Deliciously Dreaming of Being Debt Free by 40

kittycashcake

Not the most exciting day, went to work, it was dead as a door nail, it won't be next week so tomorrow is my last day of calm.

Did another survey and a couple of comps, added £1 to chrimbo pot.

I did have some spends today, my travel mug was leaking so I picked up a new one (but this means I don't go to costabucks to buy them I take my own, which is frugal, right?). I also paid £4.99 for a suite of apps for at home workouts and zombies run 5k. I am planning to cancel one of my gym memberships this month saving £18.99 a month so I think this is a wise investment.

Looking forward to a 3 day weekend and doing more work to get cash. I may have paid insurance on my old mortgage but I can't remember but I am going to enter a claim anyway, they can only tell me to bog off!

kittycashcake

Well after a really horrible year of illnesses for both me and my OH, money problems, and what seems like an endless drip drip drip of problems I had a little bit of great news to top the year off...

I have been writing to the tax office about an tax filing that they never had, mainly because I'm on PAYE, and I came home today to a letter saying that they have cancelled their claim for 2013/2014 and 2014/2015!!! Blooody thrilled to bits, they were asking for 1.5k which I didn't owe.

It's nice to know that's another debt crossed off my maybe list, I hoped this would be the outcome, although I expected a bigger battle. HUZZAH!

kittycashcake

Woohoooo I just paid my first holiday payment of £25 and put £20 into my emergency fund! It feels good :-)))

Plus last night OH saw an advert for a TV he's been lusting after in the sale, he talked about it and asked what I thought. I simply said if he wanted it he should go for it, i.e I am not paying towards a new telly when the one we have is fine. Normally old me would begrudgingly go halves, but I need to stop being so kind and thoughtless, with my finances in particular.

I do this and get and buy the groceries every week, I pay for pretty much all the food. My OH always offers to help but I always decline, but I need to start being tough and accepting the offer, for the physical break of lugging it home if nothing else. But yes, £50 every other week would be better than every week. Although he is rubbish and forgets stuff but I just worked out even if I top it up with all the things he forgets that's still around £1000 a year saving. Good. Lord.

Yeah, we are going to have a conversation, starting next week, 50/50 needs to begin!

kittycashcake

Whoop whoop had the "groceries" conversation, starting next week my OH is going to start getting and paying for every other week of groceries. Phew! I do think I will be better off £70-£80 a month so thats incredible!

In other thoughts:

kittycashcake

I finally sat down and went through my budgets; for the household and my own bills. OH agreed to look at getting quotes tomorrow for the household insurance (its been rolling for 6 months!) and I am going to call Virgin and try to shave some pennies off that too.

I have looked at my personal stuff and I can see that by cancelling a few things that are not necessary I can save another £35 a month so I will work on those next week.

With my OH now paying 50/50 for the groceries and cancelling the unecessaries I can see some of my money being freed up and its such a good feeling... I just want to get on with it, you know? Its very much like dieting!

And I have done an update of my signature! I cracked the seal on my emergency saving and holiday fund this week and my Christmas fund is totting up nicely too.

2 out 5 of my immediate debts that I have a payment set up for have 10 weeks left to run, but I am going to try and clear them off a lot sooner, combined £277. I am going to aim for by valentines if I can which I think is do-able.

kittycashcake

I was feeling rather chipper having sold some things on eBay, only for an hour later for one of the winners to message me asking to cancel. Sigh. Of course if I don't she'll only claim defective goods / no show and get a full refund or leave negative feedback anyway so they have me over a barrel. DOODYHEADS!

WHY BID ON THINGS GRRRRRR if I ever changed my mind on an item I just accepted that I had to pay for it and suck it up.

Small positives for today was I got a free coffee as a reward from the cleanspace app, plus it was a NSD, my second this month! I am going to aim for 15 NSD in January as a little target for myself.

Also went to the gym for the first time in months, exercising is such a great natural high, it's just getting back into it.

kittycashcake

Sorry for the lack of updates, been super busy!

I managed to squeeze another NSD in this week - thats 3/15, so I need to pick up the slack on that and get at least 4 next week to stay on track! Eeek! Monday will always be a spend day as I get my supplies for work - milk - pepsi max (yes I NEED this!)

I did decide to help me I was going to stop taking my purse to work with me in the week; I am going to give myself some pocket money to keep me going - £15 for any emergencies etc- in a coin purse and save my big purse with all my coupons, reward cards etc in for days when I plan to spend. So that starts as of tomorrow!

The not going and paying for the groceries didnt work this weekend. OH has been getting over an internal operation since Christmas and he is really struggling physically, I told to wait till next week when he's hopefully better. His illness is taking so long to get right, I can't wait to have him back to normal. Anywho, I did the shopping, capped it at £50 which I mostly managed.

OMG I did pick up a HUGE BARGAIN!!! I was in Superdrug and wandered around and spotted a 50p bargain bin, absolutely full of Lighterlife stuff. I have not and do not follow lighterlife BUT it was all reduced to 50p each, from a ridiculous £8.49 each!! I cleared the lot and got 27 “mini meals” for a total of £4.50 instead of a shocking £62.79! I have lost 58lbs through calorie counting so anything like this gets my attention!



I’m not convinced they will be delicious but for the calories and the price I will add it into my diet food stash to fill a belly hole when I am starving and I’m too poopered to make real food, at 17p per portion I’ll give it a crack!

