Crunchy pays it down....£20k...the final chapter

crunch_time

Morning dfw's!!!

Still no news on husbands pay and expenses haven't hit his account yet.

I have had to buy some new door mats for our back door as the current ones are useless and smell like damp dogs. cost £40 on amazon for 3 and will use the bay of e money for this.

Other news is I have reflected my signature with my current money challenge. I have joined a challenge called 'pay off £10k of debt in a year' - sorry if I have mentioned this before! It is running August to August. I'm planning to pay off £3300 of minimum payments to the loan and £5480 of the overdraft, credit cards and my parents. So a total of £8780. So far I have paid off £1400 which is excellent in 2 pay days!!! I am hoping we will have paid off the remaining £4080 by April 2016. Fingers crossed!!

Ooh got to go as baby is crying!

crunch_time

Ugh!!!! So husband has just been told his payslip is right!! OMG! It turns out his last employer wouldn't have taxed him as much whilst his new employer would have taken that into account and made it what it should have been or something like that. Apparently next month it will be what it should be - Approx £3k a month. So frustrated!!

To make things worse, husbands credit card bill came in and I subtracted his expenses from it and the total we owe is £1588.71! So nearly £600 more than I thought!!

As usual 1 step forward 2 steps back! Going to update my signature now with the true amounts and then really adjust my December and Christmas budget to make up for the shortfall.

GRRRRRRR.

crunch_time

So now my total debt is £20,248 and since August I have only paid off £20!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I am crying. Going to make a cup of tea.....

abba1772

crunch_time wrote: »

So now my total debt is £20,248 and since August I have only paid off £20!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I am crying. Going to make a cup of tea.....

Boo to the tax payments that sucks in your heart you know you haven't only paid £20 off, you're doing great and you haven't buried your head in the sand over this setback, you'll bounce back and be more determined than ever xx

t2rry

oh that sucks Crunchy, I'm so sorry. BUT (finding positives where I can) you are still in less debt now. Imagine how it would have looked had you not been paying off over the last 3 months!

We all have these set backs. lord knows I feel like I've had my fair share recently! But you will keep ploughing through

crunch_time

Morning dfws!

Working week over for me and feeling a lot more positive than I did last week. Thanks t2rry and abba for your kind words.

I shouldn't forget all the positives from this year. In fact this is a good opportunity to look at what is left and why....

£14,818 - Loan - cars bought for £8000 and the rest is historical debt from our 20's.
£1400 - overdraft - for fees for moving house
£938 - shed deposit so husband can work from home.

The rest is debt from not being organised enough and just buying stuff we needed without budgeting for it properly. And also not budgeting properly for fuel and clothes.

We seem to have adopted a 'put on credit and pay for it next month' attitude. Then something happens like husbands pay and it gets us in trouble.

So I have rethought our budget and I’m going to play to my strengths from this day onwards. I know deep down I m a saver at heart. I have enjoyed watching our savings pot grow over the years and I don’t want to touch it.

So from now on I’m going to change my focus from ‘paying down the debt’ to ‘saving up to pay down the debt.’

I have dedicated one of our savings accounts as a ‘debt fund.’ And I will put all extra money left over from the month in there gradually building it up and then when I have enough money I will pay down the debt. I’m not going to save up to pay the whole of it off in one go. I will list my debts and then choose one to work towards to pay off first and so on. Then if anything comes up we will be able to deal with that rather than get in anymore debt.

I keep a spreadsheet which itemises what’s on my credit card so I shall use this to help me and cross them off when they are paid off.

I have sorted a plan to get us through to the end of November. Once we know finally what husband’s monthly money will be I will devise a new budget which means we only live of his money so my entire salary will go towards debt. If we manage to do this for a whole 4 months that is £3200!!!

This will not bring me down… we shall get this debt sorted!!

First things first - frugal meal plan and sains shop today. I get paid next Thursday and we have small weekend plans and then husband gets paid the Friday the following week.

I'm stocking up on stocking presents - a few little £1 things every time I go so that will add up!

Its time to get real about our budgeting and get it sorted.

Onwards and upwards!!

Crunchyxx

belleandthebudget

Sounds like a fantastic plan, Crunchy! I'm the same - I feel much more motivated watching a savings account go up than a credit card come down.

crunch_time

Thanks for stopping by Belle!

Me too! I understand the whole interest rates malarkey but strangely I tend to think I have more money then I do if I am paying back debt than if I save.

So I have been working on my spreadsheets making every pound accountable and this is what I have done...

- set up a line the spreadsheet for my own account for £325 a month which was what we would be paying for childcare for DD if we weren't lucky enough to have family that mind for free. We will have to pay for childcare at some point next year so if I put a line in now then it is accounted for and in the meantime it can go on debt!!
- set up another line on the spreadsheet for a loan for a new car. This switches between a want and a need so again if I account for it now and the money goes on debt for now then I wont think I have more money than I do!! £255 a month

So that's £580 on debt a month for definite for starters.....

- added a line for my ISA for £50 a month starting from January.
- set a minimum payment a month towards the overdraft of £100 so at least I am paying it off gradually and can chuck extra money at it if necessary.

Wow its amazing how different this feels,. I now don't feel like I have lots of money to buy extra things and can put debt repayment off for another month because there is no extra money!! Or buy things on my credit card because I can afford to pay it off next month because I have no extra money. Dave Ramsey eat your heart out!! I wish I had done this a long time ago - as in listened to my intuition as to what way would work best for me.

I feel confident that I can slush away the credit card with extra money too!

Right off to pick up DS from pre-school. Bottle of wine with the hubs night tonight!

Keeping on keeping on!

Crunchy xx

t2rry

Crunchy!

You've so hit the nail on the head for me too! I'm so much better at not touching money when it is 'saved'. Whereas paying off the credit card especially, I can always justify over spends on it etc as 'I can pay that off next month', which inevitably pushes everything back!

I feel like you have opened my eyes!

crunch_time

So glad you are the same t2rry! I reckon this has been my downfall over the years.

It's so tempting to do a statement of affairs that trims back all the fat but I'm finding its better for us to be really honest. I've been paying back debt now for 10 years because I haven't factored in the future and its associated spends then wondered why ice got into more debt having to buy things on credit that I do actually need!!
I feel like I'm having another lightbulb moment.....