£67,031.92 is a frightening number indeed....

Treadingonplaymobil

Another thing I've been thinking about, alongside keeping track of spends on here, is coming up with some short term goals. I think I'm still looking at this enormous debt number (even though our 'on paper' consumer debt is actually now only a little over £15k).

I'm wary of giving myself really big bold targets, but feel like some kind of weekly/monthly goal might be good. Current repayment levels are at:
£77 partnership card, with a balance of £2,899
£285 barclaycard, with a balance of £12,347

The partnership card is the one with a high interest rate, so I'm thinking about challenging myself to overpay that through budget savings and/or extra income. I think I'll try rounding down budget pots to the nearest £1 each day, and move that to the partnership budget initially, making a payment once every week or two. I don't want to commit to higher earnings right after reducing my earnings goals, but once I'm a couple of months ahead on my 'salary' savings, I might think about rounding down in my business account as well and diverting that into a partnership overpayment. Although that isn't exactly a repayment 'goal', and I think I could do with a goal to keep me motivated. Maybe I should set a goal within that, maybe £30 a month initially and see how it goes.

The other thing I think I'll do is look at the snowball calculator for our forecasted debt at the end of this year and set a goal over the year for overpaying it.

Silver_Queen

TOPM, since your monthly debt repayment has gone down so much, will you start making repayments on the parental loan?

enthusiasticsaver

As the partnership card is higher than you envisaged at almost £3000 is it worth balance transferring it to a 0% card? I don't want to encourage you to take more debts out but that is not going to be cleared this year at £77 per month. What interest rate is being charged? You might want to wait a month or two as your mortgage searches will be fairly recent which may hinder your chances of getting a 0% deal but in the spring it might be worthwhile if you have not got it down significantly by then.

Treadingonplaymobil

Silver_Queen wrote: »

TOPM, since your monthly debt repayment has gone down so much, will you start making repayments on the parental loan?

No, the extra is being used to save for the extension. The parent in question is constantly trying to loan us more money (to do extension sooner), and knows we are saving for the extension rather than paying them, and is happy with that. To be honest in their eyes I think it was a gift, but because they have used the word 'loan', I don't see it as such, and once the extension is done and the consumer debt gone, we will set up a regular saver to put by the amount even if they refuse a direct repayment, and try to give them back the full £20k when it's all saved.

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

As the partnership card is higher than you envisaged at almost £3000 is it worth balance transferring it to a 0% card? I don't want to encourage you to take more debts out but that is not going to be cleared this year at £77 per month. What interest rate is being charged? You might want to wait a month or two as your mortgage searches will be fairly recent which may hinder your chances of getting a 0% deal but in the spring it might be worthwhile if you have not got it down significantly by then.

I was just thinking that earlier, after seeing that most of the minimum payment had gone on interest this month! As you say, I'll leave it a month or two to see whether we can pay much off and allow the mortgage searches to disappear into the background, then we'll see about doing a balance transfer. The interest is something like 18%, I haven't checked the exact figure.

warby68

I hope your movie night was lovely ToPM as you've sounded a bit flat and down since the remortgage and a few things have gone a bit wrong with your planning . Plus you seem to have gone into overspending mode a tiny bit even though Christmas has only just gone. Perhaps an emotional element there.

Now your posts are exploring ways to re-invigorate your financial self which is great.

I really hope you're ok and manage to get the bit back between your teeth. The doom and gloom month of January doesn't help.

Looking for pluses for you:

- at least the remortgage coming through late meant you had the extra for the broker - not sure where it would have come from otherwise
- you still have 2 weeks left of Y1 so hopefully you can park all of this under Year 1, have another tweak of the budgets and still Start Year 2 fresh and straight.
- the short month of February is coming - still miserable but a small gift to food and other budgets
- step back and look what you did over the whole of Y1 - you turned a tanker around, stopped overspending and (I think) managed some net debt reduction. That really was good going from your start point.

Still cheering you on

welshlady33

Good morning TOPM

Just a thought, Martin Lewis has a free credit check club you could join, it also tells you the probability for being accepted for 0% credit cards without leaving a mark on your credit file.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
X

enthusiasticsaver

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

I was just thinking that earlier, after seeing that most of the minimum payment had gone on interest this month! As you say, I'll leave it a month or two to see whether we can pay much off and allow the mortgage searches to disappear into the background, then we'll see about doing a balance transfer. The interest is something like 18%, I haven't checked the exact figure.

I have just paid off my partnership card for this month and can see the interest rate is 18.9%. On your balance I think that would be around £45 per month so more than half your payment of £77 is going on interest. Well worth considering if you cannot get it down significantly in the next few months. Just make sure you close it down afterwards

Treadingonplaymobil

Gosh, there’s nothing like earning some money to make one feel slightly in control again! Have just been paid for another booking which means I have Feb AND March’s expenses and salary put by. Now I need to have that internal debate about how much further to get ahead, with my previous hiccup of getting four months ahead then spending the lot. :eek:

I think if i were debt free I would like 6 months expenses/salary in the bank, but in the current situation that’s half the debt on the partnership card tied up in my current account just sitting there. Maybe three months? And anything extra can be split between debt repayment and saving for some big work expenses that will come at some stage in the next 24 months (a new camera, replacemebt iPad for 7yo model).

Welshlady33 thanks for the credit club idea, I haven’t come across that, will check it out at some stage soon.

Warby68 I’ve definitely been flat since Christmas - for me I think it’s largely the come down/getting back out of the habit of all that lovely pre-Christmas shopping. It seems very dull not having endless lovely exciting parcels arriving practically on a daily basis! I love shopping. I know that’s awful and shallow, but if I can’t be honest here, where can I?! Thank you for the positive points. It’s been a better year than I’d hoped in many ways, but also made it clear how much effort there is still to put in. Good to have a reminder that we have achieved some things!

Silver_Queen

I know how you feel about shopping and getting parcels as I'm exactly the same. Just think of how many lovely things you will be able to buy guilt-free once your debt is paid and all that money is yours! You are doing very well despite any little hiccups, you're only in your first year of debt repayment. Keep up the momentum!

Are your mobiles up for renewal soon? My contract has just ended and I think the iphones 7 onwards all seem a bit rubbish so I've kept my 6s, my phone bill is now £20 per month for 5x the amount of data. Is there any chance of something similar for you?

I think your idea of splitting your business funds is a good plan - I think a 3 month cushion is pretty good for now whilst you have debt.

Suffolk_lass

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

Welshlady33 thanks for the credit club idea, I haven’t come across that, will check it out at some stage soon.

Welsh lady is right about moving to 0% cards - there is a Sainsburys card for 30 months and nectar points up to £50 on the 0% credit page https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/best-0-credit-cards#rule4

The link to the eligibility checker is on that page.

Try thinking of it as you working several hours for them instead of yourselves when you pay interest. When DH wrote off our car last year, we used a cash boost from Barclaycard that was 0% for 10 months and just a 1.9% fee. So I paid just £76 for the (£4,000) money while you are paying half that total, every month, for half the amount of debt! It must make sense TOPM