Reducing Debt - being accountable and taking responsibility

CP2016

DrSpendLittle wrote: »

Car payments. That's all I think of whenever I see a new / nearly new car :rotfl:

Ha! This is exactly what I think. I'd love a new car but my 12 year old car hardly ever needs anything doing and costs me nothing in payments. I do have a replacement car category for saving in YNAB though - it's still cheaper than car payments!

DrSpendLittle

CP2016 wrote: »

Ha! This is exactly what I think. I'd love a new car but my 12 year old car hardly ever needs anything doing and costs me nothing in payments. I do have a replacement car category for saving in YNAB though - it's still cheaper than car payments!

Great minds think alike!

My little car is 5 years old and I have one more year paying off the loan I took out to cover the balloon payment then its fully paid and fully mine. Its cheap to run and I will keep it as my commuting car as long as it remains cheap to run. Can't wait to be car payment free!!!

wishingthemortgaheaway

DrSpendLittle wrote: »

p.s. I love your '100 payment countdown' - what a brilliant way of dealing with large debt repayments!!

Thank you 100x£400 payments seems a lot less than 8plus years. Not that it will be because I'm going to do it quicker.

Orange_Ena

Well done on your debt reduction this month, you're doing brilliantly :T

DrSpendLittle

Up unusually early this morning as my body clock has corrected itself from a week of getting up early for work. Its nice to have this quiet time before the hurricane that is DF awakes.

Just spent an hour or so tinkering with my ynab categories for this month and giving every £ a job - I did a biggish 'October' food shop yesterday (still September, oops) as I had to go into town anyway to collect a pressie from Waitr0se that I'd ordered from JL (also an October budgeted purchase but bought in September). I used my Partnership Card (CC1) for both purchases to get cash back, so I was able to balance the books this morning as October transactions before they had cleared and pay off the CC. Feels a little bit naughty but I saved on fuel and time!

I reeeeeeally want to make my CC overpayments today but I need to wait for the minimums to be taken, which will probably be Monday but who knows, its never the same day annoyingly. I will then overpay the remaining balance from my allotted CC payments for this month.

CC1 minimum payment will be around £6, so I will over pay £594 (something is wrong with HBOS online banking this morning so I can't see my precise details)
CC2 minimum payment will be £198.61 so I will overpay £101.39

I will hopefully get a reimbursement of £92.71 shortly to help shift the £114.58 of work expenses I've accrued this month that are sat on CC1. The remaining £21.87 still needs to be claimed but they won't be payable until the end of the month anyway. I may also have a further £28 of expenses appearing soon from a June work visit. This was dumped on CC2. I'll probably put that into my work expenses category in ynab to help cover any further expenses that I will accrue this month.

Awaiting £25.25 from TCB to clear in my bank account. That will be split £20 into EF and £5 into pressies (forgot to budget for wrapping paper and a card, doh!).

Expecting to be able to update my Short Term CC Goal to 44.08% shortly! :T

DSL :j

DrSpendLittle

Super exciting. Its my Second Credit Card Payment Day as a Debt Slayer!

Those CC numbers are beginning to look different compared to August when I had my LBM. This is all the motivation I need to stay on track.

This morning, I have paid £300 off CC2 and £600 off CC1. My new balances are:

CC1: £399.73 but I have £113.95 of work expenses sat on it so its actually £513.68.

CC2: £8,527.13. This card will never be used again. Its been the bane of my life since 1999 and holds all the bad debt memories. Can't wait to get it shifted.

Total credit card debt repayments since August's LBM: £1,763.33 which is 44.08% of my short term repayment goal.

Really pleased with these figures. I'd like to have paid £1000 off this month but I've had to put £100 towards a new boiler (£2220 now saved between DF and I) and £50 towards a big birthday. Still, I've paid cash for a new boiler and have enough money put away to pay for a big birthday that otherwise, would have been put on CC2.

I've also got some treats to look forward to this month: £21 on books (a new release I've been waiting for since mid September) and £30 on toiletries as I need some new foundation and other bits and bobs. I think its important to have small treats now and again so you don't feel like you're really scrimping but they must be budgeted and small.

Hope payment day is rewarding for all you fellow debt slayers.

DSL :j

DrSpendLittle

My current credit card debt is fairly imbalanced across my two cards.

CC1 was paid down this month by £600 to avoid interest charges as my 0% deal ran out but is now 0% until April 2018. The current balance is £399.10 with a limit of £11,750 so has a really low credit utilisation rate.

