Deliciously Dreaming of Being Debt Free by 40

kittycashcake

midnitegremlin wrote: »

I'm exactly the same! Almost, 34 months until I'm 40 , and I too aim to be debt free then too, exacpt for an ongoing debt to my parents.

First addressed it in 2012 when my MBNA £13k balance was put on a 0% interest repayment plan. So far I have cleared one full debt, Natwest overdraft.

Other than about £600 on Capital One card everything else is no higher than 10% interest, average about 6% .

My mother assures me 70 is the new 50 so 40 must be the new 20, so let's screw the debts and go get hammered on jäger bombs and get a kebab and fall asleep in the gutter.

I'll do that right after I've put voltorol on my knee and looked at my ISA account.

Sigh, the joys of getting sensible.

Kitten868

Yay yay yay! Immediates are all gone! Well done you amazing! Do your totals include your PayPal balance? Holiday balance next. Definitely getting there better start getting your f&fs typed up ready for when you've got all your money xxx

kittycashcake

Kitten868 wrote: »

Yay yay yay! Immediates are all gone! Well done you amazing! Do your totals include your PayPal balance? Holiday balance next. Definitely getting there better start getting your f&fs typed up ready for when you've got all your money xxx

Thank you!!!

I'm gonna wait until the 29th till I've had all my money's and all my auctions are done before I withdraw it and pop it into my wedding fund I think. Need to get the ball rolling on it!

I didn't think with ccjs you could do f&f? Well you can ask but as you have an order they are unlikely to accept it? I haven't peeked at those too much yet tbh. However 1 falls off Feb 2017 so I'm thinking keep stum and see what happens' it's just a tiddler @ £186. My big one @3.5k is actually the main account I have ppi on that if I get it they will likely wipe the balance off that one which would suit me. Both that one and my 1k one I think I have grounds to challenge as I wasn't living at the property the summons was sent to and I can prove it. I do want to wait till I know a bit more about my big one in particular before I start rattling any cages though.

Trying not to think about the ppi claims too much! Gonna keep myself blinkered to my next mini goals of holiday & emergency fund.

Kitten868

I see what you mean. I only asked about f&fs as I saw you did a thread on it before. I know nothing about ccjs. How long have you got to pay for the holiday?
Good luck with the ccj stuff. Maybe a visit to cab is needed? X

kittycashcake

Its fair to say I am 33 shades of effed right off!!!

I have had a letter from Equita on behalf of the council of the City I used to live saying I owe £909. I emailed the council last weekend asking for a breakdown as I think this is wrong. Not only did they not reply they passed it to Equita.

Called the Council (closed, obviously) Called Equita, they couldn't care less and basically they want a payment / arrangement by 2nd March or it goes to an agent for collection. I am merry highly fffffffffffffffff off! I had a talk with the OH and he has money in the bank from some inheritance that will easily cover it which he has kindly agreed to loan me; I HATE asking for help but we agreed we would rather I pay him back weekly than the Council or Equita. So I am going to call them Monday, go through everything and see whats happening.

So sad that my debt has rocketed up. I have redone my budget plan to assume that I will have to pay back that amount. I will scoop out some of the money from my emergency fund currently some at £250 (sob) and my earnings from eBay this month which should give me around £300 in total, plus if I am careful this week I can squeak £100 from my wages so I will only need to borrow £500 from him.

Even though it did not make me cry I feel like I have had the wind knocked out of me, that feeling you get after you have been sobbing all day and there's nothing left in you. Except a little rage.

Sigh, up to this morning I had been happy, having paid another £50 into my emergency fund and another £50 off my hols. I guess my plan once all that the ctax is paid next week is to keep paying £50 a week into my emergency fund again for 10 weeks and £50 a week to my holiday for 6 weeks. then carry right on paying £50 a week to my OH for 10 additional weeks to pay that off too.

Thats 13 weeks to get to a happy place where my emergency fund is full, holiday is paid and OH is all paid off too. This takes me to the first week of June. So thats the new plan.

No point letting it derail me, dust yourself and carry on. Although a PPI payout would go down a treat right now!

in_need_of_direction

Can I suggest that you invest up to £10 and make a request for all info held about you by the council?

kittycashcake

in_need_of_direction wrote: »

Can I suggest that you invest up to £10 and make a request for all info held about you by the council?

I am tempted but half of me just wants it over and gone, ya know? Plus Equita made it clear that come March 2nd they want a deal and the council won't work that quick, I don't want a debt collector at my door.

Been super frugal today! Getting fed up of Marge the cat licking the gravy and jelly off her food and squeaking at me for more when all she wants is jelly the little rat. So I trimmed off the skins and scraps off the chicken that I am cooking for dinner for us and cooked it in the slow cooker with some water and leaving it to set as some extra jelly to stir in. She better like it, can't grumble for free though if she does love it.

