursements so we don't distort our months - just didn't have enough in the clear to make CC payments]:
March spending: -£2649.10 (new record low!)
In bank end of March: £4028.09 - UP £1703.05
Credit cards end of March: -£7099.54 - DOWN £279.49
Net debt end of March: -£3071.45 - UP £1423.56

As always, every dollar has a job so although on paper we saved £1423.56 this month, only £662.37 of that will permanently reduce debt. Not bad though. If it hadn't been for those winding-up business costs of OH's old business of £250 then we could have saved £900+ this month. Onwards and upwards we go

This month's budget is done and my current aim is to take £1098.54 out of cleared bank funds and onto credit cards (£625 of that is OH's reimbursement and the rest is swilling around without an assigned job - should have figured this before the end of March and made an additional overpayment but ho hum too late now). Also we will have an additional £465 of next month's income whose job is to reduce debt so in total I hope to pay £1563.54 off the credit cards next month. We shall see!!

Happy money saving everyone! Off to update my signature...

Snowscreamer

snowscreamer

Just done my signature and our net debt has halved since I started this thread!!! :beer:
Of course that will be all thrown off course as soon as we book a holiday but still, that ain't half bad

And I met my first goal too - net debt <£4000 by March - in fact smashed it. Yay! Even more determined than ever to bust this debt. That credit card balance has got to start going down.

snowscreamer

Slowly getting back on track with myself. Been really struggling worrying about our gorgeous remaining little cat. Never seen her cross the road but seeing her in the driveway last Thursday gave me palpitations for the whole evening. Getting there, worrying is pointless - que sera sera - but can't help it!!

Anyway in more exciting news we have booked a short break in June - had been planning to stay at home until November but for sanity reasons we will be putting £500 of OH's bonus towards a cheap holiday. Both been very busy at work and at home and I know it will do us the world of good. And £500 is a hell of a lot less than the £3500 we spent last summer for 2.5 weeks in the States...

Another exciting point has been reached in debt busting - OH's £625 expenses cleared - immediately moved that to clear some of his credit card - and I have made some DD payments to my cards since I last updated too: ergo our credit card balance has finally started to come down!! At the end of last month we had £7099.54 on credit cards and this figure now stands at £6423.31, which means our credit card balance is now lower than at the end of January. By the end of this month we should have it a few hundred below our starting figure in November of £6247.44, and then lower every month following that. Our course our "in bank" figure will take a small hit but a lot of that was money sitting around waiting to come off credit cards so that's fine. We have enough in the clear now to more than cover all expenses month-to-month and planned future expenses. So great to be in control

Happy Friday everyone - enjoy the sunshine!

snowscreamer

snowscreamer

As promised some time ago - a graphical indication of our progress!!

Net debt...


Credit cards...


In the bank (this one is my favourite)...

snowscreamer

Last third of the month to go now. Still been a bit more spendy this month but I like to think that is down to circumstances rather than purse string looseness! There is no "average" month. It is all within the set out budget, give or take a few pounds - that's the main thing.

Spent so far £2485.47 - compare to total spends in Feb and March around £2700 level. I would like to keep this under £2900 if possible - so just over £400 for the rest of the month - we shall see! The only scheduled expense remaining is joint mobile bill which should be just shy of £60. I paid off my phone plan last month as I was nearing the end of my contract and joined OH's plan as a second line for £12.99/month. This is an improvement on the £17.46/month I was paying before for calls, texts and data plus £20/month for the phone. I won't be upgrading anytime soon but OH got a new phone last year for £45.99/month which runs until Sept 2016. To be fair to him, he kept his previous phone for over 4 years. I've now had mine 2 years and it's still in good shape and intend to run both phones into the ground.

Aside from mobile phone bill, I expect we will probably only spend another £50 or so on groceries, quite well stocked at the moment; then OH car is low on fuel so another fill for him - around £60 at today's prices. Mine should last until the end of the month as I am trying to cycle to work 2 days/week which saves a bit of fuel.

Large unusual expenses this month

• Booked a cheap holiday - £239
• Paid for spring term saxophone lessons - £117
• Wine box - first since December - used to get more frequently! - £88.35
• Council tax is back (and up) - (not sure this counts as unusual but we have just had Feb & March with no council tax) - £233.85

Overspends (i.e. spent more than originally budgeted)

• Pets - bought kitty new bedding as we buried her brother in the old one - £10.77 overspend in the end but pet costs will be roughly halving of course small mercies.
• Wine club - got our box and forgot our £25/year subscription was coming out this month which meant have ended up overspending by £12.34
• Fuel for open fire - last month of budgeting to pay off £60 we spent in January on a bulk wood order - remaining £6.06
• Household goods - permanently playing catch up on this one as it is my weakness - overspend every month - allowed £60 minus £23.70 overspend from last month but failed - bought new SodaStream bottles as old ones were knackered and new Vax carpet cleaner (shared with my mum) - on the bright side our carpets are all sparkling and the job was much quicker than it used to be with the old carpet cleaner which was nearly as old as me! - overspend £62.68
• Entertaining - playing catch up - not entertained at ours this month and no plans to but still got to cover last month's overspend - £8.42
• Other occasions - playing catch up - overspent last month intending to catch up this month but had to contribute to wedding present for colleague, buy ingredients for Easter nests to take down to family Easter lunch and buy new baby card for OH cousin - remaining £10.03

Total overspends £110.30. I hope to be able to cover £50 of this by squeezing unused budgets eg. £14.40 up for grabs in eating out and I don't expect to eat out again this month, £20.44 in takeaways although I think we will probably want another takeaway this month. £41.07 in work lunch which I hope won't all be spent.
The rest will just come out of next month's budget and some budgets will have to go down. Probably eating out, work lunch, etc - I am determined not to take it out of the £450 I plan to go towards May's debt reduction!!

Phew, well I think that's enough of an update for today

Happy debtbusting all

Snowscreamer