Drifting in a Sea of Debt

BettyBones

Debt totals last month:
Tax Credits: £652.10
Capital One CC: £360.00
Santander CC: £1,347.51
Halifax CC1: £2,400.00
Halifax CC2: £3,090.00
Tesco CC: £1,400.00
Total Debt: £9,249.61

Debt totals this month:
Tax Credits: £521.74
Capital One CC: £330.00
Santander CC: £0.00
Halifax CC1: £2,300.00
Halifax CC2: £3,090.00
Tesco CC: £1,700.00
Total Debt: £7,941.74

Sant@nder CC paid in full. Yay!!! I'll wait until the next statement comes through confirming the zero balance and then I'm going to chop it up and send it back to them. Next month I should be able to clear the balance on the Cap One CC and then it's on to clearing the first H@lifax CC, by Christmas hopefully.

Although my Tesc0 CC balance has gone up by £300 this month I'm not overly concerned as £270 of this is work expenses which will be winging their way back to me at some point. I am concerned about the other £1,400 of it though. I have a DD set up to pay £25 per month off it but I really need to pull my finger out and start throwing some extra pennies at it if I'm to see the back of it by next May. Hmmm.... I'll have a think on how to tackle that one later. Right now I've got a beef stew bubbling away in the slow cooker and I'm going to go sit in the sunshine for the rest of the day with a glass/bottle of Pina Colada and celebrate clearing my S@ntander CC. Woohoo!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everybody! :beer:

BettyBones

I've been having a think about how to rid myself of this pesky Tesc0 CC debt and I reckon the best way to do it is along the lines of the 1% challenge... break it down and tackle it in bite size chunks. It's currently sitting at £1,700 and I have a DD set up to pay off £25/month. If I just leave it at that and carry on ignoring it then all I will have paid off by the end of May 2017 is £300 That's not cool!

So I'm going to crack on with it and attempt to clear £1,500 by following the principles of the 1% challenge and paying it off 1% (or £15) at a time. Simples! (Or not, as the case may be...)

I've made a grid with 100 squares on it and stuck it on my fridge and each time I pay off £15 I'll draw a smiley face or something in one of the squares. 100 x £15...hmmm.... I think I'll start by having a rummage through my DVD collection... there must be something in there I can flog... and I wonder how much I'd get for a kidney....

Orange_Ena

Yay, well done on getting rid of the S@ntander CC, that's marvellous. The 1% challenge is a brilliant motivator. Every time you're tempted to spend £15 on a takeaway or something a bit frivolous, you think , ooh that's 1% of that debt and it might just stop you. Well that's what I think anyway Get rummaging, find a couple of percent

Saver-upper

Hi BettyBones.I have just been ready through your diary,add you have beeen doing so well.Congratulations on clearing the Santander.
I shall be cheering you on,and am sure,with your determination,you will succeed in clearing all your debt before it is time to say bon voyage!:D
Good luck!

BettyBones

Hi Ena :wave: Gosh! I can't remember the last time I had £15 to spend on a take away. The best I can do on my £30 a week budget is a battered sausage with a kiddies portion of chips for £1.80 :rotfl:

Thanks Saver-Upper I'm determined to get there but geez... it feels like its taking forever

Anyhoo... the 1% challenge is going well. This week I've managed to clear the first 10% (or £150) off my Tesc0 CC. I sold my retro style radio for £30, received an additional £45 tax refund, picked up £60 in expenses and manged to save £15 from my weekly entertainment budget. I've also sold some DVD's for £15.70 and put a claim in to HMRC for 3 years worth of uniform allowance. So if both of those manifest into cold hard cash I'll be able to pay another 13% off soon :T

Other than that it's been a relatively quiet week on the finance front. Now it's just a question of waiting for pay day to roll around again so I can pay off some more. I'm working on Sunday but then off for a week so I'm hoping I can find things to amuse myself with that won't cost money :eek: I'm thinking walks along the beach, picnics in the park and maybe a spot of fishing (all weather permitting of course). Although I don't actually know how to fish... I just like to sit beside a lake or on the beach with my flask of coffee and my little fishing rod and pretend. I can't even pick a maggot or a worm up let alone put it on a hook so I sit there with my little tin of sweetcorn catching nothing. If I ever actually caught a fish i think I'd freak out :rotfl:

BettyBones

Wow! My week off has gone really quick. The weather's been pretty pants so I haven't really done anything except watch the tennis and the footie. Shame on me! I did venture out yesterday though to help out at a festival in Chichester. They gave me £9 in food and drink vouchers to spend at the local Costa for helping so all in all I had a very nice day out at no cost to me :T
On the debt busting front it's been quite a good week. Another £130.36 has been paid to my tax credits debt (only 3 more payments to go), £35 to my Cap One CC (I'm planning on paying off the remaining £300 on pay day) and a further 2% cleared off my Tesc0 CC.
Total spends this week have been quite low too. As I haven't really been anywhere to spend my £30 weekly entertainment budget I thought I'd treat myself to a new stick hoover (exciting stuff eh?) I needed something to vacuum the car with rather than keep paying £2 a pop to do it at the petrol station and managed to find this hoover for £19.99 in Robert Dy@s that converts from an upright to a hand held. Perfect!
So the weekend will be spent hoovering my car out and packing because I'm off down to the West country for work again on Monday. All expenses paid so next week should be another low cost or no cost week for me :j I'm really starting to feel like I'm getting on top of this debt busting malarkey Have a great weekend everybody! :beer:

milasavesmoney

Wonderful post! Have a great weekend!!

BettyBones

Evening everyone! :wave:
I'm back from a week of working down in the West country and am pleased to report that the whole week has been a no spend week :T Accommodation, petrol, breakfasts, lunches and dinners all paid for by work and as I'm not much of a drinker I left my colleagues in the pub and spent my evenings on the beach, nursing a free cappuccino from Waitrose whilst scoffing the complimentary biscuits I swiped every day from the hotel. Love the beach. Tis my favourite place to be.
Anyhoo...today has been uneventful debt busting-wise but continuing with the no-spend theme I've decided to stay in this weekend and indulge in a bit of life laundry. The first task for today was to tackle the mountain of paper work that seems to have accrued in little piles all over my house. Magazines, newspapers, leaflets, bills, pay slips, letters from the tax man, old bank and credit card statements ... the whole lot was either filed, shredded or recycled. Unfortunately it took so long (8 hours in all!) that I didn't really have the time or energy to tackle anything else

A good nights sleep and I shall crack on with a spot of cupboard cleansing tomorrow I think...
Night all xx

BettyBones

Received the £15.70 from CEX for the sale of my DVD's and received another repayment of £24 from the tax man (I know not why but I'll take it!) So I've rounded it up to £45 and paid another 3% off my Tesc0 CC :T I like being able to make these little £15 payments inbetween paydays. Makes me feel like I'm being productive. Although my employer would probably prefer that I get back to being productive in other ways now that lunchtime is officially over I best get back to it....

BettyBones

Debt totals last month:
Tax Credits: £521.74
Capital One CC: £330.00
Santander CC: £0.00
Halifax CC1: £2,300.00
Halifax CC2: £3,090.00
Tesco CC: £1,700.00
Total Debt: £7,941.74

Debt totals this month:
Tax Credits: £391.38
Capital One CC: £0.00
Santander CC: £0.00
Halifax CC1: £2,200.00
Halifax CC2: £3,090.00
Tesco CC: £1,290.00
Total Debt: £6,971.38

Cap One CC dead and buried :j I'm not chopping this one up and sending it back though. I've had it for about 8 years now, have never missed a payment and it's my longest (financial) relationship ever so probably best I keep it. I will of course go back to using it as I once used to though i.e. occasional spends but pay the balance off in full each month.

Just over £200 in expenses came back to me this month so I used that to get my Tesc0 balance down to £1,500 and then by taking on the 1% challenge and making an additional £210 this month (or 14%), I've managed to bring it down a bit more to £1,290. I'm loving the 1% challenge. With practically no money available for entertaining myself finding different ways to make multiples of £15 is keeping me amused between pay days.

It's heartbreaking to see all this money go towards paying off debt though. But hey, I guess if one has borrowed it then one should really pay it back. Although one would rather spend it on frivolous things such as chocolate, shoes, draught excluders and fridge magnets. It's amazing what you want when you can't have it :rotfl: