Let's Do This....Debt Free Before 2019

Orange_Ena · 6 February 2016 at 12:13AM

It does sound like a very good day :T Well done on the positive feedback :j

Still jealous of Barcl@ycard flinging all this money at you :rotfl:

Have a good weekend

ShiftThisDebt · 6 February 2016 at 12:30AM

Orange_Ena wrote: »

It does sound like a very good day :T Well done on the positive feedback :j

Still jealous of Barcl@ycard flinging all this money at you :rotfl:

Have a good weekend

I'm sure they'd offer it to you if you kee saying you'll quit.

I'm now thinking I should have taken the extra money and seen how much I could have go from them before actually shutting the account :rotfl:

Oh well, at least it's done now.

I've even cut the card up already. :beer:

Orange_Ena · 6 February 2016 at 1:14AM

ShiftThisDebt wrote: »

I'm sure they'd offer it to you if you kee saying you'll quit.

I'm now thinking I should have taken the extra money and seen how much I could have go from them before actually shutting the account :rotfl:

Oh well, at least it's done now.

I've even cut the card up already. :beer:

I'll have to give it another go next week!

Haha I was thinking as I was reading, why don't you take the £20, treat yourselves to a takeaway courtesy of Barcl@ycard then try closing it again! I wonder how long they keep trying to bribe people not to close their accounts :rotfl:

ShiftThisDebt · 6 February 2016 at 10:00AM

Orange_Ena wrote: »

I'll have to give it another go next week!

Haha I was thinking as I was reading, why don't you take the £20, treat yourselves to a takeaway courtesy of Barcl@ycard then try closing it again! I wonder how long they keep trying to bribe people not to close their accounts :rotfl:

I know, perhaps they'd have refunded all of it eventually!! :rotfl:

I'm actually happy though to just close it down. Had the card for 10 years, so it's good that it's gone.

note3 · 6 February 2016 at 10:17AM

I'm keeping my barclaycard open purely in case I need a 0% deal as that's highly likely for me but very tempted to call their bluff for the free money! I'm concerned they may tell me sure we'll close your account bye!! Haha

ShiftThisDebt · 7 February 2016 at 8:44PM

Hi hope you're all having a great weekend!

One more week of work and then a week off! Woo!

Had a mixed weekend. I spent yesterday in work for 5 hours getting myself up to date with assessment stuff so that wasn't much fun!

But today was great. My parents and grandma visited us and we went for a lovely walk and had an amazing roast lamb dinner! Mmmm!

Ended up discussing ways in which I could save some money on food shopping. One thing we talked about was eating less meat. To be honest it's a choice we've just started to make and we've recently bought some frozen fish fillets from Aldi (which are great value) but also bulking meat dishes out with things like extra veg and different types of beans/pulses etc.

I think even buying one pack of meat less a week will save is £3-5 so that £12-20 a month off the food bill. And actually I think we could easily save more than that.

We've also created a menu for this week before we go on holiday which is simply using up all the things we've got left in. It's amazing what you can throw together when you have a look isn't it?!

I also chatted to my dad about his soon-to-expire mobile contract and we had a look at the cost of buying a handset outright plus a sim only vs a contract.

He currently pays £22 a month but we found a sim only deal which would be £10 a month!! Even when you factor in the cost of a new phone it's still a substantial saving - around £75 per year.

I cannot wait to go onto a sim only deal now. I looked and currently £16 would be my best deal, which will save me £290 a year!!

Sadly I have to wait until October to switch and I'm going to get another year (at least) out of my current phone. Paying £40 a month makes me feel ill now. 2016 will be the last time I ever have such a large mobile bill.

ShiftThisDebt · 9 February 2016 at 11:56PM

Evening diary!

Work is stressing me out at the moment. I'll be glad when tomorrow is over with. Have a meeting at the end of the day which I'm dreading.

However looking forward to half term and our trip to Disneyland. It'll be our last visit for a few years. The next time we go we'll be debt free.

My parents have given us around €450 euros which area culmination of birthday and Christmas gifts and will pay for a huge chunk of our food bill. DW mum is also gifting the children £150 which we need to get changed before Saturday. We haven't decided how much extra we'll change yet.

I've been for two 2.5mile runs this week; tonight and Saturday. I've got bootcamp in the morning too. Really trying to embrace a healthier lifestyle. My wife is doing slimming world and has lost a stone since the start of 2016.

I've decided for lent I'm going to do the only drink water challenge. This will be particularly tough on holiday but I'm confident I can do it. My aim is to cut down on my sugar intake so juice and fizzy pop is out. I don't drink tea or coffee anyway.

I'm also going to try to cut out chocolate as I'm addicted to the stuff!

As far as finance goes, the final £250 on the cap one CC was 0% balance transferred and confirmed on Monday. My wife will now close down that account.

Also, I confirmed to First Direct that I want to go ahead and switch to them using 7 day switching after they sent me the paperwork through that I had to read first!!

ShiftThisDebt · 20 February 2016 at 4:50PM

Well it's been a little while since I last posted mainly because I have been away most of laast week. We had a great family time in Disneyland. In many ways it was exactly what we all needed after a stressful time at work. We did spend quite a bit in food although we werekindly gifted enoughmoney from parents for 2 meals. We actually only changed £150 of our own money which we did spend. We also spent around £50 on the last day buying a few souviners.

Anyway, so we're back to reality now and the debt busting can really move forward! I am now a FD customer after my Santander account closed on Friday and everything appears to have gone smoothly there.

In terms of Credit Cards, my MBNA account and Barclaycard are closed and my wofe's Capital One is now closed too. All the balances are on 0%.

Anyway, I'll be back soon to do a proper update but just felt the urge to write a new entry!:beer:

12_month_challenge · 20 February 2016 at 5:06PM

ShiftThisDebt wrote: »

In terms of Credit Cards, my MBNA account and Barclaycard are closed and my wofe's Capital One is now closed too. All the balances are on 0%.
:beer:

Hi again and welcome back

Glad you had a nice relaxing break.

As for your cards well done on closing them. :T

Keep going

enthusiasticsaver · 20 February 2016 at 5:18PM

Sounds like your holiday was in budget so well done. I thought the other day I hadn't seen any posts from you. My account was moved from Santander to FD a few weeks ago. I got the switching bonus of £150 about 10 days later so you should get yours soon and that will cover your £150 holiday spend. Hope debt starts to decrease soon.