Journey to £0 by 2020, with a few bumps along the way

chelseablue

Also, I've got £59 on Quidco to withdraw.

£9 was already sat there and on Friday the £50 cashback from my car insurance finally paid out

OnlyPariah

That is some awesome news for Christmas. Do you have a plan for the £59?

chelseablue

OnlyPariah wrote: »

That is some awesome news for Christmas. Do you have a plan for the £59?

Nothing exciting I'm afraid, will probably send it straight to the debt

chelseablue

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas

Spent £129 yesterday on 6 months car tax, when that’s up in June I’ll do 12 months.
Child benefit of £82 went in my account today and I’m going to the bank later to pay in the £100 cheque my Nan sent me for Christmas.

So technically I’m £53 up

enthusiasticsaver

Hope you had a nice Christmas too.

One positive about getting a newer car when it happens is that car tax is a lot lower usually. Mine is 0.

At least you are up moneywise. All the best for 2020 and getting rid of the rest of that debt.

chelseablue

I've done something, it might not be totally MSE (or maybe it is) but I do feel better mentally.

I was all set to do the transfer from Virgin to Barclaycard, but then I realised the 3% fee to transfer would be £255 added on to the balance

Every time I transfer it I was paying around a 3% fee

So, I went online to Nationwide and did a personal loan quote (please don't shoot me! :rotfl:) for £8,500

They offered me 2.9% for the £8,500 over 4 years, total amount payable £8,900

£400 interest over 4 years, or £100 a year

So.…… I went for it, the money went into my account the next day and I paid off the Virgin credit card in full!

The loan is £187 a month

Of course I have no intention of taking 4 years to pay it off, my aim is 2 years

I've already made some overpayments so the balance is currently £8,250

The 3 credit cards I have are now all at £0 balance, will be closing the Virgin one leaving just my Barclaycard and Halifax Clarity card

Today's figures:

Debt
£8,250

Savings
S&S ISA £7,875
Easy Access £3,800

Current Accounts
Halifax £293 (all bills paid, this is for food until pay day 24th Jan)
Nationwide £228 (my personal money, hoping to have most of this left by pay day and will send to the loan)

enthusiasticsaver

2.9% is a decent rate and as you say there is a balance transfer fee for moving from one 0% deal to another. Whatever works for you. The main argument against consolidating debt usually is that it should run alongside good budgeting to avoid people being tempted to spend on the credit cards again after clearing them.

Overpaying the loan is a good idea to get rid of it quicker.

chelseablue

Some good news today at work, was told what pay rise we'll be getting this year.

3% starting in March

I'll be getting my bonus in March too but don't know what that is yet

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Sounds logical to me.. maybe pay your pay rise and bonus into loan too?

chelseablue

I reckon It'll be about an extra £60 a month take home pay, we'll see if I'm right!

Really not sure what to do about the bonus, if I send it straight to the loan it should get it into the £6k's which would be great.

On the other hand I was planning on going on holiday this year as we didn't last year so would need to use it for that