Adventure wanted, but first we must rid ourselves of debt

AdventureWanted

Woohoo it was pay day today. I love pay day as it means I get to pay a larger sum off the debt. Today i sent across £325 to CC1. Cannot wait to be debt free and have all those debt payments I’m currently making as savings for adventures/the future.

In other news a 4 night holiday we booked pre LBM has gone down in price by £100, so we’ve been refunded this. DH thinks we should spend it on meals out, as we’d previously already spent it, but I’m not sure I want to waste it on food! It’s nice knowing that we have more spending money than I originally thought and will be nice to not worry too much about money. (Although I don’t intend on going nuts and wasting money).

Debt at 29/11/17
CC1 - £1,170
CC2 - £7,150
CC3 - £10,940
CC4 - £13,000

Total debt - £32,260
Debt at 1/11 - £35,163 (paid £2,903)

AdventureWanted

Yesterday was a NSD as DH had to borrow my car, so we stayed at home all day. Today has also been a NSD, taking it to 9 NSD’s for the month. I didn’t make the 11 that I wanted but I’ll try and achieve it next month.

Today I’ve paid £130 to CC4. The dd for this isn’t due to come out until 10th Dec, so I’m glad I made the payment manually today. Is nice that the balance has finally moved!

So month end round up:-
Debt at 30/11/17
CC1 - £1,170
CC2 - £7,150
CC3 - £10,940
CC4 - £12,870

Total debt at 30/11/17 - £32,130
Debt at 1/11/17 - £35,163 (paid £3,033 this month! :j)

Pauper1

Just came across your diary and wanted to say that you've done amazingly! You've paid off so much since August!

We are hoping to HE our DC as well (depends on my MH really) so I've been reading those bits with interest.

Good luck with the rest of your DFW journey. I've subscribed

jwil

That's an amazing amount paid off, well done :T You are nearly into the £31ks :T :T

AdventureWanted

I’ve had such a busy weekend. We are off on holiday tomorrow (only mon-fri), so this weekend has been spent catching up on the mountain of washing. I didn’t realise I was getting behind until DC1 said he didn’t have any pants! He’s such a monkey though, as he gets changed at night and seems to hide his clothes either under the bed or on the landing somewhere!! We are 90% packed for tomorrow, just the final bits to grab in the morning. Not sure who is more excited about the holiday, me or the kids. DH had the day off today and it has been glorious. He looked after the DC so I was able to spend all afternoon packing, putting away clothes, putting washing on and sorting through DC3s drawers to remove 9-12 month clothes and put 12-18 month away. I know this sounds like such a dull afternoon, but it has been fantastic to achieve so much in a day and also to have a little bit of time on my own!

Anyway on the money front not much has changed. Made a small pad of £7.70 to CC1 taking the balance to £1,162.30. Tomorrow the dd should come out making it just that bit closer to £1000.

I’ve been thinking lots about debt payments and emergency funds the last couple of days. CC1 & CC2’s 0% deals both end in July. CC1 should be paid off by March, but I’m pretty sure we won’t be able to pay CC2 off on time. My latest thoughts are to balance transfer CC2 nearer July and then try and get a decent emergency fund together. DH is self employed and it is slightly concerning that we have no savings, so if he wasn’t able to work for a few weeks we’d be pretty stuck. The problem is that I really hate being in debt. Everyday I open ynab to update it and the figure is always there reminding me of how far we have to go. Saving £2500 would be brilliant, but in a way it feels really odd to do so when we have the debt and I guess I think that if needed we could always get a money transfer to help with any money issues. Obviously I know this isn’t how I should be dealing with it, as this is pretty much how we got in this mess to start with. So basically I’m not sure whether to throw all of CC1’s payments at CC2 when it finishes or to use that money to get a good EF. Would love people’s thoughts on this.

I’ll be awol next week, but hopefully can update before we go tomorrow.

AdventureWanted

Pauper1 wrote: »

Just came across your diary and wanted to say that you've done amazingly! You've paid off so much since August!

We are hoping to HE our DC as well (depends on my MH really) so I've been reading those bits with interest.

Good luck with the rest of your DFW journey. I've subscribed

Hi Pauper :hello: Thanks for stopping by my diary. For me HE has been the best decision for us. DC1 did reception and yr 1 at school before we were brave enough to HE, but I’m so glad we did. It’s defintiely challenging at times having the kids with you 24/7, but it is also so rewarding and the best thing is seeing DC1 & DC2’s relationship getting stronger. DC2 always wanted to play with DC1 after school, but he was never really interested, however now they are always playing together and really have become really close friends not just siblings.

I hope you make the right choice for you. Remember even if you do send them to school you always have the option to HE later on. Likewise if you HE you don’t have to do it forever, school is always there as a back up.x

AdventureWanted

jwil wrote: »

That's an amazing amount paid off, well done :T You are nearly into the £31ks :T :T

Thanks Jwil. Have been looking at our spends for this month and with Christmas we will save money on DC1&2’s swimming lessons, as well as not having to spend quite so much on fuel, as many of the kids clubs are ending until Jan, so I’m planning on paying off that money we’ve saved to CC1, so fingers crossed should be in the 31s tomorrow and hopefully around £31500 by the end of the Dec.

PurpleFairy26

Hey AW just thought I'd give my views.... well done on the debt repayment in such a short time. on the EF point, I know what you mean about getting rid of debt, however, what you don;t want to do is ever have to use the CC for an 'emergency' if you can help it. So building up, even a small EF is well worth doing. When we had some cc debt still, we started £30 a month, after a few months moved it to £50 and then £75. When we are finally DF I'll be increasing it further.

If it helps, I used a 'NET' position, so I took my EF off my total CC, therefore it seemed to help, IYSWIM.

It was amazing how quickly it built up, meaning if you needed a new fridge, vacuum etc... you wouldn't have to slash CC payments that month, you could just dip in your EF.

Hope it all works out for you . Purps.

AdventureWanted

Hi Purps, thanks for stopping by and for the advice. I think I’m definitely going to set an emergency fund target for next year.

Thought I’d do a quick post to update finances. Luckily have got a good phone signal so can still check my bank whilst on holiday. We went out for a fantastic lunch today which was pretty expensive (£54), but luckily it’s covered by the £100 refund we got back when our holiday price reduced. Will be going out for a meal Friday, but have £25 vouchers towards it, so hoping that we won’t go over the £100 this week. If we do I have another £150 in the holiday account, but was hoping to use this towards a holiday next year. Holiday has been brilliant so far - lots of walking and DC1 & 2 have been doing lots of biking. In other news both need bigger bikes, as they really are getting too small. Hopefully there might be some second hand ones up for sale soon.

Yesterday I made a pad of £81 to CC1, as well as the £50 dd coming out. Today I’ve been reevaluating the budget and have managed to pay an additional £32.30 off CC1 meaning the balance is now £999 :j:j

Debt at 5/12/17
CC1 - £999
CC2 - £7,150
CC3 - £10,940
CC4 - £12,870

Total debt - £31,959
Debt at 30/11/17 - £32,130 (paid £171 this month)

Really pleased to be under £1000 with CC1. Hoping to have this paid by end of Feb/beginning of March, so that I can then start to reduce CC2.

Plan is to reduce CC2 to around £5,500-£6,000 by July and then hopefully get a balance transfer. I’ll then concentrate a bit more on getting a decent emergency fund in place.

AdventureWanted

Current goals (hoping to achieve by end of Dec 2018):-

• Debt below £20,000 (currently £31,959)

• Emergency fund of £3,000 (currently £151)