The "time to be a grown up" diary!

judi24

Hi Betsycat - glad to have found you and your diary (subscribes!) sounds like you have made a very productive start - great news on getting all CC debt on 0% - that will make things a little easier for you. I would love to live by the sea - so good luck with you savings plan so you can get your little piece of paradise by the sea

betsycat

Thanks df1d! Very happy should make things a bit easier! By the snowball calculator's reckoning I should be credit-card-debt-free by October.

Hi Judi, welcome! Let's all buy caravans and go and live by the beach! Hopefully you'll be near the coast when you take your lovely early retirement in the sun.

betsycat

Not much to report in Betsyland, a pretty cheap weekend – did a bit of planned food shopping and went to the pub last night for a pub quiz (also planned!). Spent £6 on some nachos and £2 on the quiz, OH bought a pizza for us to share and a glass of wine for me, so only spent £8 out of the £25 I'd budgeted. I did end up sticking £10 in the savings jar to cover OH's contribution this week though since he bought the pizza and wine! But still up overall.

Payday on Weds, will be my first payday with slightly reduced pension contributions so interested to see how much I'll be paid. Got around £30 on eBay for some quilting magazines and fisheye 35mm camera I don't use anymore, so that's good! Got some more things to put on this week.

Also got a £5 Amazon voucher from Swagbucks so that can go towards this month's Feliw@y plugin for the cats, and the £5 PayPal voucher I got earlier this month can be added to my eBay amount. Every little helps!

debtfreeoneday

It certainly does doesn't it!! Sounds like a nice chilled weekend..

I may have missed it, but how come your pension contributions are lower?

betsycat

I reduced them slightly while I'm paying off debt df1d... 3% to 2%. it only makes me £30 or so better off each month but it'll save me money in the long run! And then once the debt is paid off I'm going to put it up to 5% I think. And by that point my work will pay more as well, if I'm still here!

betsycat

Teeny set back – I'd thought HSBC were paying off the purchases on my credit card first, not the 0% balance transfer... purchases are currently also on 0% but only until February. So had to do another balance transfer to the Barclaycard, with another fee, so total debt has gone up slightly again... but on the plus side, down to two credit cards which is easier to manage, and luckily the two that have direct debits already set up.

SO, the final scores on the doors are:

Lloyds credit card (0% 10 months): 927
Barclaycard credit card (0% 35 months): 2721.43
HSBC loan 3.7%: 9739.13

Total balance: 13,387.56

But, on the plus side, after some furious snowball calculating and factoring in the extra I can pay this month, plus an extra £50 when my Apple finance payments end in October, my DFD has moved forward by a month. Hooray! Probably should have factored the Apple finance in above... but I can't overpay on it without paying fees and just factor it into my monthly bills really...

Hopefully that's the last of the shuffling now!

debtfreeoneday

Whooop - all sounding under control in here! It feels good to have it all in one or two places doesn't it!

betsycat

Thanks lovely! Now just need the money to start coming in... payday tomorrow. It really does, too many different debts makes my head spin a little!

betsycat

Ooh! Just a little thing... I just checked my Barclaycard online banking and they've credited me with £12.21 against the balance transfer fees. I do remember seeing that the fee would be reduced with a refund, so maybe I'll be due a little more in a bit! That's a nice little surprise.

Payday today, hooray! I've sorted out YNAB for the month, including doubling up on some bills to avoid the awkward period between payday on the 28th and the beginning of the following month – my salary has gone in today but technically I can't touch it til 1st Feb so it makes it difficult for this week's bills! But all sorted for next month. Not that it'll matter in Feb since it only has 28 days anyway! :rotfl:

My current calculations actually have me paying off my debt on 28th October 2016... my 30th birthday is 19th October 2016 so I think I'll make 'debt free by 30' my new challenge! it would mean keeping up with my current level of payments, and paying off an extra 600 over the two years, which I think is doable with eBay, birthday/Christmas money and the possibility of a pay rise between now and then...

betsycat

Hooray! Just paid off Feb's payments, loan comes out on Monday too, so once that's done it'll be £13,024.87. Plus, once OH gives me his share of the bills and a bit of money towards our Brighton trip later this month, I should be able to pay off some extra and take it under the £13k mark which will be a lovely way of marking my first month since LBM! Very positive today :j

I was supposed to be driving back to my parents in Suffolk this weekend and going to the dentist on Monday before I came home, but it's supposed to snow there and me, cars and snow have had a falling out before... so I'm in no hurry to drive this weekend saves me £40 in petrol and £20 for the dentist appt. I should get a dentist in London really, but I've had this one my whole life and it's a nice excuse to visit family! Plus he never tells me to go for lots of expensive hygienist appointments.

So anyway, a nice £60 saved. I'd made dinner in the slow cooker last night but it burned itself dry (oops!!) so OH and I decided to have one little treat with a bit of the money saved and had Japanese food. Was definitely worth it, it's so delicious! £18 in total for the two of us and the portions are really big.

Our local sewing shop is closing down and has a sale, so I'm going to go down tomorrow and see if I can get the wadding and backing material for the quilt I'm sewing for cheap. They've got at least 30% off everything so should be able to get those things, fingers crossed. No buying off list though – wadding and navy material only!

Other than that, a lovely quiet weekend planned. OH is down in Brighton tomorrow all day and then out for most of Sunday so lots of downtime for me. Sewing all day tomorrow and eBay listing on Sunday. Looking forward to it. Just off now to make my lovely paneer and aubergine curry for tea.

Have a good one all! :beer: