On a Mission

wishingthemortgaheaway

I definitely hear you on the accountability the diary gives you. Although our only debt is our mortgage, I'm now a stay at home mum, so there are even more opportunities to spend money. My diary helps me really think about what I'm spending. But also to maximise any money saving things I can do. Even now we are overpaying by at least the interest added each month and I'm continuing to save for bills annually.

motivated

Morning Mummybear

Another fan of diary updating here. (Says me who's let mine slip on occasions) Even if it's just to write about your day I find helps.

Well done on your progress and remember every little helps. Every pound you pay someone is a pound down and not up.

As for your loan you are embarrassed about and the catalogues, been there, done that. But just think it's gone now and you can put it down to experience and move on.

Keep going MB you are doing great

Mummy_bear

Totals as of 30th August

Lloyds CC £1343.20
Next £140
MBNA CC £4130
Barclaycard CC £2585
My overdraft £71 £10 paid off
Tesco Loan £10,012.88
Santander Loan £5512.55
TV -DH purchase £634.9
M&S Loan £7910.64*
Bicycle finance £187.5*
Other £551.89*

*(not strictly accurate, will update once I have accurate figures)

Total Debt as of August 1st - £34611.25
Total debt as of August 8th - £34608.29
Total debt as of August 9th - £34599.79
Total debt as of August 14th - £34558.82
Total debt as of August 15th - £34204.22
Total debt as of August 18th - £33504.22
Total debt as of August 20th - £33494.22
Total debt as of August 29th - £33093.10
Total debt as of August 30th - £33079.56

Total cleared since 1st August - £1531.69

Emergency Fund total - £170/£1000


Just squeezing a few payments in before the end of the month

wishingthemortgaheaway

Will your overdraft be gone by this time next month?

You are doing really well.

Mummy_bear

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

Will your overdraft be gone by this time next month?

You are doing really well.

Possibly

I had hoped to have tackled more of my NEXT debt

But...as is usually the case, when things are looking brighter something happens. Got to my car after work to find a lovely flat tyre This means the spare money I've been keeping to one side for possible over paymemts will be used on a new tyre. At least it's not going on a credit card.

MB

wishingthemortgaheaway

Exactly. Debt not going up is a good start.
Hope you get the tire sorted quickly and daily.
Overdraft and next could be paid off very soon

I had a terrible experience with a next account I said I'd never do it again (I do shop in store)
They made an error with my payment reference r so it didn't get sent to the correct account. Took them wages to find out where my money had gone.

Mummy_bear

Well. Where to begin. From my LBM moment at the end of May to this day I ... or should I say we ...have managed to pay £4043.06 :jI'm sooooo pleased with this as we've had our fair share of set backs.

I absolutely know for a fact that we would never have paid off this much had we just plodded along paying off the minimum payments all the time.

Our way of thinking has changed and I'm especially proud of DH. Yes he's had his blips :mad: but actually he's been better than he has for years. All he keeps talking about is 'when we're out of debt'.

Achievements


1) moved around different credits to save on interest payments.

• • • I used to think I was OK when it came to finances. Thought I was savvy. Believed DH to be the worst culprit etc. But actually I soon realised I'd been making poor financial decisions over the years. The Hitachi loan which had an exortionate interest rate being one of them. DH had quite a bit on his credit card but he was paying interest every month. So by taking advantage of the 0% deals on offer to me we've drastically reduced our interest payments. It's allowed us to calculate our DFD a little more accurately.

2) Closed a few credit accounts

• • • In the last three months we've got rid of
      • Hitachi Loan
      • DH overdraft
      • Littlewoods account
      • Newlook account

3) Thought of ways to earn extra money

• • • I've started to complete PA surverys and in the 4 weeks I've done them I've earned £78.64
    • Started doing more VO surveys and I've earned £30 in Love2shop vouchers
    • Completing surveys for Amazon and I've earned £15 in vouchers
    • Ebay - well this is a slow one - but I've set things aside for that
    • DH has been doing a lot of OT at work

Goals to achieve by New Year....hopefully

• I'd like to be under the £30k mark
• To continue to fund my Annual Bills contribution by PA surveys
• To sell more on Ebay
• To reduce the DFD by a further month
• To get the Emergency Fund to around £600 if not more

Must Dash - this was written up in a hurry.

No doubt there are things I've missed - I can always add to this later


MB

wishingthemortgaheaway

Wow. Go you.

I'm particularly impressed by your pa earnings. You must have a particular demographic that they really like/don't have many of.

Keep going. You will get there.

ChasingSunshine

Well done. That is really impressive. Keep up the good work and you will have no problem hitting your goals by the end of the year

Mummy_bear

wishingthemortgaheaway wrote: »

Wow. Go you.

I'm particularly impressed by your pa earnings. You must have a particular demographic that they really like/don't have many of.

Keep going. You will get there.

PA surveys have been a bit quiet of late though, but I think it's more due to me not getting much time to keep checking. I'm not sure I have a popular demographic I think it really has been a case of luck in the earlier weeks and time to check.

From what I understand things will pick up again when students go back to Uni etc