CC2 is on 0% until June 2019. The current balance is £8527.15 with a limit of £10,450 so has a relatively high credit utilisation rate.

I want to get an AIP in the new year as we're planning to move and I know that credit utilisation is something that they look at (its part of your credit score) but no one really knows how they use it.

My overall credit utilisation exc. overdrafts is roughly 37% and inc. overdrafts is 35%.

However, my CC2 credit utilisation is sitting at 82%

I don't want to pay any balance transfer fees BUT my question is:

Do I need to shift my debt around so my individual card balances are more evenly spread?

OR

Am I overthinking all this and should I just focus on paying off my debts as planned which, by January, my balances should be CC1 £249.10 and CC2 £5777.15

Thoughts welcome!

DrSpendLittle

Oooh, don't you just love getting paid interest instead of paying interest? It may only be a measly £1.25, but it's better than a kick in the teeth!

Up early again this morning though I think that was more to do with being anxious to see how Tom Petty faired overnight (big fan). Sadly he passed on. Music won't be the same without him. :heart2:

Yesterday I picked up a small item for the house on my way home from work, which came off my household misc. budget. Was only £15 and whilst unplanned, was something we had needed for a while and I had the budget to cover. Did a tiny top up shop of salad as DF didn't fancy leftovers and brought an alternative dinner home after work.

Working at home, probably for the rest of the week, and looking forward to some NSDs and saving on fuel and car parking. Need to make some celery soup as bought a load of celery from Aldi at the weekend that was going cheap. I can't see the need to spend any money over the next few days but we do have a gap on our meal plan for today. Will try to think of rustling up something with stuff already in.

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to October and continuing the debt slaying. Feel pretty positive after a successful September knowing I can pay £1,057 off my debts (inc. car payment) fairly easily and not really notice any difference in standard of living. I think this is because I decided not to scrimp on food and have no immediate 'needs' (though I must budget for a new pair of black jeans as the trouser situation is getting pretty dire).

The new boiler may need some remedial decoration around it once its fitted. I haven't budgeted for this. Will see how it goes and I can always reduce CC payments for November to cover it. Not expecting any other income between now and 30th October, apart from my expenses refund, so it will need to come off my debt repayment totals. I could use expenses refund since its already been cleared from CC by overpayment, but lets see how much it is first.

Right, on to the next coffee and a bit of brekkie before getting stuck into a day of work

Have a good one!

RIP Tom Petty :heart2::heart2:

DSL :j

DrSpendLittle

Had a NSD today. And a busy work day too, for that matter. Still, working at home is always nice.

Made some soup as I was cooking dinner - for the freezer for work lunches over the coming few weeks. Enough to feed an army by the looks of the final product! Still needs whizzing and sorting into batches. Will keep some out for lunch these next few days also.

Probably have a low spend day tomorrow. Need to head out to get some meat to make up a stir fry for dinner tomorrow evening as we've got all the veg for it. DF might do the shop, depends on what his plans are, if he does then it'll be another NSD for me.

Good news on the energy switch - we've got a £130 refund from our gas supplier, so that will either repay my work expenses early (so desperate to get CC1 down to its rightful £300 mark) OR put it in my household misc. category for the likely post-boiler remedial decoration works. I'll see what I feel like when DF transfers it into my account. Still not sure when my work expenses will come thorough.

Feeling generally good about debt slaying and looking forward to tomorrow (or midnight, depending on how late I stay up!) when most of my other direct debits come out and I can have a clearer picture of what I have to live on for the next few weeks.

DSL :j

DrSpendLittle

Ugh. Feeling a wee bit yucky this morning so taking the morning off work and waiting for medication to kick in so I feel better. Had a bit of a cold the past few weeks so I think my body is just wanting some down time now. Managed to eat some toast and take some pills, which have helped, and I’ve been catching up on diaries on here which I always enjoy.

Got an email this morning from my bank about a chaps payment but can’t see anything in my account. I wonder if it was for the payment I received last week or whether my expenses are finally coming through. Hmm. I will wait with bated breath.

Good news is my book - that I budgeted for this month as my little treat spend - arrived in the post this morning. I can’t wait to get stuck in!!

Right, I’ve subscribed to a few new diaries this week that I need to read from start to finish. Might do that with the rest of my morning off.

DSL :j