It's time to get rid of this debt!

CocaCola123

I've got a lot of debt and even though I have read these forums for many years I never bothered to create an account. I started reading this forum 4 years ago when I was on maternity leave and I would find good ideas, follow them for a few weeks then just go back to normal. The debt has increased so much over the last year or two but I'm now at the point where I can make my monthly payments and some overpayments, but it's leaving me with very little money to do anything else. I'm kidding myself really because I make overpayments but then buy groceries on the credit card.

So here I am, with over £26,000 of debt and nothing really to show for it.

I have a plan though. Most of it is on 0% credit cards now, I will need to check the dates and also check in a few months to see if I can move some of the interest bearing debts to a 0% deal. I started using you need a budget about 6 months ago after reading a lot about it on here and I do like it and I know I can make it work, but I've got to be more strict with myself. So today I started a brand new budget on the software and I get paid next week so I will have a fresh start from next Friday.

I have done a spreadsheet of all the debts and what payments I'm able to afford and created 2 scenarios. The one scenario is paying the debts but also putting away some savings, which will take me until August 2018 to finally clear the debts, or I can put all the money to the debts and be able to clear the debts by February 2018.

Originally I was going to do scenario 1 because after reading some of the great advice on here I know that having some savings put away is a good idea. But i've been doing an extra project in work for the last 2 months, on top of my current role, which involves quite a lot of overtime. I forgot to claim the overtime last month but this month I created a spreadsheet to track my overtime and it works out I will get about £400 extra this month after tax and then because the project is getting busier my boss said that if I need to work some weekends, they will pay me double time! So i should be able to earn an extra £400 a month again on top of my current wages, so my new plan is to put all overtime money into savings but use every other penny I earn to pay the debts.

I already use sites like Topcashback so do earn a few bits through that. This year I changed most of it to Amazon vouchers because I use them for birthday presents, but I recently had a cashback payout from an insurance renewal I did and the rules for that one was payment could only be in cash, so I have arranged for that to go in to my bank account and I'll use that to make an extra payment.

I'm going to read more of the forums to get more ideas written down and will come back soon with any other ideas I like the sound of and to put my debt figures in black and white. Seeing the numbers on the spreadsheet I did horrified me, so I want to put it on here and then update it every month to see my progress.

CocaCola123

The numbers in black and white

Card1 £6260.97 (interest on this one but not sure how much)
Card2 £5934.82 0%
Card3 £820.36 0%
Card4 £3727.88 0%
Card5 £8618.26 0%
Card6 £826.72 16.9%
Next account £1626.86

I had savings of £4100 in my account which I have now used to pay card1. I've also returned a load of stuff that I recently ordered from next, so both of these balances will be lower soon.

Everything is on a fixed amount direct debit, which pays more than the minimum amount. Two of my current 0% cards are offering new transfer deals on them so I'm going to see how much I can move over.

Cailbhinn

CocaCola123 wrote: »

Next account £1626.86

Remember the percentage on this is between 25 and 30% from memory. Get this paid off/transferred asap unless credit card 1 interest is higher. I was glad I got rid of my Next account! Too tempting.

All the best in your debt journey

Bobarella

Good luck Coca-Cola. Sometimes it takes a few false starts to really get going but you sound very motivated now.

CocaCola123

Thank you both, I really wasn't expecting any replies as I know how busy the diaries get.


I spent some time on the weekend looking at all my cards and one of the cards had some availability on it and were offering a 0% money transfer, so I have requested the transfer so that I can use the money to pay my Next account as I knew that the interest rate would be higher on this account than any of the others.


I worked out that I can comfortably pay all of this off by February 2018, rather than August 2018 which I am really surprised about and actually quite angry with myself because I just think to myself if I didn't have all this debt then all that money going towards debts would be disposable income instead and I would be able to have savings and replace my car!


I could pay it off around 4 months sooner than this if I wanted to but it would mean putting literally every penny towards it and not having any emergency fund or savings at all. I just know if I do it that way I will end up running up the credit cards again when birthdays and Christmas come around, so I'd rather have some savings put aside for these things otherwise I am going to end up in the same vicious cycle that I'm currently in.


One good thing is I get paid this Friday and I am due around £400 overtime.