A Ditherer's Diary (again)

moving_forward

The shuffles do eventually get fewer and longer in-between. As a fellow spreadsheet geek try doing your own debt free snowball sheet like I have. It helps to plan out scenarios and keep a note on when deals are ending. 
It also gives me grounded and shows what is achievable along with being manageable. Smart goals come into play.

I think in our line of work we are so used to great big numbers that our little ones seem paltry in comparison de-minimis if you like. We have to separate our home finances from our work ones where things work differently. Small payments DO make a difference. The main thing is learning to live on our budget AND paying off old bad habits along the way. It's taken me a long long time to learn home finances don't work like business ones emotions are involved. You have to create a different set of rules to abide by.

Naomim

My spreadsheet does have all my cc listed, dates when the deals end, %payable, current balance, available credit left and % I have paid. Currently around 17% 👍 I might have a bash at a snowball myself.

I think you're right about the work & home finance.  Part of my problem is spending all day with figures and spreadsheets, I don't want to do it in my free time.😬

2Scratters

When clearing our debts down on the CC and even now helping DS with his I have never looked at percentages, I found it didn't help with the focus I needed the bare numbers ie what is left to pay
The available balance didn't get much attention at all as the task is not to go there again.
There is enough to worry about and even that 1 small % thing helped by not having to be given any time. 
If there is something that you feel you need to look back at is work out how much interest you have saved in the process as a reward of denying it to the CC company (even though we were grateful at the time).
Snowballing definitely helped albeit not in the best MSE way (highest interest first) I reduced the lowest balance first. That gave drive to get it completed and most times finished earlier. It was one easy thing to focus on, the others continued to look after themselves. Quite rightly keeping an eye on the offer end dates. Online banking has also helped along the the apps from the CC as you no longer have to wait for your monthly statement to arrive. 

Naomim

The only reason I keep my eye on the available balances is for balance transfer purposes. I quite like seeing the % amount, trying to work out how much interest not paid would give me brain ache! 🤣

GeorgianaCavendish

It’s great that you’ve got another 0% offer to transfer to this month, more will open up as the debt goes down even further. 

I finally gave up with YNAB over the summer. I do like it for doing an initial budget but I don’t find it user friendly for month-on-month budgets. I need to revisit my budget again this month ahead of 2022 and I need to look for another way of doing the original budget as YNAB is out! 

Naomim

Morning all,

So I'm finally in the £24k bracket of debt to the CC's 👌 and on checking my percentages have actually paid 25.8%. It's taken two years as I started in Dec 2019.  Told MrM the good news. Obviously our debt is still high but we're in a better place with it than we were. I was watching the ML Money Show last night and when he was imploring people to get in touch with the debt charities now and talking about how people tell him they finally had a good night's sleep, it really resonated with me. I remember those nights laying there, worrying about how I was going to find the money to pay everything and live. For me the LBM came when I couldn't withdraw £30 out of the cash machine as we'd hit the back end of an almost £5k overdraft plus had £30k+ of cc debt.

We've just been told that from Monday officially working from home again so I'll be able to make some overpayments next month to the cc's if we have no travel costs.  Apparently my "credit score" has improved so going to check the balance transfer options just to see if there's anything better than the MBNA one I have.

Last night I went to the large Swedish shop and bought a desk. The company will pay me for it. It's just a small cheap one to put in the corner as we'd actually like to have our dining table back to eat at. 

Everything is looking up in my little bubble. I hope you are all safe and well.

Naomim x

WinterWarrior

Congratulations on hitting the next milestone. You’ve done so well! 

Naomim

WinterWarrior said:

Congratulations on hitting the next milestone. You’ve done so well! 

Thanks @WinterWarrior it definitely feels like a milestone.  Can't wait to get to the debt free roll of honour (excluding mortgage) but also know the need to make sure we have money to live and enjoy life so it's a slow wander rather than a sprint for me.  Hoping it will be within the next four years.

moving_forward

Hear hear 👏👏

GeorgianaCavendish

Congratulations on hitting that milestone - you are doing so well!