Got here by luck, intending to stay by judgement.

getmore4less

I got a Now TV box in Nov(free a Tesco misprice)

came with free movies and 3months entertainment

What I found was we ran out of things to watch.

Review your entertainment audit what every one watches and consider every other month(or less) for one or more.

you probably don't need all of them every month and many are on per month purchase even dropping one on rotation won't impact much you have so much to watch and into games.

We find the free TV and a box set keeps us busy for at least a month. then we can look at a film month if there is anything new.

getmore4less

MrBloater wrote: »

Yikes. Bit the bullet and transferred the last remaining CC balance of mine over to Mrs B's card as they were offering 20% lower interest for the duration of the balance transfer and have chopped up my last credit card. So we as a family are now down to 2 credit cards - neither of which I know the PIN to. I'm getting quite addicted to this credit chopping.

Are you saying that your £50k consolodation did not transfer all the unsecured debts and you still have somme on CC as well as the OD?

If that is the case then the don't use the OD needs to include get rid of the other debts as well.

solentsusie

getmore4less wrote: »

Are you saying that your £50k consolodation did not transfer all the unsecured debts and you still have somme on CC as well as the OD?

If that is the case then the don't use the OD needs to include get rid of the other debts as well.

Yes, are there still outstanding debts that need to be paid? I was under the impression that the 50K had squared your outstanding debts and all was transferred to the mortgage.

How much is still outstanding after adding the 50K to the mortgage? It should be your priority to get these paid off as quickly as possible before obsessing about making over payments on the mortgage.

MrBloater

Cash ISAs (playing it safe) opened for Mrs B and I, and requested transfer packs so little Bloaters can turn their CTFs into Junior ones. Opened with nominal amounts, like the overpayment this month on the mortgage will be equally nominal, but a start. The one remaining debt on the last CC standing is not massive and is certainly manageable on the lowish (6%) rate we have for it, and all surplus funds for this month will be devoted to reducing it further. Rather geekily I am counting the days til the 16th July - not cos I'll be on holiday then, but that's when I calculate my Noddle report will be updated and I'm hoping to see a seriously reduced list of current credit accounts.

getmore4less

No spending cutbacks to report?

MrBloater

Been up since 1.00am trying to slay a very important dragon. And the beast is now gone. I have finally managed to get all the paperwork organised and have thrown away a few tree's worth of irrelevant material. All neatly organised into five folders, I can now really get a grip on things.

So, this weekend I need to:
- Plug in all the expiry dates for contracts/agreements into my monthly cashflow prediction spreadsheet.
- Do the math for switching to a dual fuel deal
- Unpick a packaged insurance deal I found on Mrs B's bank account. £9.95 a month for travel insurance / phone and breakdown cover seems kinda steep - especially as the phone one requires proof of purchase of handset (no chance) and we both have breakdown cover anyway.
- Unpick a boiler / plumbing / electrics cover we have that is taking £25 a month out of our pockets - pretty sure I can get a better deal than that.
- Log on to NS&I with my shiny new username and see if I can discover any premium bond wins / get any balance from the Investment Account over into my bank
- Go via Top Cashback or Quidco to get a free trial of the Experian / Equifax credit files (and obviously cancel before they start charging). I'm so taken with Noddle I want to see what the others have on us now.

Spending cutbacks? Two major ones so far.
- Massive reduction in alcohol (2 bottles of white in the last 10 days)
- Picked up some bits and pieces in Lidl on Sunday rather than our traditional Tesco visit

And down a stone in weight from two weeks ago.

Not a bad way to start the weekend.

getmore4less

MrBloater wrote: »

- Unpick a packaged insurance deal I found on Mrs B's bank account. £9.95 a month for travel insurance / phone and breakdown cover seems kinda steep - especially as the phone one requires proof of purchase of handset (no chance) and we both have breakdown cover anyway.

If you do holidays and need the breakdown this might be an OK option, consider ditching the others.

- Unpick a boiler / plumbing / electrics cover we have that is taking £25 a month out of our pockets - pretty sure I can get a better deal than that.

Do you even need this?
Boilers/electric and plumbing tend to jut work

review the bank account packages and house insurance
some have the emergency cover to go with the travel breakdown.

- Massive reduction in alcohol (2 bottles of white in the last 10 days)

If not done already Break up your groceries into food/alcohol.

The food is an essential probably room for cut backs.

Alcohol is part of the discretionary spends so has the option to go to zero(but that is desperation territory)

Tidying up the regular DD is a good way to free up money,
once you review and make the change they go on the back burner for another 6month/year and the focus can move.

Igamogam

MrBloater wrote: »

. I'm so taken with Noddle I want to see what the others have on us now.

Think you will find with experian/equifax you "gets what you pay for". Noddle in comparison is.........well just that really a bit noddy;) But once I got a handle on experian and exploited it to the full ( got the cashback and cancelled) I have stuck with Noddy as it gives some useful info

rubywhatashmoo

Don't hold out too much hope for your Noddle account being totally upto date - even though mine was "updated" on June 14th some of the balances on it were last checked 30th April.

hillside777

Hi Mr B,

I think you're doing a great job and appear to be a totally changed person.

I used to follow your other diary on DFW board, when I was the other Mr B. My debt has not decreased since 2011 despite trying very hard and cutting back. The car drained us of over £5,300 in four years. Pleased to say the car has now been replaced.

Anyway, I wanted to say thanks for your new diary as it gave me the idea of trying to re-mortgage our property and adding the debt. I know it's not a wise thing to do. I went to our mortgage broker and they tried a couple of companies and we were declined. I was uncertain whether they should try the third company. In the end we agreed they should try an application and we have been accepted. Our monthly payments will be £300 than all our other debt together and also the mortgage will finish three years earlier. We had our property on the market for 27 months and had five viewings in total with none this year.

Had it not been for your diary it may have taken ages for this idea to come into my mind and we would have struggled on each month. At least this way there is only one debt to try and make over payments to clear early. The budget has been done and an amount will go into a savings account each month for those bills which come round occasionally and also to give us some savings.

Thanks for your inspiration and keep up the good work. :T :j