Target : 0 Debt

Mendry

Thanks

Further update on my planned travel: 17 weeks to go and I figure that if I make £60 extra money per week until the date, I will have a cool £1k which would be more than plenty (and allow me to not touch any of my savings - or replenish them after having bought any tickets). So I will try my hand at it. - Perhaps pick up a Saturday shift at a local bar (I have previous experience in hospitality) - get some freelance stuff online - surveys and sell unwanted stuff.

Will keep you posted.

Sanctioned_Parts_List

Hmm, looking at the SOA above - what have you included in the category "Entertainment"? 12% of your monthly expenses are earmarked for it, and forgoing just 3 months of it would pay your CC off plus change. Being less entertained for 7 months would see your interest-bearing debt cleared. And you could still eat.

sourcrates

Mendry wrote: »

I have decided to take the plunge and post.
I am turning 30 in April and have set myself the goal of turning 31 debt free.

Good plan to get free of debt now.

Otherwise you may wake up one morning, knocking on the door of 50, and find your 30k, or more, in debt !!

Many do .......

Mendry

I am attempting February with no entertainment expenses. I will reduce it to 0 if I can, the problem is that it being London, anything and everything will look (and feel) expensive.

I have also moved my Credit card to a 0% in an effort to get it gone without paying as much on interest.

Regards and Thank You for your comments!

m4rc

Hi, not sure how your figures stand right now as your SOA was done a couple of months back, but a quick calculation and I can't see why you shouldn't just pay the loan off in full. When it was £615 ish the one months interest worked out at something like 1.73%, so around a tenner to settle early. You have now paid more so it's less to pay off and less early settlement fee, but it saves a few pounds per month for the next few months of it's gone and gives you an extra £93 a month left over. I would use that to clear the credit card, you don't have e £93 a month at the moment, you won't miss it. I don't know your savings and the balances, but I think with what you have saved in the last couple of months with cutting things back you may even have enough to clear the card and loan, if not it would only leave a small amount on the card. It would mean raiding your ISA short term.

It's hard without knowing your latest numbers but if you paid it all off let's assume the ISA is empty, then Feb and March do as you've been doing - boring no entertainment and 150 on food, no new clothes, debts gone apart from student overdraft, you could put £513 a month into savings. Not counting anything left from Jan or any money from April, and you wouldn't have the loan or card debt, so that's £1026 without doing any extra jobs.

I've probably missed something as your numbers are a couple of months old and you are probably already doing all of the above, all I was aiming at was getting rid of the debts so you could go on holiday debt free apart from the overdraft

Tjh1412

Looks like you're doing well; just a thought can you get the travel card on a salary sacrifice basis? Would save you a bit each month if so

Mendry

Thanks for the suggestions!

The plan is indeed to settle the Loan early at the end of Feb (I used some of the savings to buy my travel tickets as it is much cheaper to do it well in advance - it means money saved in the long run), hence why I looked for a 0% credit card to transfer the cc as I am not overpaying it quickly enough atm, that should see that I will hopefully pay the least amount of interest possible all in.

As for the salary sacrifice + travel card, it is possible, my company does do it! However I am unsure if I will stay in this particular company for the entire year, I will decide around June if I will accept another offer. By then, I will look to enter such scheme either with this company or with the new one!

Regards

Willowpop

Mendry wrote: »

I am attempting February with no entertainment expenses. I will reduce it to 0 if I can, the problem is that it being London, anything and everything will look (and feel) expensive.

You're really lucky, London is one of the easiest places to find free stuff to do, from free haircuts to free nights out and day trips.
Have a look here for some ideas (the article is from last year, but click through via the links and you'll get lists of stuff going on now that's free:
http://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/cheap-london

Gumtree is the place to look for free haircuts, there's always trainees looking for models.

Pretty much all the museums are free, and London has some awesome parks, and there are sites offering free walks for when te weather is a bit better. eg http://www.londonforfree.net/walks/

Keep that entertainment budget at zero!

Mendry

I can't believe I didn't know about the haircuts?! Many thanks, I will have a look?!

I did take photography as an hobby a good while back and have since enjoyed many "free" days of just walking around and snapping ! I am self teaching how to go from capturing the photo to a real life product in order to turn it into a small hobby craft skill that I will be able to make some sales out of - but that's a whole different subject

Willowpop

Mendry wrote: »

I can't believe I didn't know about the haircuts?! Many thanks, I will have a look?!

I did take photography as an hobby a good while back and have since enjoyed many "free" days of just walking around and snapping ! I am self teaching how to go from capturing the photo to a real life product in order to turn it into a small hobby craft skill that I will be able to make some sales out of - but that's a whole different subject

Just put free haircut into Gumtree and either your area or 'London' into the gumtree search. There will be loads pop up, I'll bet. I've not paid for a haircut for years, and I've had total restyle when I fancied a change as well as colour!