A Ditherer's Diary (again)

Naomim

:money:Today I withdrew £105 from my Paypal account and paid off the NEXT account. 1st debt gone.

enthusiasticsaver

Glad to hear you seem a bit more in control and agree wholeheartedly with avoiding the next sale. It is not a bargain unless you need it and can afford it.

Naomim

Evening all, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and looking forward to the new frugal year:money:

I've just spent the last hour or so checking what's come out of the account, what's still pending and updating my spreadsheet ready for January. I've made an over-payment of £20 to the MBNA "persistent debt" card and changed to DD to a set payment so it will overpay by £2-£3 a month for now. Anything else I can throw at it; as and when, I will.

My new Virgin 0% card arrived so I have transferred over £5983 of the Barclaycard debt over as that had a high interest rate and largest balance. I think my monthly payments should come down by about £80 a month for now which will be extra to snowball. Once the new statements have updated, I'll do my snowball again.

The season ticket loan from MrM's company came through so I've bought that. £2,400 a year to travel to work. It wouldn't be so bad if the Guards didn't keep striking, the trains were on time and we weren't crammed in like sardines. :mad:

Off for an evening in front of the tv.

Stay frugal

Naomim x

Naomim

Happy New Year _party_

We have nothing planned for tonight. Normally we go to a friends house party but the only one who wants to go is the 10yo :rotfl: However she is suffering from the excesses of the holiday season and was up being sick last night from too many sweets and fizzy drinks.

After a rather spendy few days, including two cinema trips, ice skating for 10yo and a much needed new coat for 14yo (from Primani) we need to curb it. I'm working from home at the moment but have promised 10yo we will go to the park in a little while.

I have re-done my snowball. MBNA have me classed as being in "persistent debt" and want me to make over payments but they're not my highest interest credit card which the snowball is telling me to pay. I only have a very small amount to be able to make over payments with so I'm hoping just a couple of pounds here and there will make the difference.

We shall see how it goes over the next few months.

Naomim

Naomim

Evening all,

First day back at work today and I'm shattered. I didn't sleep well last night. I think it was being aware I had to get up for work this morning. Bl***y trains ran a worse service than when they were on strike during the whole of December by giving us one an hour offering. Great work on the day they increase the price by 2.8%. We had to use an alternative route. SiL was starting a new job today and heading in our direction and as she didnt want to be late on her first day, MrM & I both arrived at our respective employers by 8.15am. :eek:

After fiddling with my snowball the other day I have logged into all of my CC's and set the payments to fixed amounts. I had £20 left over from my NEXT account payments so this will leave me some wiggle room to overpay.

My standing order for my piggy pots went out today so I've officially started my emergency fund.

Have one birthday coming up in Jan but have got money in the piggy ready. It's both in laws 70th birthdays this year and their 50th wedding anniversary so I'm trying to think of ideas that are cheap but nice. They're not the sort to appreciate a National Trust membership or something along those lines. MiL maintains the best present we ever got her was a TV Times subscription

No NSD today as spent £3.45 on lunch as I wasn't up in time to get ready. I'm hoping a good night's sleep will help.

Naomim x

Naomim

Managed to bring a tin of baked beans to work with me today. We have bread at work so no money spent on lunch :j I have however spent £11.90 on new Olay CC cream, - going via TopCashBack of course I suffer from rosacea and look like I'm permanently on the booze if I don't wear some tinted cream. I have been experimenting with different ones and I've just run out of an Avon one I bought in December but I wasn't so keen on it. I did start looking on the website at the mascara's but they were too expensive and I'm happy with my cheapy collection 2000 one.

I've looked up when MrM's car insurance is due as I was sure it was soon. It's 25th February so I've put a reminder in my calendar to get quotes early as per Martin's email tip.:money: I've looked at how much last years was and earmarked that amount into my February budget. Not having council tax to pay in Feb will help. I do have a piggy pot for car insurance but as I've only just started it, £35 isn't going to get me very far! :rotfl:

On Saturday we are off to see our local panto. MrM won the tickets in a raffle :T And on Sunday 10yo is off to a paintballing party all day so I'm probably going to have to spend a bit on a small gift. I already have a stash of birthday cards.

I need to get back into regular meal planning and doing my online shop. MiL has an £18 off online shop voucher I'm going to use. It means I have to use her loyalty card but she's worth the points.

I'm also going to look into reclaiming money back from the trains for the extremely poor service we have suffered during December. Yesterday and today running one an hour and the first two cancelled meaning MrM was extremely late for work. I'm also going to write to my MP.

Righty ho- back to the grindstone.

Stay frugal

Naomim x

GeorgianaCavendish

Nice to see you back on the boards and making big changes towards tackling your debt! Congratulations on getting rid of that Next debt.

I saw something on the news about those persistent debt letters, I have a feeling that during 2020 providers are supposed to offer alternatives for customers they've sent a certain amount of letters too. I should look into this in more detail! Like you, I've set my direct debits to just over the minimum payments on my non-priority cards and am concentrating my efforts on snowballing one debt at a time. Hopefully that is enough to avoid any more letters for now!

[Deleted User]

Happy New Year!

Well done on clearing the Next card.

Boo to the failing MOT but yay that it can be fixed xx

Naomim

GeorgianaCavendish wrote: »

Nice to see you back on the boards and making big changes towards tackling your debt! Congratulations on getting rid of that Next debt.

I saw something on the news about those persistent debt letters, I have a feeling that during 2020 providers are supposed to offer alternatives for customers they've sent a certain amount of letters too. I should look into this in more detail! Like you, I've set my direct debits to just over the minimum payments on my non-priority cards and am concentrating my efforts on snowballing one debt at a time. Hopefully that is enough to avoid any more letters for now!

Thanks GC. I'm getting a bit worried about it all but will put it all in a post below.

Deleted_User wrote: »

Happy New Year!

Well done on clearing the Next card.

Boo to the failing MOT but yay that it can be fixed xx

Thanks PMO2. It was a small amount really so I don't feel like I've done much to clear it iykwim?

CONFUSED

I've just read Martin's post about RBS & Natwest hiking it's overdraft interest rates up to 39.9%. We are in our overdraft for £4650.00 I think December was the first time in months we hadn't gone over the overdraft and had to rob Peter to pay Paul to bring it back down.

Since the middle of November and the start of December, I decided to work on zero based budgeting. Nearly every post I read on these boards insists you should have an emergency fund and be able to pay for things like insurances as they come up. So I have lots of piggies and I'm squirrelling a set monthly amount of money away into these pots. Then there's the overdraft, I'm reducing it by about £80-£100 a month and on top of that I have my persistent debt credit cards which I'm also overpaying but a few £ each month. But Martin says don't have savings and pay off your debts, but if I do that, how will I ever be able to afford the things that come up such as birthdays, Christmas, vets fees, boiler breaking down without resorting to credit? I'm confused by the conflicting information.

Naomim

kirtsypoos

Naomim wrote: »

But Martin says don't have savings and pay off your debts, but if I do that, how will I ever be able to afford the things that come up such as birthdays, Christmas, vets fees, boiler breaking down without resorting to credit? I'm confused by the conflicting information.

Naomim

I take that bit with a pinch of salt, in that I pay into our EF and our Christmas/Birthday and House pots as I don't consider them savings, they are funds for future allocated purchases if that makes sense?