Getting out of this debt sharknado

EmmaMicawber

Paid in week 1 - £562
Total paid in 2018 - £562
£ to target - £29,438

It's been a good first week. I've only spent £22 on food as there is still loads in the freezer to eat up. I paid the extra money saved straight off American Distress no. 1 together with a bit that was sitting in PayPal from my last ebaying attempts. The rest was regular card payments.

Plans for week 2:
DD1 is back off to uni today, I'll really miss her, but being on my own in the day for the first time in nearly 4 weeks will mean that job-hunting becomes my full-time job from tomorrow.
My Clydesdale/B current account switch money should land in my account next week- that will be another £250 extra to pay off the Am Distress.
I'm tempted to look at starting matched betting, but mustn't let it distract me from job-hunting as getting a job will far and away be my most powerful weapon for attacking the debt. MB will have to be weekends only.

enthusiasticsaver

You did brilliantly in 2017 and have a great plan for this year. Good luck.

Mags35

I’ve just read through your diary so far what an amazing first debt busting year you’ve had, I will be following your progress for 2018
Good luck!!

HairyHandofDartmoor

EmmaMicawber wrote: »

Hello diaryworld - I hope you all had a lovely Christmas!

Things are returning to normal in the Micawber household - the house guests have gone, leftovers nearly eaten and no more expensive trips out to pay for.
OH was paid early, a week before Christmas, but for the first time ever, we put it into a different account and only transferred it into our current account on his 'usual' payday which was yesterday. So the current account looks quite healthy, no credit cards were used, and OH is hoping that January will bring his first work bonus in a long time.
So all is looking relatively good, Well, apart from the tiny little detail of £59000 outstanding on credit cards! (But better than the £73500 we had last January).

We're going to go "gazelle intense" for 2018 (Dave Ramsey) and set ourselves the ambitious target of paying £30000 off the credit cards by January 2019.
Initial Plan:
me- getting a job and putting 100% of my wages to the debt, at least £1000 monthly (12,000)
OH- pulling out all the stops at work and trying to get 2 decent bonuses next year (6,000 total?- no idea yet)
OH- putting 100% of his payrise ( extra £250 per month starting January) to the debt (3,000)
'Standard' monthly cc payments 9,000
Total: £30,000

And this assumes our old high mileage cars limp through 2018 unscathed.



I'm starting the 'clock' on January 1st week one, £0 paid, and will keep track of the total paid off week by week. Week 52 target - £30,000 !!

That sounds like a really good plan and eminently doable.

HairyHandofDartmoor

EmmaMicawber wrote: »

Paid in Week 0 - £0
Total paid for 2018 - £0
£ to target - £30,000

Happy New Year!
It's Year 2 of our debt paydown and I'm doing a debt snowball for the first time, planning to pay off £30,000 in total this year.
Year 1 was all about getting my head round our debt and juggling balances to avoid being hit with huge interest charges, but only 1 of our cards has a 0% expiring in 2018 so I'm going for it this year. Our total debt (credit card and loan) reduced from £93,500 to £76,500. Credit cards reduced from £73,500 to £58,000.

I've listed the cards we have below (using affectionate nicknames ) and will pay minimums on all and throw the surplus at the card with the smallest balance.

1. American Distress £1250
2. More Bl**dy Nights Awake card 1 £2500
3. They're Your Master card £3700
4. Tox-co £4500
5. More Bl**dy Nights Awake 2 £4900
6. Sin-tan-debt card £5000
7. Martin Lewis card £7100
8. They're Your Master card 2 £11,500
9. American Distress 2 £17,500
10. Loan Wolf £18,500

CC total- £58,000 Loan -£18,500 Total -£76,500

My plan is to update the amount paid every Sunday and the individual debts monthly to keep on track.

I love the card names :rotfl: it really encapsulates their chatacteristics :rotfl:.

EmmaMicawber

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

You did brilliantly in 2017 and have a great plan for this year. Good luck.

Ah thanks Enthusiastic, I hope you're enjoying your new work-free life

EmmaMicawber

HairyHandofDartmoor wrote: »

I love the card names :rotfl: it really encapsulates their chatacteristics :rotfl:.

Thanks Hairy, I can't wait to be rid of them!

EmmaMicawber

Paid in Week 2 - £536
Total paid in 2018 - £1,098
£ to target - £28,902

Positives this week:
* My £250 Clydesdale/ B switch bonus landed in my account this week so it went straight off American Distress. Free money
*Got £25 for the fuel switch I did a few months ago.
* Regular debt payments of £286 went out (the 2nd week of the month has the smallest payments though).
* I did my first session of volunteering - I really enjoyed it and think it'll be good for my longer term job stuff.

Negatives:
-DD developed a hole in the trainers she wears every day for school so needed another pair quickly-they were £40 in the sale instead of £80, though I hadn't budgeted for them so had to move some money from the insurance pot in YNAB as that's not due until next month.
-Still don't know what OH will be getting for a bonus, or even when it will be paid for certain (was hoping end of Jan). I'm so impatient- I want to pay off American Distress NOW!
-No real progress on job front this week.

Other stuff:
We do have another slight dilemma- OH travels a fair bit with work and has a company credit card which he puts everything on and the company pays off every month. The company is changing its policy in a couple of months so that the "new" company card will need to be paid by him and he will claim the money back from the company.
Option 2 would be a personal credit card also paying it off himself and claiming it back. If he submits his expense claims very quickly, he should receive the expense money in time to pay off the credit card every month. He says he could collect rewards/ cashback with this option.

Option 3 would be to have a debit card NOT a credit card, have the expenses come out of our account (or a new current account for expenses) and then claim it back. This would mean not needing a credit card, but needing a "float" of probably around £1000 as he would have to pay money out before getting it back from work.

This is the first big thing we aren't really in agreement about-
OH wants to have a "rewards" credit card so he can collect points or whatever. The trouble is that when he used to have this for his previous job, he quietly built up several thousand £ of debt of his own on it by spending on the card for things other than work. The interest he paid must have far outweighed any rewards he got.

I just hate credit cards now and would rather do option 3, even if it means having to ring-fence £1000 for his expenses. I see spending money on a credit card he will be responsible for paying off himself every month as the slippery slope back to disaster.

I'm not sure how far to push this, watch this space.

motivated

Hi Emma

I too now hate CCs and would do all I could not to use them again. You’re mindset has changed and you are making great progress. Keep going Emma
M

EmmaMicawber

motivated wrote: »

Hi Emma

I too now hate CCs and would do all I could not to use them again. You’re mindset has changed and you are making great progress. Keep going Emma
M

Will do! We've reached a compromise about the work expenses - OH will go for option 2, the company credit card that he has to pay off himself. He should be less tempted to add non-work things hopefully.