Adventure wanted, but first we must rid ourselves of debt

AdventureWanted

I'm pretty pleased with myself today, as I managed to sell a largish piece of furniture we haven't used in years. Even managed to carry it from our summer house into the hallway by myself prior to collection. Usually I rely on DH to do this kind of thing, but as he is working away it was really nice to realise that I'm more than capable. Even managed to mow the front lawn (really it should say jungle!!). It's given me a bit of encouragement to carry on decluttering & selling bits when I can. I might even get out in the front garden this weekend to spruce it up a bit. It's strange how a few small things going your way can change your whole day.

Money wise, I paid £13 to cc2 and 93p to debt savings yesterday. Today's offering was £30 to cc2. The money from selling the furniture is going to be put in our days out pot, which should cover any meet ups/days out during half term. I seem to be struggling again this month with the grocery spends. Part of it is because it's a long month, but in reality I think it's more down to my lack of organisation. I've been really organised this week whilst DH has been away, but need to continue it when he's home.

AdventureWanted

The DC are very excited today, as DH is home tonight after a week away. It's been ages since he's been away that long so the DC have struggled at times during the week.

Today we're hopefully going to pop to a garden centre to buy some bedding plants for our front garden. The front garden really does look awful. The grass is covered in moss, even though DH spent ages removing it all and reseeding it with shady grass seed. Sometimes wonder if it'd be easier just to pave it or use artificial grass, but it'd be really expensive to change. Hoping another grass cut, weeding and some bedding plants will make it look slightly more appealing!

Today We've paid £400 off CC2. Luckily DH did additional hours at work prior to his week away, so we've managed to use part of this money and a hmrc refund to pay extra off the debt. Should be able to get CC2 paid off next month, which will be a massive relief!

So far this year we've paid £7,020.60 off our debt. This is such a horrific amount of money. I'm pleased we've paid it back, but slightly kicking myself for getting into debt in the first place and having to spend so much money now on it.

enthusiasticsaver

Brilliant progress you have made since you started your diary. Reaching 50% of your target more than a month early is great. Presumably you are aiming to have around £18k credit card debt by end of the year?

AdventureWanted

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Brilliant progress you have made since you started your diary. Reaching 50% of your target more than a month early is great. Presumably you are aiming to have around £18k credit card debt by end of the year?

Thanks. I think we will manage to get to just over £17k by the end of the year just paying our regular payments. I'm hopeful that by selling some our clutter and DH doing a few extra days at work each month that we may be able to get to £15k. I'm mindful that I need to up our emergency fund, so might use a proportion of any additional money from July to top it up. At the moment the EF is at £1,032, so my next target would be £2,500, but ideally I'd like to get to a minimum of 3 months salary saved.

AdventureWanted

Yesterday I sold some old slimming world books for £10. Glad to get rid of them, as I don't have enough space on the bookshelf. That's £52.50 extra made in the last week from selling stuff I don't want .

Today I've transferred £30 to CC2 and £5.13 to debt savings (this will go towards the variable rate mortgage at the end of the month). Tomorrow is pay day . Looking forward to doing my debt roundup for the month. I love seeing how much the debt has reduced by and although it still seems like a mountain to climb it does make me appreciate our efforts since our LBM and does give me hope for the future! Cannot wait to be debt free and start saving for the future (as well as being able to tick travel locations off our dream board).

We didn't manage to go to the garden centre yesterday, although I did manage to mow the lawn again. Hoping to attempt some gardening today and might pop to garden centre later if I get a chance (and the DC are willing!).

AdventureWanted

I've just finished reconciling the bank accounts to ynab. I find it ridiculously satisfying to have it all in order! (How sad am I!! :rotfl:).

Anyway today is payday :j, so I've just made my usual payday payment of £325 to CC2. Also made a payment of £1.78 to debt savings. These are my final debt payments this month, so my debt now looks like:-

May 2018 debt figures
CC1 - £0
CC2 - £995 (Woohoo it's under £1k :j)
CC3 - £10,220
CC4 - £12,090

Total debt at 30/5/2018 - £23,305

CC2 should be paid off next month, which means I can then start working on CC3. The debt repayment will most probably start slowing down a bit from July, as i would like to boost the EF.

Goals for rest of 2018
• Get EF balance to £2500.
• Get debt down to £17,000

enthusiasticsaver

I love reconciling our accounts too but use clear checkbook and spreadsheets so don't think you are sad at all. Getting rid of 2 credit cards this year is great. When do the 0% deals on CC3 and CC4 expire?

AdventureWanted

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I love reconciling our accounts too but use clear checkbook and spreadsheets so don't think you are sad at all. Getting rid of 2 credit cards this year is great. When do the 0% deals on CC3 and CC4 expire?

CC3's 0% ends Dec 2019 and CC4's in Oct 2020. Definitely want to be debt free before Oct 2020. I'm currently aiming to be debt free by the June of 2020, although would love it to be sooner.

AdventureWanted

Putting my debt round up so far here for days when I'm having a wobble and feel down.

Total debt at 30/5/18 - £23,305
Total debt at 27/4/18 - £24,997.50
Total debt at 29/3/18 - £26,305
Total debt at 27/2/18 = £27,920
Total debt at 31/1/18 - £28,992
Total debt at 31/12/17 - £30,581.60
Total debt at 30/11/17 - £32,130
Total debt at 30/10/17 = £35,163

October 2017 was a low moment, as poor planning meant I had to take out an additional cc to pay off our car balancing payment and DH's ptr balancing payment. Since then I'm pretty pleased with the direction things are heading in. I think this journey has made me so horrified at the amount of money we are spending repaying old debts that I don't ever want to be in this situation again.

Will be happy to get rid of all CCs (expect our Tesco card which we buy shopping, fuel, etc on each month for Clubcard points and pay off each week).

enthusiasticsaver

Wow! £12k almost repaid since last October. Keep it up. If your aim is £17k by the end of the year that is more than 50% of it gone.