Adventure wanted, but first we must rid ourselves of debt

Rachel24

Not long and you'll be in the teens :-)

enthusiasticsaver

AdventureWanted wrote: »

Yep both on 0% deals. CC3 ends Dec 2019 and CC4 ends Oct 2020.

That is good. With 17 months to go on CC3 and 27 months on CC4 it looks like they will both be cleared within the deal period if you keep up same debt reduction.

AdventureWanted

No pads for me today, but when checking my bank account I can see the tax refund pending and it's more than I expected . After a frantic 10 mins checking online that I didn't have to pay the balancing payment after all, I've realised that it's correct! :j I didn't add on the previous balancing payment made to the refund figure (I thought they'd already done it!). So if it clears tomorrow I can add to the EF and pay a bit off CC3, as well as some of DH's course CC. :j:j:j Cannot quite believe it!!

abba1772

That's fantastic news I love surprises like that xx

AdventureWanted

Morning :wave:

I'm feeling pretty good this morning. The tax refund has cleared, so I've sent £500 to CC3, £955 to the EF and £1,000 to DH's course CC. I also put a bit aside as we need to get a new shed soon .

CC3 is now in the £8ks (£8,925) and the EF is up to £2,800, so I've hit my first goal of having an EF of £2,500 :j.

DH's course CC is currently on a 0% deal which ends in Feb 2019 and with my payment the balance is now £4,400. I most probably won't mention his CC too much, as I keep it separate from my figures, but it's nice to see it coming down. He's also got another 0% CC he used for the rest of the course fees which runs out next year, but he'll be balance transferring that when it runs out.

Revised 2018 Goals
1) Get EF to £3,800.
2) Get debt to £18,000 by the end of the year.

AdventureWanted

Just realised that my total debt is now in the next bracket - £20,755 :j.

angela110660

Have lurked for ages and am a well wisher. Just a quick comment re your shopping budgets and nappies/pull ups. Have you tried Aldi brand as my grandson has been in them for quite a while and they are really good and very well priced.

jwil

Great news on the tax refund, and you are so close to being under £20K :T T

Further to angela's comment, we use Lidl nappies/pull ups and they are brilliant and much cheaper than the branded ones.

AdventureWanted

angela110660 wrote: »

Have lurked for ages and am a well wisher. Just a quick comment re your shopping budgets and nappies/pull ups. Have you tried Aldi brand as my grandson has been in them for quite a while and they are really good and very well priced.

Hi Angela, thank you so much for posting. I've tried the pull ups before for DC2, but never tried the nappies. In fact I used to always get the pull ups as they were so cheap, but the last couple of months I've been a bit lazy and just grabbed some from tesco (Tesco brand not huggies pull ups). Will definitely try the nappies. Thanks .

jwil wrote: »

Great news on the tax refund, and you are so close to being under £20K :T T

Further to angela's comment, we use Lidl nappies/pull ups and they are brilliant and much cheaper than the branded ones.

I've never tried Lidl nappies with DC3, but I think I will try some other brands. I've just had a Tesco shop delivered and had to get more nappies. Spent £18 on two packs of nappies for DC3 (around 144 nappies). Such a high amount of money. In fact my whole shop was pricey, especially seeing as I didn't seem to buy much! I think food shopping is my main headache. I struggle so much to keep it within a reasonable budget. I always think a budget of £300-£350 sounds reasonable, but last month it was over £400. Today's shop cost £55.22. £18 of that was nappies, milk came to about £9 (6 x 6 pinters - we fill the freezer with milk), we'd run out of maple syrup which set us back £5, but other than that it was orange juice, bread, teabags, cereal and not much else. My delivery saver plan at Tesco ends at the end of August, so I'm not going to renew it and instead try Lidl and aldi. Hopefully it'll make a difference to the price. So far this week we've been using up freezer meals I'd previously batch cooked, which has been a double win - it reduces the freezer contents and means I don't have to cook . Tomorrow DH is Home, so we've got another freezer meal to use up (carrot & chorizo), whilst the DC have fish fingers, mash & beans.

I do find this debt journey a massive rollercoaster ride. It seems to be all consuming. Even when I've paid off large sums of debt, the remaining balance is still staring at me making it still seem like such an uphill battle. Oh well, tomorrow is another day! I'm sure my mood will have changed by morning and hopefully I'll feel more chirpy again!

AdventureWanted

It's been another hot day here today. DC1&2 has swimming lessons today, which was almost unbearable. We nipped out with DC3 for part of the lesson to get a cold drink, but the cafe wasn't any cooler. No air con and loads of wasps :eek:

Afterwards we went to look at some sheds (gosh I live an exciting life! :rotfl:). Need to double check measurements tonight and then we can hopefully order it tomorrow/Saturday. As the shed shouldn't be quite as much as we anticipated DH bought a new toilet for our cloakroom to replace the one we've got in there. All highly exciting!! Really hoping DH can get on and do some diy this weekend, although the main problem we have is which of the many jobs to do first. It's definitely times like these that I wished I was capable of helping/doing it.

I've rounded down the bank account and paid £6 to CC3 and 34p to debt savings. I updated my debt spreadsheet this morning and things are definitely heading in the right direction. Unless a miracle happens I think our dfd will be Oct 2020. Going to try my hardest to reduce this, as really want the debts gone ASAP.