Nearly £20k in debt, time to tackle it...

MrCrimeFiction

Well done on the balance transfer. That will save you alot of money on interest. Its great you've got the food bill down a bit, that was high..

I would say the same about sky tv. If you have netflix, that is plenty in my opinion. Maybe if you cancel the sky, you could sign upto amazon prime and get the first month free. That has great movies and could do for a month, then cancel of course.

There are lots of debt challenges on the forum, so have a look around. Most of them relate to overpaying credit cards and bills from small amounts of money which you wont miss, so its a win win for everyone.

All the best and take care.

MrCF

clumsychaos

Just been trying to sort out Sky. Unfortunately, because I decide to sign up to Sky sports late last year, mainly to take advantage of the free broadband offer and that it was at a reduced price, I locked myself in to another 12 months with them. As it stands there is still about 9 months of that left to go so getting out would cost me. I did however get them to knock our line rental down from £16.40 a month to £9.99 for 10 months, it's still a saving so it helps.

To be honest, Sky is well used in our household, from Sky+, HD, Sky Atlantic, On Demand, Sky Go, the broadband etc.

clumsychaos

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last few days, been very busy at home and at work.

Finally got confirmation of our new 2 year fixed deal on our mortgage, saves us £80 a month, although I had already included this in our SOA.

One of my regular clients paid me for his last design today so that's another £50.

Had a cheeky play on a scratch card using some of my leftover birthday cash and came away £5 better off!

Unfortunately our cat has gone missing, hasn't been seen by us since Monday night. Neighbours had seen him Thursday and Friday but nonsign since then. Looks like the trip to the vets to get him done is on hold for now.

Still have to service the car hopefully this weekend to get it out of the way. Also due a timing belt change in 6000 miles/9 months. Will be a minimum of £130, depending on any other work that needs doing. Services and MOTs make me hate owning a car!

Other than that we look good for saving on our diesel budget this month and on our food shopping!

clumsychaos

Worked out this months bill payments and due to some extra income from back pay on the payrise, a tax refund for the wife and a cash back payment from my mobile phone bill we have a spare £192 just from my pay. This will be used to go towards the car service on Saturday (not looking forward to that...).

A good start to February I think.

debtfreeoneday

Well done, you are doing so well.. will subscribe to follow your journey

rockabillygirl

Hi,
Sorry, non finance related question, but did you find your cat?

clumsychaos

rockabillygirl wrote: »

Hi,
Sorry, non finance related question, but did you find your cat?

Unfortunately still no sign of him. Poor little boy. DW is quite upset by it as is our eldest as it was his cat.

On a money note, it appears we have enough aside to cover the car service, and hopefully any work that needs doing.

A bit of bad news is that our heating program timer has stopped working. It's an old thing, that is an analogue timer. Heating still works ok, just have to turn it on and off manually. All this cold weather as well means our heating is on a lot more and that it is blooming freezing in the house when I first get up and have to go turn the heating on. :mad:

No idea how much a replacement is going to cost. Would love to get one of those smart controls installed, like the Nest system, just £249 is a lot of money right now.

clumsychaos

The dreaded service came and went. Was rather surprised when the garage called and told me the only thing that needed doing were the rear pads and discs! Still ended up with a £280 bill but it could have been so much worse.

clumsychaos

It's beginning to look like we are going to struggle to make any overpayments this month, which is disappointing, but the car service and a few other things we've had to pay out for already is pushing us that way.

The DW get's paid on Friday, and as she is paid 4 weekly her income goes towards the shopping, fuel and other consumables budget. We're going to see how much we can pull back on that, keeping the shopping spend as low as possible.

I will still be making sure that we put money into the funds to start the ball rolling on those.

On the plus side, we received our latest set of Tesco Clubcard vouchers through the post on Saturday, totalling £34! We're having a weekend away at the end of the month to celebrate my 30th birthday which happened over christmas. It's a present from my mother-in-law, she's paid and booked the hotel for us in Windsor and she is going to have the boys for the weekend. I have put aside money I got from my work as a present to use as spending money, and I plan on exchanging some of the clubcard vouchers for meal vouchers.

I'm thinking of changing my signature on here to show to debts as remaining totals, rather than counting the amounts paid off so far. Think it will give me better motivation seeing the totals come down. What do you think?

clumsychaos

It's been a while since I last updated this thread, unfortunately my DW became seriously ill and ended up in hospital so the money saving efforts became slightly less important. Now that she is improving and back home I can start to focus on this again. Due to her being in hospital and being transferred to John Radcliffe in Oxford, which is an hours drive from home, money saving just hasn't happened over the last month or so.

Some good news though is that we are expecting our third child now, due end of September! Even if said pregnancy has been the cause of the sudden serious illness she has suffered. The result of which is that DW has been signed off work for the foreseeable, and we don't know yet how this is going to affect her pay, depending on whether her work will pay her full pay as it is pregnancy related illness or if she will drop down on to SSP.

We have been getting in some new bills for the year, council tax is up by £2 a month to £115, and water rates have gone up by a couple of £ as well. Gas and Electric bills have increased by £10 a month to cover the extra usage over this ridiculously cold and long winter we've had. Usually my heating is off by now but not this year...

On a plus side, I sorted out the pet insurance for the dogs, got them on policies with the same insurance company for an extra 10% saving, reducing the costs from £34.66 a month to £23.25 a month. Happy days.

Will need to do an updated SOA with all the new outgoings.