Also doing some meal prep for the week, experimenting with making a chicken with honey and mustard casserole thing using condensed chicken soup and veg and chicken breasts. I think I should get 3 dinners out of it for reasonably low calories.

And trying to cheer myself with a mini self care night tonight, hair colour (fire engine red hair always gets me a seat on the train from the gents, thanks guys!), facial, manicure, pedicure... I can't afford a spa day but I really need one!! Now I just have to convince the OH to give me a massage without getting all "handsy" after 3 minutes and everything will be perfect!

wishus

kittycashcake wrote: »

Now I just have to convince the OH to give me a massage without getting all "handsy" after 3 minutes and everything will be perfect!

:rotfl: I recommend the strawberry bar from Lush. Makes your skin feel nice and soft and it's kind of wholesome. Half the time I don't bother with OH or a massage and just use it instead of body lotion!


Sorry to hear about the council being a pain. Had to bail OH out twice because of council debts, they just wack a year's worth over to the collectors, so it might be that? Anyway, big hugs xx

kittycashcake

Thank wishus!

Well the OH transferred the money over the absolute star, I'm going to call up and pay it in full tomorrow and argue the toss whilst they investigate.

Totally forgot about Mother's Day.... Now I need to find something to order online for delivery, maybe a rose bush for the garden? We live 150 miles apart so I can't pop it around .

And sending my last "February" eBay parcel tomorrow! Already thinking about clearing my garden a bit on the weekend and going through my books. Clutters Gotta go!!

kittycashcake

Sigh.

Not much to report, paid the Equita bill, partly from a £900 loan from the OH and partly from my paypal (ebay sales) and bank balance, Equita kindly added a £75 fee on top, bless their rotting dirty hearts. Still had no response from the Council. Aholes. Massive gaping Aholes. I have added it to my budget and recalculated it, I think I was way off before and have paid off a better percentage than I had thought so that's something vaguely cheery.

Spent £25 on flowers for my mum, cheered myself with a a couple of tops and some perfume from Newlook (I did use my student card and a £5 giftcard which helped, still £17 though. And not really that cheered up. I shouldn't have spent the money.

So much slow trudging ahead of me now.... to hit my goal of being debt free (as it stands!!) by Summer 2018 I need to reduce my debts by £75 a week. Its such a lot with my moderate income and no payrises. I know 2.5k of it is our wedding and its 2.5k too much as far as I am concerned, but its the budget the OH and I agreed. But at £75 a week I could be debt free by the end of next summer instead of the summer afterwards. Silly thoughts.... shhhh

I tend to fall into the same old patterns when I feel like turds; eat too much, go full hermit, spend without caring. Basically I have no self control and hide where no one can see it happening. I think I need to channel this destructive behaviour into a different direction that ticks all those same boxes. Thankfully I don't really drink or gamble because I think I would probably go that way if I did. I think my new channel definitely needs to be money saving, weight losing. Just need to scrape myself up and getting my emotional and mental wheels in motion for it, I think once there's some movement the momentum carries on. Ebaying and decluttering will help I think.

I have been told that I should get 7 months of back pay slips next week, once its all done I will ring HMRC and update my tax details, find out why they want £230 when I am on PAYE and maybe find out of I am due a rebate from last year (please that would be nice) and I understand there might be some wiggle room for a little extra due to the tax threshold changing, might help towards this mysterious tax bill. I will challenge it no matter what.

Marching ahead (excuse the pun) - minimal spend on tomorrows shopping as I am working on getting through what's in the cupboards and freezer slowly. We have so much, I need to clear some space, use what we have and try not to panic when I see a gap. When you have had a lot of years of being extremely poor you still can't help panicking at a partially bare cupboard. "Food in the cupboard is money in the bank" my grandmother used to say... I think its time to try and chill about it though.

The other reason I want to clear some of the food is because I want to do another spell of low carb, I did great on it years ago and I think having a slow cooker will really help this time; throwing meats and veggies in there and coming home to it already cooked will be a dream. A full day + an 1hr 10 mins each way commute and the gym a few nights I really don't want to be cooking. My OH and I tend to eat separately any way due to him getting home at 5 and him too scared to cook me something thats not diet friendly bless him. Its weird for some but it works for us. We do eat together at the weekend though.

So my plan is to spend the next month working through my food stockpile and then we have my stepson with us over Easter, so once he's gone I will give it another go. Meat is actually very reasonably priced here at the butchers; 2 chickens for a fiver etc so it wouldn't blow my budget terribly. I'd still go full bargain on it though, cheap cuts and buying whoopsies!

So my post about not much to report has really dribbled on. Sorry about that.

Emergency Fund @ £250
Non CCJ Debts x 6 @ £2182/ £3082 PAID
CCJs x4 Unpaid Total @£5103
Christmas 2016 Fund @£104
Holiday Fund £250/ £550
Wedding Fund Goal: £2500
Total Remaining: £9148 / £11,935 (£2797- 23.35%Paid)