Credit Card Execution 2015

janeypoo

Hello!

Morning, and welcome, to my new (and first) diary. I've been lurking about on here for years and years now, but I think forcibly writing a diary and publicly celebrating/shaming my performance will really help me.

So, a little about me. I'm Janey :wave:I'm 28 with a 3.5year old son and a 29yo husband. I'm a consultant engineer (for 1.5 years since I went back to work), so have my own private limited company and have earnings that mean I should not have any debt (so annoyed with myself), but also mean I rarely get refused credit.

Since leaving University, a combination of getting married quickly and having a child meant I'd slipped into some debt, up to about £8000 which I was paying off sensibly, but had always considered it more "cash flow", as we were impatient.

My light bulb moment, this time, came when I did a credit report check a week ago, only to find I had a default against my name which forced me to really look at my finances. (The default was for £15 by a company that didn't inform me, but have now agreed to remove it).

Before Christmas, I had a very unexpected death of a car :A but needed a replacement quickly. Because I travel a lot, and adore cars, I got a HP on one that I will pay off over the next 46 months.

So here I am, with up to date figures and a mini action plan. I want to clear all my credit card debt this year. To do this I will...

• Pay the date to highest interest card (eg £1 on 1st of the month, £27 on 27th of the month) every day, all year
• Pay minimum payments on time, every month
• Balance transfer whenever I get an offer and setup DD to pay this on time
• Not spend on credit at all

A big part of my spending at the moment is on Childcare, which will reduce massively in Septembet when wee man goes to school, and on fuel, which is about £350 per month.

I also aim to cook a lot more for my lunches, as the staff restaurant is about £5 per day.

Sorry that's a bit long, and a bit rambling, but please join me along the way.

Oh, and the last thing to note, I signed up for the London Marathon this year, running for a very personal charity. So expect musings about recipes, running and general havoc courtesy of an intense training regime.

Thank you if you got this far :T

janeypoo

Guilty, for more reason than one, are the subsidised C0sta coffees I consume each day, at my place of work.

My chosen coffee is £1.95 a pop (small hazelnut latte, thank you very much). That's £3.90 a day I should just be putting elsewhere.

However, I do enjoy coffee and it's a welcome 15 minutes. I've just had a look to see how much good instant coffee is to buy and with additional sugar and milk, I can make my own cup for about 25p per go. It will also save me on calories.

I'll go out and buy the necessities later, as I'm off work today. I have a £3 win on a scratch card that's been sitting in my purse since Xmas (it came in my stocking!), so that should cover most of the cost.


I hereby promise that every day I avoid one or both C0sta trips, I'll put £1.70 per trip on to debt. :j

Am I silly for getting excited about such a small amount? :cool:

Oh, and what i forgot to add from earlier is that at the end of each month, once all my tax and VAT money from the business is side, whatever is left to take in dividents about my monthly wage will be straight on to debt.

Thanks

PinkPoppies

Not silly at all getting excited about small amounts- they all seriously add up! £3.90 a day equates to about £80 a month so a very decent saving!

Very best of luck on your journey!

janeypoo

Thank you, Pink Poppies, motivation and excitement are high at the moment, after the sleepless nights and tears of last week.

Just have to accept what's there now, and move forward.

Also have 3 items selling on Ebay tonight, and 2 on Saturday so any profits from there, after fees and postage will be straight to CC2.

PinkPoppies

Feels great to be getting in control doesn't it! Just remember that from here it will only get easier too!

Have you checked out the snowball calculator? Brilliant tool for motivation! http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

DFB35

:hello: Hi just popping in to wish you good luck on your debt free journey!

janeypoo

Wow, thank you for bringing this to my attention!

I've just jiggled between lowest and highest estimate of how much I can put towards debt a month, and the approximate end date for CC debt is July 2017 at the latest and January 2016 at the earliest.

That's a real eye opener and proof that focussing all the little payments will really pull this date forward.

I've also just calculated that if I did 1 hour overtime per day would bring in an extra £780 per month, which is a huge difference and there's always too much work to do. I can also do this from home, so the wee man doesn't suffer.

Ok so overtime will also get added to repayments

Phew, mentally getting there.

janeypoo

Thank you, DFB35 welcome aboard!

snowscreamer

Hi! Good luck on your journey! I'm enjoying mine, doesn't really feel like we're cutting back but spending over £1000 less each month and watching the numbers fall - it's addictive! Can't believe how we let ourselves get into debt, oh the power of hindsight!

Have you investigated YNAB yet? It's my favourite new toy and working absolute wonders to keep my spending under control and make sure we have enough put aside for yearly and unexpected expenses.

snowscreamer

janeypoo

Gosh, thank you for posting that. I'm going to play with that tonight. As I was feeling I should have a proper budget, as I have to balance my business (which I do religiously) and my personal finances.

My income fluctuates monthly, based on the hours I work, so I'm hoping this will accommodate my circumstances.

Thank you!

snowscreamer

My OH's income also fluctuates as he is a company director; we do have a baseline amount that comes in once a week (which means as we budget monthly some times we get 4 payments, sometimes 5 which is a little annoying) and then there are bonus payments on top when his company can afford it but that is unpredictable really and he has to discuss it with his business partner.

We have not yet fully implemented the YNAB method - waiting to do rule 4 until we are out of debt (which may happen sooner than we think as currently doing well!?). So living paycheck-to-paycheck at the moment but we fully intend to keep on with YNAB after our debt free date and our next goal will be to implement rule 4 and live on last month's income. At our current rate that will probably take around 5 months (assuming only baseline income for OH and no pay rises for either of us).

Once rule 4 is implemented then managing variable income is no problem!