Did have surprise; I did a credit check again and my score has increased from 142 to 167.... go me! Not bad for 6 weeks work. Hopefully by year end I will be in the 400's. Although I have been paying for my credit file, I have just cancelled the service and signed up to Noddle instead; although the file isn't visible until something new hits it? I will check that with a colleague who recommended it... hope my credit score isn't lower on it ha ha!

Also time to update my weekly stats, slow and steady wins the race with cash in my pocket, after a looksie I have now paid £351 out of the £10,051 I wanted... not bad for 6 weeks! All the deets in my signature!

So money saving things I achieved this week - cancelled / amended 3 DD's for things I can do away with; a social media thing which when I cancelled offered to do it half price for 3 months instead which as I do use I accepted. I cancelled one of my gym memberships and cancelled my credit file checker, this mean I am £31.58 a month better off :-)

ohhhhh oh I almost forgot! I have now started officially saved money towards my wedding! £4.40! Thats the napkins taken care of phew! This is the sum of my ebay, I have really sucked at it the last few weeks with being so busy, but I am going to refocus on that and try to clear some more things. I want to list (and ideally sell) 15 more things by end of the month


And now for my rolling to do list!

Contact old Company to see if I can get fees / PPI back (if applicable) For:
Mortgage
Loan
Credit card
Old joint account

Set up joint account - Due 23rd January
Renegotiate Virgin Package
Look at house Insurance - nag the OH!
Ebay 5 things per week towards the wedding fund
Finish the College course I started 2 years ago - 1/12 lessons complete

I'd like to take a few things off this list if I can next week.

kittycashcake

Had a fab day - despite being off work unwell. As I was able to sit at my laptop with intermittent toilet dashes I thought I would cross off a few bits from my to-do list!

Called Virgin - to be told they are putting my monthly bill up next month from £61 to £84!! So what started off as an attempt to save more money by downgrading I spent 45 minutes haggling with them to keep it the same! I downgrade my TV package and got it to £62 per month jeeeez

Called my old Mortgage company GMAC, found out they did send me a refund in 2009 that I never got, to me and my now ex husband. They agreed to reissue it to me but for half the amount - £96.63. Better than a poke in the eye I suppose! Although I think this was only a refund of exorbitant fees rather than any PPI. Once the cheque clears I will contact them again and ask for any PPI back too.

Called my old loan company - very dodgy Welcome finance - who did some check after initially trying to palm me off to the broker who I pointed out was them. They said yes they found me going back 10 years and yes that I had PPI - SWEEEEEEEET!!! So they are sending me a form! Trouble is I cant remember how much? I kinda think we had 2, one for 3k and then a consolidation of 8k. Looking around based on that I think my payout could be anywhere between £200-£1000 but honestly I have no clue as it was a decade ago. Of course they will split it in half with my ex rodent but as he did a runner and left me with the debts I am keeping quiet. I will be happy with anything and won't count my chickens.

Lastly - I downloaded the PPI form for Capital One, I kinda think I may have already claimed about 8 years ago? But I truly don't remember so I am submitting the form just in case.

I also got a £60 cheque from my parents for my birthday, I was initially going to get Amazon Prime if they reduced it in the sale but they didnt so I am going to bank it and use it towards entering a race I want to do which is £30, I also treated myself to booking my first trampoline fitness class on Saturday for £8. Partly to celebrate a good money day, but also because I lost 3.6lb this week... so rewards for me I thank you!

I think I will be able to pay off a debt in full by Friday with my last of my weeks wages, soooo looking forward to crossing another one off!

kittycashcake

After another day poorly I decided to do some more work on pulling together any more opportunities for old PPI recovery... had some fruits for my long day of labour.... I feel like I spoke to the world and his dog!

- Old Kays catalogue I was paying PPI on for 2 years, they confirmed this but were very sheepish about what I was paying. They will soon write to me. I have no idea what this will be so I am going to stick my finger in the air and say a few hundred quid. If I am lucky. Its not likely. Anything is better than a ferret up my trouser leg.

- Ace24 - woman was disgusted when I said yes I do want my £2.80 of PPI payments back. Screw you lady, its my money! I have no shame, I do have a trouser-living ferret to feed after all

- Welcome - Called them again for clarity, the lady was able to dig deeper and confirms I had 2 loans, one for 1.5k and the other for 13k!! Based on a lot of guessing as she wasn't sure of the rate and assuming its upheld approx £220 + 3-4k. I cant recall if this was joint loan or not, if so I will have to split this with my lying thieving ex-rodent who got me into a lot of debts.

I can never assume I will get 1 penny of this, I know these people will try and wangle out of anything and everything. Any money I get will go straight onto my debt. The only one I know I have for sure is the £96 reissue of a cheque from GMAC, the rest are still iffy. I also contacted my bank to ask for statements for 2005 when their would have been a lot of financial activity due to trying to pay off a lot of debts before my home got repossessed. There may be more I forgot about!

But my god if I can wipe off a third or half of my debt straight from rebates like these that will be insane. I think I would actually cry.

So yes, productive day!

Kitten868

Hi! I saw your post on the wannabe board. I would pay off your 'immediates' any debt currently outstanding first then ccjs. You have a set arrangement and no interest with these. As you say, you could do some research and do some f&fs but I think getting the immediates dealt with first would ease money up for you. Plus I would really hold off on creating 'financial relationships' with your partner. Is this your 'forever house'? If not you won't be able to remortgage for more. Wouldn't it be amazing if you could hit all your debt busting targets in the first 6 weeks of trying! Then it's just savings all the way! Good luck hopefully there will be lots of cheques hitting your mat soon x