January 2015 is the beginning

Brogden

January2015 wrote: »

Glad to see you about Ploppy - and you are so right; we will get there in the end I just hope the 'end' isn't quite as far away as Stepchange forecast.

I've been ill all week. Nasty, hacking cough driving me mad. Coughing so hard I seem to be constantly breathless and also have a splitting headache where my brain is banging against the side of my skull when I cough. YUK.

I haven't even been able to enjoy the nice weather we've had this week. The exercise regime - which had only just started - has fallen by the wayside whilst I am ill. I do plan to get back to it as soon as I feel better.

I may be ill but I am still capable of manically checking creditor accounts each day to see if the month SC payment has been allocated yet. Some have, some haven't; but I know they will get there sooner or later so I am not worrying.

Off to bed now - if I can sleep through the coughing fits.
Night everyone. -x-

Hoping you feel better shortly Jan

The 'end' will be nowhere like as far ahead as the Step Change forecast. Not only will you be able to pay a little more as you go along with salary increments etc but settling in to a new pattern of spending (as I have done) makes a huge difference too and the effects of this are not immediately apparent I found - it takes a little time.......as though I didn't know that before !

You are so 'on it' that when you are comfortable with it all you could be a little more 'tactical' but we have discussed that before. At the moment its a nightmare that you have come through and you're working towards a result .

Brogden x

January2015

Checked all the online accounts I can and all SC payments for May now showing, so I've updated my signature.

Three months into our DMP and just under £2k cleared. Still a long way to go, but had we not plunged into the DMP we would still be treading water, i.e. struggling to make payments and spending what little credit we had on cards just to live and total owing would have not gone down and possibly would have gone up. Therefore to know we have reduced the debt by almost £2k already and managed to live reasonably well, fix the car and have a better quality of life and relationship together is absolutely amazing:D

Technically we've paid just under £3k into the DMP but in month 1 some account balances increased whilst the DMP was being set up - not nice and we argued what we could, but at least now we are definitely on the way down with the debts.

The annual mortgage statement arrived today. We owe a very similar amount on the mortgage and both mortgage and DMP are due to end around the same time - can't wait; oops talk about wishing my life away :rotfl:

Still ill, but hopefully will recover just in time to enjoy the weekend :T

January2015

Strangely, one of our accounts with VMoney was credited with the SC payment 2 days ago, but the second account is still not showing the payment:mad: Very frustrating.

System

Hope you are feeling better now.:) I have also been checking out latest payments. Although we have actually paid £2010, our balance is actually only reduced by £1773, due to it going up at the start until it all got sorted and also BC have only lowered ours to 3%. They actually credited the amount back that we would have paid in 6 months and then add it on every month....IYSWIM, so in fact it is the same as 0% but done differently....very odd!

We are all on the right track though, that is the main thing!

January2015

I've still got this awful bug - haven't been to work for 2 weeks now and can't see being well enough on Tuesday - but I can hope

I know I am counting my chickens as the saying the goes....but a week tomorrow our 4th SC payment is collected. Once that hits the creditor accounts we will have cleared 3.11% of our debt Also that will be the 4th DMP payment aka one third of year 1 gone already - that is amazing - it is really going quickly.

Happy days. Have a great bank holiday tomorrow everyone -x-

January2015

January2015 wrote: »

I know I am counting my chickens as the saying the goes....

Hello diary

Chickens now counted and we have actually paid off 3.13% of our debts

Nothing much to report from the January household but thought it about time I dropped in with an update.

January2015

Hello diary

Almost a whole month since I last wrote to you....sorry, but I've never been good at keeping a diary. Pen friends used to suffer a similar fate - me not writing too often. I must try harder!

Anyway - June was a quick month and nothing of note in the January household. The illness bugs seemed to disappear, but the hay fever kicked in. Never mind, I'm used to that.

I'm counting those bloody chickens again. 3 days and we will have the 5th SC payment taken from our bank account. Wow 5 months in already - I can't believe it. More importantly our debt will be down to £90,352 (ish). This (ish) is because those b*ggers at BC insist on adding a bit of interest. We will be 4.04% paid off. The feeling is so good.

We only have a very small emergency fund and didn't manage to save any in June (I know why, and there were genuine reasons which I don't really want to go into here....but at least I know why I only scraped through June financially).

Have a lovely July everyone - saying that just in case I don't get back to you before the end of July -x-

January2015

Hello again Diary:beer:

I've updated my signature as our July SC payment has been collected. I know that it doesn't really hit our accounts for some time, but hey ho I am still counting those blooming chickens.

I am struggling to put any funds by for emergencies. I know why, and I can see from YNAB where we need to tighten our belts and so July is the month we *S*A*V*E* something at least:o

I've put funds aside already, I just need to ensure they stay where they are for the whole month and foreseeable future. I am panicking we don't have sufficient emergency funds at the moment - hopefully that panic will drive me to succeed with saving something this month.

Hope everyone is doing well.
Jan -x-

January2015

Because of some good ebay sales I've managed to put £200 into the emergency fund....phewwwww - I am so pleased. However, my car is due the MOT in 6 weeks and so I fully expect to be dipping into that fund soon - but hey at least it will be there.

I need to sort out some more stuff to ebay and continue to boost the fund

January2015

Well it's whizzed around, and again it's SC direct debit time (although not technically taken from our bank today as it's the weekend ).

The wonderful news is that we are now sub £90k on the debt front :j:j:j:j:j:j:j:j

Strange - I never thought I would be jumping with joy to owe just under £90k but I really am soooooo pleased.

I know I am totally useless at this diary thing, and have to admit it's more likely to be a once a month occurrence......but be assured I do log in and read the diaries and main forum everyday. I religiously read the DMP Mutual Support Thread - that thread is my lifeline - it is so great to read and 'chat' with others who know exactly what we are going through, and is such a great place to seek and receive wonderful advice.

So 5 months into our DMP and I am so pleased we did this. Money is tight. One car is due an MOT this month (scary thought, but fingers tightly crossed ). We hope to have a long weeked camping holiday over the August bank holiday. Life is far better than it has been for years - we are not borrowing from Peter to pay Paul (or anyone else for that matter).

Happy August everyone