Right, lets do this!

DebtFreeFrog

Hi Everyone. :wave:

Welcome to my diary.

After a few years of coming on here and reading everybody else's diaries I have decided to start my own, as people on here have become debt free and I'm still where I was about 4 years ago.

I am 28 years old and live with my partner (who is amazing with money)
I have gotten into this mess by unnecessary spending and have absolutely nothing to show for it.

I'm hoping that by having a diary (even if nobody reads it and I'm talking to myself) it will be useful to see everything in writing and will help to keep me motivated and finally get rid of this debt. :j

The main reason that I haven't made any progress so far is that I decide to get rid of the debt, overpay by an amount that I cant afford and then have to use my credit cards because I've got no money left.:mad:

So my new approach is that slow and steady wins the race.

Overall Debt is £8199.31:eek::eek:
Breakdown
Lloyds £3080.00 0% until May 2019
Virgin £5119.31 :eek:
£416.49 0% until Mar 2018
£1557.00 0% until Oct 2018
£857.82 0% until Nov 2018
£2288.00 0% Until Dec 2018

Safe to say my first target is going to be to tackle the £416.49 amount.

On the positive side all Christmas Shopping has been done now :T and I have managed to save enough money to pay my Car Tax in one payment which I'm really happy about. :j

Now my focus is purely on debt busting, so lets do this.

DebtFreeFrog

First Payment made on my new shiny diary £19.49
Overall Debt is [STRIKE]£8199.31[/STRIKE] £8179.82
Breakdown
Lloyds £3080.00 0% until May 2019
Virgin [STRIKE]£5119.31[/STRIKE] £5099.82
[STRIKE]£416.49 [/STRIKE] £397.00 0% until Mar 2018
£1557.00 0% until Oct 2018
£857.82 0% until Nov 2018
£2288.00 0% Until Dec 2018

MeenaM

Hello and good luck!

are you paying the minimum on all the cards?

well done on paying for christmas already

enthusiasticsaver

At least there is no interest being paid so far on them. To clear it all by May 2019 it would be £455 per month.

Do you have an emergency savings account?

DebtFreeFrog

MeenaM wrote: »

Hello and good luck!

are you paying the minimum on all the cards?

well done on paying for christmas already

Hello.

Thank you. It's going to take a while but I'm determined to stick to it this time.
I'm currently paying the minimum on the Lloyds card for the time being and trying to overpay on the Virgin Card

Thanks. I feel like I can look forward to it abit more because it's all paid for.

DebtFreeFrog

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

At least there is no interest being paid so far on them. To clear it all by May 2019 it would be £455 per month.

Do you have an emergency savings account?

That sounds like a lot and completely unachievable

I currently have £200 saved of which around £140 is for my Car Tax.

Ideally I would like to put up £100 a month into an emergency savings account and maybe take slightly longer to pay my debts but I don't know which is the best way round to do it.

enthusiasticsaver

I would say if you have no emergency fund and are still getting 0% deals then putting £100 towards the emergency fund and paying minimums until you are up to around £500 sounds sensible then maybe drop to £50 a month until the fund is £1000. The deal which expires first should be your target so you are correct to start with the £397 from Virgin.

How much can you afford to pay to the cards each month if you are putting £100 into an emergency fund?

DebtFreeFrog

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I would say if you have no emergency fund and are still getting 0% deals then putting £100 towards the emergency fund and paying minimums until you are up to around £500 sounds sensible then maybe drop to £50 a month until the fund is £1000. The deal which expires first should be your target so you are correct to start with the £397 from Virgin.

How much can you afford to pay to the cards each month if you are putting £100 into an emergency fund?

Thank you. Yes that makes a lot of sense.

An absolute minimum of £150 a month and then hopefully extra payments on top of that.

I've also been working on cutting down my monthly direct debits. . So far I've cancelled a few things that I don't need and my car tax will go after this month once paid fully. Unfortunately I'm locked into a contract with my until December 2018 but as soon as that's up I will be switching to SIM Only.

enthusiasticsaver

That sounds good and means at least the Virgin £397 will be repaid by March. Do you know where your overspend areas are? Food, takeaways, holidays or clothes?

There is nothing wrong with slow and steady and if that keeps you from using the credit cards eventually you will get there. Along with debt busting though there needs to be a change of attitude to spending to live long term within a budget. Initially it is boring every payday to work out how much all the bills are and how much you need to set aside to cover food, fuel, entertainment and annual expenses but eventually it will become second nature and you will know when you are buying something you are using your money and not the banks.

I would suggest you set yourself small targets like identifying one of your overspend areas and try to keep within a budget for it for the first month. Not easy coming up to Christmas but that is the time to do it when the temptation to overspend is strongest.

DebtFreeFrog

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

That sounds good and means at least the Virgin £397 will be repaid by March. Do you know where your overspend areas are? Food, takeaways, holidays or clothes?

There is nothing wrong with slow and steady and if that keeps you from using the credit cards eventually you will get there. Along with debt busting though there needs to be a change of attitude to spending to live long term within a budget. Initially it is boring every payday to work out how much all the bills are and how much you need to set aside to cover food, fuel, entertainment and annual expenses but eventually it will become second nature and you will know when you are buying something you are using your money and not the banks.

I would suggest you set yourself small targets like identifying one of your overspend areas and try to keep within a budget for it for the first month. Not easy coming up to Christmas but that is the time to do it when the temptation to overspend is strongest.

I would say food- not household food as that comes out of our joint account, but going to the shop whilst I'm at work and buying things when I've already got a perfectly good lunch in my bag. This needs to stop and is probably where a lot of my overspending comes from.

I am quite prone to spending too much on people over Christmas however I have done all of my Christmas shopping now so no more spending on presents allowed :rotfl:

DebtFreeFrog

Another small payment off Virgin £9.82
After advice yesterday I've started an Emergency Fund. £10 has gone in there today.:)

Overall Debt is [STRIKE]£8199.31[/STRIKE] £8170.00
Breakdown
Lloyds £3080.00 0% until May 2019
Virgin [STRIKE]£5119.31[/STRIKE] £5090.00
[STRIKE]£416.49[/STRIKE] £387.18 0% until Mar 2018
£1557.00 0% until Oct 2018
£857.82 0% until Nov 2018
£2288.00 0% until Dec 2018

Emergency Fund £10 :j

Payday in a couple of days :j