LullaBelle's long road to being debt free!

LullaBelle

Good Morning,


Payday was on Friday so some more has come of the debts. Today it stands at:


Virgin £4868
Barclaycard £49.96
Loan £16217.85
Sofa £880.32
DH Virgin £6280


Total £28296.13


I am going to pay the £49.96 off the Barclaycard today so that will be gone!


I also heard back from Santander and they confirmed that I can make overpayments on the loan from my online banking. So from next month I am going to put the £50 that I usually use to pay off the Barclaycard onto the loan. We still have 4 years 10 months to pay on the loan but I am hoping to reduce this as much as possible.


We are definitely going to sell our 2nd car. We are hoping to get close to £3k for it. The plan is to pay £2k off the loan and put the rest into savings as an emergency fund. I am really aware of the face we have no back up at all. I feel that we need something as a safety net incase of house emergencies etc. Hoping to get the car sold in the next few weeks.


Happy Monday!

LullaBelle

The Barclaycard is gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


WOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO


After looking at the snowball calculator I have decided to just pay the minimum payment off my Virgin card each month so that I can make over payments to the loan. The virgin card is on 0% for the next 30 months so I am not too worried about that just yet. The APR on the loan is 10.9%. It needs to go asap!

LullaBelle

Morning all,


I have just had a row with Virgin. They charged me a £9 late payment fee and then because I paid 'late' they have change my account from 0% interest to over 19%. They charged me £79.81 in interest!! I am fuming. I have never missed a payment in my life! They said that they are going to pass it on to another team and someone will ring me in 7-10 days. Here's hoping they refund the fees and change me back to 0% interest again. otherwise I am going to have to try another card to balance transfer to. Moral of the story.... Set up a direct debit Louise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So annoyed over this. it is not a good start to my week.


Not much other news to report. I have kept spending to a minimum this weekend. I have no plans next weekend either as we are starting to potty train my daughter so can't leave the house. Not leaving the house means no spending!!


Off to try and calm down now and hope that my credit card gets sorted. :-(

LullaBelle

Just paid £20 off my loan to make me feel better. How strange that paying off a debt can improve your mood!

Scott-Weiland

LullaBelle wrote: »

I'm back here again! I had my beautiful baby girl in February and couldn't be happier. I am still struggling with my debt though. Although I am pleased it is still going down. I am only on SMP so take home approx £600 a month so I am £1100 down on what I usually get. I am proud of myself for not using my credit cards. I saved up a good bit before I finished work which has helped. All in I have paid off about £1k of debt since I started maternity leave in January! Not too bad!

So I'm now looking for any tips that could help me survive maternity leave on SMP? Any ideas? I really need to cut back as I'm running out of savings and don't want to use credit cards!

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/make-money/

try some of these maybe my advice would be surveys surveys and topcashback.

LullaBelle

morning all,


Thanks for the link Scott-Weiland. I'll have a read through that today.


Today won't be a NSD. I need to buy new sandals for my daughter. I got an email with a 20% off voucher for Matalan so going to head there later and hopefully pick some up for her.


Other than that I am hoping I won't need to buy anything else. The bank account isn't looking too bad this month. We have really cut down our spending especially on the food shopping. I actually only spent £20 on last week's shopping! If I be careful the rest of the month I might actually have some cash left over. I'll pay this off the loan. I have a standing order set up to transfer £50 into a savings account each month but EVERY SINGLE month I end up transferring it to cover expenses. I am determined not to touch it this month as I want to start my savings for Christmas. I usually have to use my credit card at Christmas so it will be a challenge this year not to use it. Well I actually can't use it as I don't even know where the card is or the pin number for it! So if I save £50 a month between now and Christmas I should have £350 in total. I already have some presents bought that I got in the January sales. Look at me being super organised!

kindofagilr

Hey hun, have you heard back from Virgin? that happened to me with tesco, I rang them and apologised that it was late cos I thought I had a DD set up, and they took away the late payment fee and re-instated my 0%, I would deffo try taking it higher if they dont wanna do that xx

And well done on paying off the barclaycard xx

LullaBelle

kindofagilr wrote: »

Hey hun, have you heard back from Virgin? that happened to me with tesco, I rang them and apologised that it was late cos I thought I had a DD set up, and they took away the late payment fee and re-instated my 0%, I would deffo try taking it higher if they dont wanna do that xx

And well done on paying off the barclaycard xx

Hey, still no word back from Virgin. They told me last Monday that it would take 7-10 working days for them to get back to me. Hopefully I hear back soon as my next payment is due at the end of next week. I really hate paying interest on anything and I'm not sure I would be accepted for another balance transfer credit card! Hopefully I get the same outcome as you! Hope you're keeping well xxx

kindofagilr

I really hope you get the same result as me too, hopefully they can see it was just a little mistake

We are good thanks xx

LullaBelle

good morning!


Only 10 more days until payday. The months are just flying by!


I have kept my spends low this month so it is looking like I might actually have money left in the bank by the end of the month. I have paid all my debts for the month plus an extra £20 off the loan. Next month I am hoping to up that to £40. DH's car insurance payments finish this month so I can start putting that amount (£22) off the loan aswell.


Still waiting to hear back from Virgin about the charges on my account. I had a look and I have a 0% balance transfer offer on my old Halifax card that I haven't cancelled yet. So if I don't get my offer back from Virgin then I am going to transfer the balance back to Halifax. Fingers crossed I hear from them soon as it is giving me major anxiety!


I have a SO set up for £50 to go into my savings every month. I haven't touched it yet this month so hopefully by the end of the month it will still be there. It will be the start of my emergency fund.


I really feel like I am getting somewhere with our debts. DH is up for promotion in work so if he gets it we should be getting an extra £250 a month. We have agreed to pay that off the loan too. That would mean paying £600 towards the loan. We could be debt free by 2021 rather than 2023. Fingers crossed!! This has been the 3rd month in a row we haven't used credit cards. I am loving this new way of life. Feeling very positive!


xx