ditching the overdraft

Shell78_2

I don't spend cash, so every night I log onto my bank account and round by balance down to the nearest £5 and transfer it into savings account . I figured it was the same as saving the change from a fiver :money :money:

chocolatepiggybank

GoingToDoIt wrote: »

Good planning Choccy!
I have a bills box of my own here that's waving at me

Mine is still sitting here waving! I got as far as bringing it downstairs yesterday, that counts, right?

Shell78 wrote: »

I don't spend cash, so every night I log onto my bank account and round by balance down to the nearest £5 and transfer it into savings account . I figured it was the same as saving the change from a fiver :money

I like this idea, I've also heard of rounding it to the nearest pound which might suit me better, or I'd end up transferring it all back again at the end of the month! Something to think about next year when I'm in the black

I did get as far as doing some walking, washing and dishes yesterday, but no further, so todays plan is the same. Batch cook, wash up, clothes are already in the machine, start on !!!!!! boxes, and don't forget to go outside (yes, in the snow!) Probably catch up on Stargate while I'm sorting before it gets taken off Netflix... 60 episodes to watch in 2.5 weeks :rotfl:

RM has now cancelled redirection, just need to book the new one. Will probably wait a few days until I have the money back. NSD got cancelled yesterday because we ran out of bread and milk (damn those essentials) so trying again today.

eeeek, only 2 weeks until we move house :eek:

chocolatepiggybank

Trying to live on £500/month after rent. That includes all bills, minimum debt repayments and OD interest. It's tight but it's also the minimum I'm guaranteed to earn on my current contract, so at the very least I'm living within my means. Because I'm paid 4 weekly, that leaves the 13th pay each year completely free to take a big chunk out of my debt. That's the plan anyway.

January is hard though. It's my first month on a budget so I don't think that helps. But I also have the huge cost of moving at the end of the month, and I don't want to borrow to cover it, and I hadn't saved for it, which means my budget for everything else has been hit pretty badly. I feel like I'm just wishing the month away. I know I could have given myself a bigger budget just for one month but I wanted to start off the year by challenging myself and using the overtime I did over Christmas to make a difference. Easy to say until I actually get into it, huh? Feeling very sorry for myself and deprived lol. I think it's also because all the bigger steps to sort out money have been done, and now I'm starting on the long hard slog to stick to budget every month. Moneysaving is a lot less fun all of a sudden :P

I have absolutely no motivation whatsoever for packing and sorting and stuff. 11 days to go and I just don't want to know. I haven't started. I really need to pick myself up a bit this week, feeling very down at the moment.

Sorry for the really blah post peeps.

chocolatepiggybank

Well I've made more mess searching, which is not great for the moving house preparation, but I've finally found and emailed a couple of final bills to TV licensing. Hopefully that's it and I can get my refund. Trying to remember which account I requested the refund to go to. Have a funny feeling it's the one that's closing... so if I don't get my money back by 28th I'll be counting on the payment being forwarded to my new account. Fingers crossed everything works as it should! Maybe I'll cancel the switch just until I have the money back?

chocolatepiggybank

Phwoar, been a few weeks since I posted! Moved house without too much drama, just a few stress tears at the unclean (hairy!) state of the new house when we picked up the keys and some adventure attempting the worlds first flying mattress moving all the furniture in high winds (thank you Gertrude)

Financially, I have no idea where I am, but I think I'm doing alright. February is a bit of a blur, budget wise. I can get a total from my bank statements at the end of the month, but not a breakdown. I'm working overtime, and I'm not spending ridiculously, but I'm not tracking it either. I stopped tracking my spending for a couple of weeks when I moved, attempted to catch up and then lost all my data when my phone gave up and died. Only one month into my sim only contract too, wish I'd stood my ground and gone with PAYG, I could have had a new contract now. But I've managed to borrow a phone for free, for as long as I need, so it's not all bad. I'll start budgeting properly again 1st March.

The good news is I got £194 back from the TV licence! Bit embarrassed that I managed to overpay that much in the first place, but I suppose I would have only spent it at the time, at least now I can use it. We got our deposits back in full from the old house, and bonus day at work is in five days (not that I'm counting or anything). Expecting £200ish after tax. And my £100 switching bonus sometime this week too. Nice little dent in the overdraft.

Speaking of work, it's absolutely doing my head in. Too many stressful days. I expect the overtime to continue for a few weeks at least because we're short and there's a hiring freeze. I'll make the most of it and get my OD paid off a little faster, but I'm going to have to watch I don't overdo it or get too stressed out. (Please be nice to people who work in shops, folks! We have to follow rules, even if you don't understand or agree with them. It's not our fault the company policy is !!!!!!, ok? All the decisions are made in some cosy little office somewhere miles away, by somebody who doesn't have to deal with the consequences)

Alright, now I've got that out of my system. I need to move my money around and get organised again. My new bank account is sitting at +900 while my OD is at -1000. Seriously unnecessary interest there. I tried to pay it all across already and got myself blocked and flagged up to the fraud team. Oops. Fraud lady I spoke to was lovely though. I also need to unpack. I've got to the stage where the day to day stuff is done and just sort of given up. Motivation is pretty rare at the moment. Bleh.

Going out this afternoon to visit a friend's new house and meet another friend's new baby. Feeling really emotional and tearful today. Don't know if it's just a leftover from the last couple of days at work or if hormones are involved but will try not to cry on everyone when I get there. Can't promise anything though. EDIT: nope, that's next week. Damn.

chocolatepiggybank

Work has been a little better the last 3 days. But it might not last. There's some reshuffling going on and it looks like I could end up being forced back onto a dept I left for being too stressful, because they need people, I'm one of the few that's already trained and no-one in their right mind is going to volunteer. Unfortunately, there's nothing in my contract that would prevent it, although I will attempt to refresh my supervisors memory on the link between stress, vertigo and me being signed off, just in case it helps.

Tonight's shift was so deathly quiet that I had time to come up with a plan. As of Friday, I'll have paid off my big overdraft (yay!) and will pay my last interest payment at the end of March. In April we get a pay rise, and by then they should know what the outcome of the reshuffling is at work and will be able to sort everyones contacts. I've decided that whatever happens, I'll drop a shift. I work 4 days now and with the extra pay and no bank charges, I'll be able to get by on 3, as long as I'm careful. That won't be enough to make more than minimum payments on my credit card, but it's interest free and it comes down to long term vs short term goals. My long term plan is to leave work, hopefully to go self employed, so if I cut my hours I can use the extra time to work at home and then use whatever I make towards the credit card. Leaving work is more important to me than being debt free by Christmas. I'll be able to keep one of my shifts as it is whatever happens, so that only leaves 2 days to cross my fingers over. Or maybe some half days, I don't know.

I was feeling pretty down about it but now I feel like I've taken at least a little control of the situation. I'm excited to get that extra day back!

chocolatepiggybank

Eeeee I woke up this morning to my account balance being above zero for the first time in years! :j It won't last more than a few hours because the rent is due, so I'll be -£200 by the end of the day, but in the meantime it looks so good! I'll try not to get too excited and remember that I still owe £1500+ elsewhere, but I think this milestone needs celebrating! :beer:

I've turned down an extra shift at work tonight; I've already done an extra day this week and my body is demanding time off, plus I would have had to cancel a night in with OH, which is kind of a big deal when we work opposite shifts. Not to mention I can't handle another stressful Friday night at work. I know I still have more debt to pay off, but it's not worth the tears. So no thank you, boss.

Plan for the day is to catch up with new house stuff. Bills, standing orders, unpacking, chasing repairs; all that really exciting stuff we haven't quite finished yet. Oh, and my budget for March.

Ok, I'm off to go stare at my bank balance some more

isobelsaunders

I'm new here, not sure if this is appropriate but ..

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payfriendz.me/isobelsaunders


Enjoy!!

chocolatepiggybank

Didn't realise it was so long since I last logged in! I've fallen off the wagon with budgeting and tracking (and my diary!), but I seem to be doing alright somehow.

The good news - THE BIG BAD OVERDRAFT IS NO MORE! :beer: I still have 1.5k 'available', but apart from a couple of slip ups with direct debits, which I've fixed as soon as I spotted them, I haven't really used my overdraft in 2 months. My current account is sitting rather prettily at 1k today, because today is payday. Hooray for payday.

The bad news - Nationwide are removing my overdraft facility. It was supposed to be £500 at 0% until December, but they've 'reviewed' my account. I guess they didn't like me withdrawing the maximum as soon as the account opened and then paying in absolutely nothing at all for six months. I was just about ready to start paying it off too. Hmmph. Luckily for me, I got paid twice this month, rent is already covered by the first pay and so I have £285 spare to fling straight at the overdraft. £100 for switching my account away from Nationwide will help with that, because stuff 'em and a bit of credit card shuffling with the bills takes care of the rest. Phew. So in a couple of weeks time I'll only have the credit cards to worry about, which is kinda awesome.

I've dropped some hours at work, and I'm now properly contracted to a department that I'm comfortable with, on hours that suit me. No more messing about. I had a little help from vertigo in negotiating it - I was getting dizzy at work all the time again, and something had to change. Feet were put down and everything.
Realising that I couldn't carry on as I was gave me a good little shove too. I've started drawing and being my creative self again. So far I've made a nice little £75, and I'm hoping this is just the start. Oh, and I've been very very good and put away 20% towards tax, too The day job only covers minimum payments on my Barclaycard, so from now on I'll be using any money I make from my drawings to pay that off. The first lot ended up being spent on clothes, but I was celebrating and I deserved it I now need to master the art of getting up, dressed and moving before 3pm, or it'll be a long time before I sell another drawing. Is it just me, or is it permanently '3pm already'?