Time to clear the debt - for good!

laurag89

I have just cashed out £10.50 from opinion world and that is going straight to my marks and spencer credit card - small steps but it all helps. I am also very close on valued opinions to a £10.00 voucher which i plan to start putting away for birthday's and xmas.

Plan to do some more surveys tonight, and the packaging came today to sell my old Samsung S5 so once that £68 comes through i can pay that to the credit card debt too

I keep thinking about ways to get money even small amounts to pay towards it - i have a lot of books lying around so may look to sell them.

ani*fan

Hi there Laura :hello:

Welcome back to the boards and well done on getting off to such a good start! You sound so organised and on it!

laurag89 wrote: »

I am very different now to what I was then - I'm treating it as a clean slate.

I'm all for a new diary and wiping the slate clean. Nothing like it for a bit of motivation.

I'd agree that your Marks and Spencer card is a good place to start. You'll have it gone in no time at all and how great will that be?

I'm getting married too, in October this year. I hope your plans all go well and that you manage to stay within budget.

I look forward to following your progress. Best of luck! *subscribed*

laurag89

Thank you so much

October, so exciting! Are you pretty much finished with the planning now? I have gone over by quite a bit on my dress, but I am doing two Sundays per month working at my mum's shop which will cover the extra the dress is going to cost.

xx

Scott_Weiland_2

Your doing well re the surveys Laura great work. Have a look at a site called Prolific Academic, most of us use it that complete surveys it easy pays out say 10-15pounds per week.

Re books lying around try these ones

Ziffit.com
And webuybooks.co.uk

Check all the books on each site, ie ziffit may pay 1.25 for one book you might get more on webuybooks.co.uk.

Both sites are dead easy to use you enter the book bar codes get a price, once all are listed they send you a postage, you take the books to a collect plus place then thsy paypal you the cash.

laurag89

Thank you Scott!

I will give prolific academic a try tonight

Great advice on the books I will do that this evening too, I have so many lying around that I will not use again. Plus any money earnt can go to debts!

laurag89

Morning to anyone reading

So good news I have £300 to pay to marks and spencer credit card, it's a long story but it is part of my wedding dress budget, I had to use the credit card to the deposit Months ago - it was quite a bit! But .... that brings that card right down!

Woohooo

enthusiasticsaver

Did the loan come about through consolidating debt or was it for an asset like a car etc?

The good news is that the interest rates are 0 or low. The bad news is you are heavily overcommitted if you can only afford £17 to one of the cards and £25 to the other. You are leaving yourself very vulnerable with a high loan and a high mortgage, a wedding and holidays to pay for and little spare money to clear the cards before the 0% deals run out. If you cannot get a good remortgage deal in December this will throw a big spanner in your budget.

Well done on using that £300 though to the credit card as that almost brings it down by half.

Is booking holidays your weak spot and the reason for the debt to start with?

laurag89

Hello enthusiasticsaver,

The loan was a consolidation and my debt used to be a lot higher than it is now at its worst it was 20k.

I agree I am not in a brilliant position, however something I haven't mentioned is that every year in January I get a bonus - around 2k after tax, so the wedding money is already paid really I'm just putting extra aside to ensure I have enough! Obviously anything not used will go to the debts.

Our mortgage is so high at the moment, but we are going to have the house revalued as it has gone up by 20k in the last two years so will change our ltv massively!

Holidays are a weak spot but .... the holidays organised now are actually down to my fianc!, I was prepared not to have any due to saving for the wedding. But after next year we will be cutting the holidays right down to focus on this debt.

I wouldn't say holidays are why I'm in debt, I don't usually borrow for them. It was just a lot of bad decisions was I was 18/19 that I'm paying for now!

laurag89

I have decided that setting myself some goals to achieve by the end of this year will be me a good focus so here it goes:


Goals for 2017:
1/ Pay off M&S MasterCard
2/ Pay £400 off of MBNA Credit card




In order to achieve this by the end of this year I will have to pay £1187 off in total approximately. That is around £99 per month.


Of course if I can pay off more I will do, but I think it is good to have a focus for now.

redofromstart

Hi Laura, good luck with your diary.

One of the things I have done to get my problems under control is to not buy things that 'will do' like you and your sainsburys tops. I'm impressed you returned them. I still find the odd thing in the wardrobe that has tags on that I don't particularly like and it makes me cross with myself for all the money that was wasted. I try really hard to only buy clothes that I really like, and that make me feel confident when I wear them - rather than things which will do and were a bargain.