Small Steps Out Of Massive Debt!

GeorgianaCavendish

Interesting, a balance transfer offer appeared from Barclaycard. 6.9% rather than 0% but its the first time I've had an offer on this account since it was first opened. Fingers crossed for better offers as time goes by!

GeorgianaCavendish

I have a NUS card (one of the perks of the course I'm doing alongside my f/t job) but I never bothered to look into whether I would qualify for the one year free offer that YNAB run for students. I looked into it yesterday and GUESS WHAT? I DO qualify for the one year trial
I've signed up and I'm going to spend some time this weekend getting to grips with it again because after 6 months of debt-busting I actually have some financial goals beyond getting to the end of the month without running out of money, and I'd like to start working towards those.

* Build up 3 months emergency fund in the household account
* Save up enough money to purchase home insurance outright in January
* Save for holidays (nothing outrageous but I don't want to give up holidays until the debt is repaid, I'm prepared to do them on a strict budget but I need to get away and even going to stay with friends for a weekend has costs that I'd like to budget and cover in advance)
* Save for Christmas (partly presents, although I'm channelling Scrooge McDuck this year so will have much better savings, but mainly the incidentals like the cost of the train tickets to go & visit family, cost of the extra entertaining etc. Just IMAGINE being able to get through Christmas all the way to pay day at the end of January without despairing at the state of my totally decimated bank account!)
* Age my money ... my lofty goal is that by this time next year I'm paying my bills with money that is at least 2 months old. No more payday to payday scrambling.

Naomim

kirtsypoos wrote: »

I think nobody should be allowed to ask when it's your turn etc as it really is horrible, especially when you have reasons that you don't want to disclose or if it's not happening!

You are so right about nursery payments though - a local nursery to us charges about £70 a month less than I was paying back at the height of my repayments so if I could still survive before, it's been good practice :rotfl:

So true!! MrM and I were married for 3.5 years before we had DS and I spent most of that time deflecting questions. We were trying but having problems and lots of tests. I NEVER ask anyone when they are going to have children. But yes, debt busting is great practice for budgeting nursery fees!

GeorgianaCavendish wrote: »

Not much to report on the debt-busting front today. I'm in the maintenance stage of the month where there are no exciting extra payments to make

I'm there too. Feels a bit blah.

GeorgianaCavendish wrote: »

I had some unused classes at a posh yoga studio near my work which expired months ago (typical "old GC" behaviour there, sign up for 10 classes, go to 1 and let the rest expire) but I called them and asked if there was anything that could be done to extend them, it must have been my lucky day because the studio manager said she'd give me until the beginning of September to use them as a goodwill gesture

That's fantastic and also the sort of thing I would have done, let things expire without using them.

GeorgianaCavendish wrote: »

I have a NUS card (one of the perks of the course I'm doing alongside my f/t job) but I never bothered to look into whether I would qualify for the one year free offer that YNAB run for students. I looked into it yesterday and GUESS WHAT? I DO qualify for the one year trial
I've signed up and I'm going to spend some time this weekend getting to grips with it again because after 6 months of debt-busting I actually have some financial goals beyond getting to the end of the month without running out of money, and I'd like to start working towards those.

* Build up 3 months emergency fund in the household account
* Save up enough money to purchase home insurance outright in January
* Save for holidays (nothing outrageous but I don't want to give up holidays until the debt is repaid, I'm prepared to do them on a strict budget but I need to get away and even going to stay with friends for a weekend has costs that I'd like to budget and cover in advance)
* Save for Christmas (partly presents, although I'm channelling Scrooge McDuck this year so will have much better savings, but mainly the incidentals like the cost of the train tickets to go & visit family, cost of the extra entertaining etc. Just IMAGINE being able to get through Christmas all the way to pay day at the end of January without despairing at the state of my totally decimated bank account!)
* Age my money ... my lofty goal is that by this time next year I'm paying my bills with money that is at least 2 months old. No more payday to payday scrambling.

Fab news, I have an NUS card too so will look into signing up with YNAB again. I tried with the free trial but couldn't get used to it. I think now I have a better handle on expenses I may do better.

Also, you mention you have Amazon and an NUS card. Are you getting the Prime student discount? Free for 6 months then £39 for the year? It included Amazon TV & Amazon Music with prime delivery too. I converted my account over with no trouble.

