Copper's diary

coppers

Here I am again, another new year & pretty much in the same position as every other year, on the face of it my bank account ticks over nicely, stays out of the red, so I don't really pay much attention to it, but my credit cards just get minimum payments chipped away from them, with an odd purchase added here & there. Thing is I'm getting less hours at work now, so I know I need to put things under scrutiny, prioritise what's important to me, ie visiting my son & his family. Pay off my debts. So here it begins from scratch, new starts & all that, starting with totalling up last years general spending. Argh. :money:

coppers

Well I've been through all my loose receipts for last year & it's scary to see how much we've spent even though I wouldn't say we've been extravagant, and I'm sure there'll be other expenses that have slipped through my fingers. I'm sure theres things we can cut down on, I showed the figures to Mr Coppers and he agreed we need to cut back & he suggested eatting out, which to me was an obvious one & I'm glad it was him who suggested it as now it will be his idea & not me bringing the doom & gloom & being stingy, it also shows he recognises we have an issue & wants to do something about it. We worked out that eatting in today had cost us about 1/4 of what we'd usually have paid. it means that I also got rid of all them receipts I've been saving, must log them & bin them more often. I think I've been burying my head in the sand, knowing I've got to do something, saving the receipts but not doing anything about it. The whole thing is going to get scarier & scarier as I still need to do all the direct debits, look at our income, both our earnings can vary month to month, then I'm going to look at the dreaded credit cards & see how we can pay them off. But at least we're doing something & not just treading water & hoping for the best.

coppers

I've completed rough drafts of our income & expenditure, and as I expected we are managing to balance what we've got, re making payments ect, but with very little breathing space, which on the face of it means things look ok but which however brings us to my next bit of maths to see the real picture, where the credit cards come in, all the extra things we wanted/needed to pay for but didn't think we could really afford so it gets put on the credit card. I suppose at least we're able to make the payments & I'm finally wising up a bit is one way to look at it.

coppers

Feeling shame faced writing this but here goes.
I've finally got my debt totals, we owe £11, 751.08 to 2 life of balance low interest accounts, Bomad (Bank of mam & dad, life of balance low interest credit card) & 3 high interest cards. We also owe £14,406.50 on our mortgage which we intend to pay off after the credit card debts. Luckily it's only a small amount and brings us a grand total of £26,157.58.
Strategy to pay them off is, our smallest high interest debt is due its final payment this month, which should then free up the card for a 0% balance transfer, with a small transfer fee, we will move the high interest cards on to that, then use the payment of the 1st paid of debt to add to our Bomad payments & eventually get that paid off then move payments to over debts as we get them paid off. One thing I'm a bit concerned about is moving my husbands debt into my account but hey we're a team and this is the best way to tackle it. Just hoping I don't get dumped & left with the debt.
Well that's a starting point anyway at least we are addressing it and making a plan to sort it out. Time to get on it.

coppers

In January we paid £331.99 off our debts.

Desperate_to_be_debt_free

Hi Coopers,

Well done on the debt repayment for January. Been reading your diary after being away from the forums for a number of months so have subscribed to your thread in the hope you'll give me some inspiration lol.

doingitanyway

Well done on your January debt repayment

coppers

Hi Thanks to you both for your support & good luck with whatever you's are doing

coppers

I'm now in the process of thinking through my balance transfers.

coppers

now sorted paid off the lowest balance, moved the 2 highest interests over to that card on a 0% til April next year deal, so now we've got
2 low rate life of balance, Bomad & 0% to pay off, at least it's a start, just need to chip away at the payments, would have liked to have moved the Bomad as well but Mr Coppers thought it was best left where it is as it is getting paid off, over time we've paid them almost £4000 back but we still owe them over £2000, I hate owing my mam & dad money.

coppers

In Febuary, we've paid £189.36 off our debt. However by doing the balance transfer we've added £34.78 onto our debt so I'm going to class it as £154.58 debt repayment this month & our new min payment on the bt is about £20 higher than it was before but one of the cards would have gone from 0% to a higher rate anyway so at least we've got 0% for longer now so in the long run it will help.
In March it's MOT time for us, so that could be a big bill coming in soon but to be fair there is always something that crops up, that's life. I'm just going to keep doing my best to chip away at the debt.
Think I will start noting "all the little things" that I do to spend less, so I can see that the little things do help. For eg, having breakfast at home instead of out this morning like MrC & Ds2 saved = £2