Love the NUS card, 10% off at Co-Op and Superdug's is saving me a fortune :money:

Keep it up

Naomi x

GeorgianaCavendish

Our Amazon Prime account is actually in my husband's name, I've been meaning to join our accounts together so that I could get the advantage of free Prime Delivery without having to ask for his log in details all the time. Finally got round to it last night and discovered that when you create a Household on Amazon you get access to both sets of Kindle books etc. I'm really pleased that I've gained about 60 new books overnight (he got the better end of the deal though because he's got 300+ new books) :T

Only thing to watch out with on Amazon Household is that you have to give the other person access to your payment cards. We don't have a problem with this (our preferred payment cards are still the default under each of our accounts) but worth highlighting.

GeorgianaCavendish

Naomim wrote: »

Fab news, I have an NUS card too so will look into signing up with YNAB again. I tried with the free trial but couldn't get used to it. I think now I have a better handle on expenses I may do better.

Also, you mention you have Amazon and an NUS card. Are you getting the Prime student discount? Free for 6 months then £39 for the year? It included Amazon TV & Amazon Music with prime delivery too. I converted my account over with no trouble.

Love the NUS card, 10% off at Co-Op and Superdug's is saving me a fortune :money:

Keep it up

Naomi x

I had to email YNAB with photos of both sides of my NUS card but they gave me the student access almost instantly! The email address is student@ynab.com

I don't have student Prime, my husband had already paid for Amazon Prime around xmas time and I don't think that he can get a refund on what is left if I get it. We've just created an Amazon Household so I've got access to the Prime benefits and we can get each others Kindle books for free. I'll keep Student Prime in mind though because £39 vs £79 is a no brainer! (I know Amazon Household can't be used if you have Student Prime but we could physically swap Kindles to read books I suppose).

JoJoC

I didn't realise that was the case with Amazon - do you need to be a Prime member to create a household? My husband pays for Amazon music and has the app and I'd wondered about getting access to it myself and not sure how the login works (i.e. if i log in with his details, does that mean he can't access it at the same time? etc).

Glad you got such a good discount on YNAB!

I'm booking an activity for my sister's hen night and I've just scoured her hens for any students (there's one - yay!) as we'll get a discount as a whole party. Hooray for mature students!

Hope you have some lovely plans for the weekend?

Hiddenidenity

Have a lovely weekend x

enthusiasticsaver

You have done brilliantly in reducing the debt by almost 30% in less than a year so as you now seem to be focused I have no doubts it will soon be gone and hopefully in 2019 you will be looking forward to things like buying a house or having a baby. You have learnt new habits, you know how to live within a budget and are getting in the habit of saving for things you want rather than putting them on an overdraft, loan or credit card. Persist with the things you know work and you will be successful.

Good luck with the battle with your OH. I would have to say I would be miffed if he went for amazon prime, Netflix and Sky. That is way over the top for the entertainment budget especially when you weigh in with gym subs and meals out etc.

GeorgianaCavendish

JoJoC wrote: »

I didn't realise that was the case with Amazon - do you need to be a Prime member to create a household? My husband pays for Amazon music and has the app and I'd wondered about getting access to it myself and not sure how the login works (i.e. if i log in with his details, does that mean he can't access it at the same time? etc).

Glad you got such a good discount on YNAB!

I'm booking an activity for my sister's hen night and I've just scoured her hens for any students (there's one - yay!) as we'll get a discount as a whole party. Hooray for mature students!

Hope you have some lovely plans for the weekend?

I think that anyone can create a Household but there are certain services that you'd only be able to access if one of you was a Prime member (book-sharing aka Kindle Owner's Lending Library is one of these). Here's the page that explains all about it: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201806560
I'm not sure on Amazon music as we don't use this service, I should look into it though!

Great news on the discount for your sister's hen party! I appreciate my NUS card so much more now than I did when I was at university, I suppose because at university I was only really bothered about how much a vodka & coke cost at the student union.

I'm looking forward to this weekend, I've got plans with a couple of friends who just got engaged I've got them an engagement present which is actually a regifted bottle of Very Nice champagne that I got for xmas, but shh - no one needs to know about the regifted part

JoJoC

How very MSE of you GC! And the friends will never know Love it! Although I once regifted a book that my son had got thinking i was being really clever (it was a duplicate) but the one I regifted actually had my son's name written on the inside cover by the giver. Oops! Slightly embarrassing but we glossed over it.

Thanks for the link, i'll go and have a nosy now! My husband doesn't have a kindle so the book sharing wouldn't be any use to us (unfortunately, as I do LOVE getting new books) but there might be some other useful bits in there.