Wandering on

System

Hiya,

So had lovely nephew cuddles. Feel very blessed. It is such a miracle.

Right so - DMP land. Checked my credit report and this is what there is:

PR* group - £ 10,867
Arr*w Global - £ 6,733
T*sco - £ 3,670

£21,270. Originally at default it was £22,017, so a measly £747 paid off. About 3%. A sobering read.

I am aiming to pay off in full - but have already been made some lower offers (I think the PR* group one has already offered me £4K less. But ultimately I may need a mortgage in the future and I'm hoping to clear before they will drop off my credit file in 5 years from now so probably need to pay off in full so they see i am good for the money again.

The advice in DMP land is to save up to pay off in 1 go rather than increase payments, and I've tried to find out what is better for ultimately getting a mortgage - paying the debt down as hard as possible, or saving up a bigger deposit (there's an opinion out there that you might as well just save up a bigger deposit as you'll get a rubbish rate of interest whatever you do.) so for now I'm just going to save up.

I might see if I can do 1% a month £213 - I'm already paying £100, so not too much extra to find, and then when we have a better buffer saved up in our household account, I will do more. I'll also get work expenses in from time to time.

Choccygirl123

Hi ramblehan, just popped in to say hi abd read your journey so far.

Congratulations on the house sale, that's amazing news and must be a huge relief.

You're making great progress and seem very organised. I love a good list but never revisit it to cross off my achievements - I think that's something I'll have to change.

System

Hey Choccy girl. A list can be a joyous thing. My best are the ones short enough to all be achieved in a very short time frame. They give the most joy!



Next jobs on the list are as follows:

[STRIKE]
• Organise redirection from old house[/STRIKE]
• organise new passport for DH before cost goes up in March - Waiting until 25th March payday
  [STRIKE]
• Sort out moving D/D's to new household account[/STRIKE]
  [STRIKE]
• Set up new YNAB budget for personal / household and DH spends[/STRIKE]
  [STRIKE]
• Find out DMP debt details and decide on a payback strategy

[/STRIKE]

So far so good. I also did a list on our chalkboard this week as have been too busy to check in here - mostly around moving d/d's to the new household account, which I have started, but there is a lot to do - and by gads it's a tedious bit of admin.

Discovered I haven't actually paid off one of the BC in full - which is why I have £1K in my current account - knew it had to come from somewhere. Now somewhat conflicted about whether to pay it off the CC, or keep it in the current account as EF (I will then have a £1K EF, and there;s a £1K EF in household account.) I'm going to hold off on this decision until the end of the month so I can see how this month goes - and what I may do instead is if I can pay at least £500 off the credit card out of the new incomings, i may just do this to pay off CC over 2 months.

Other positives - DH has started his new job - day 2 and all good so far. He's now on a tonne more money than before so so far all looking good.

I've also set up a regular saver from the household account which gives 5% interest on £200 a month so the EF will slowly transition into that and hopefully earn us a few pennies.

System

Gahhh - just had the ultimate bad news bomb. Checked final bill for elec from our old house - we'd had to put in electric oil heaters for last 6-8 weeks as it was empty with wood fired central heating and we were worried about damp etc.
BAD NEWS IS final bill is £480!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's even with solar panels on. That's basically a years worth of payment for just 2 months of heat.

Sighs....puts up hands....now I need to re-work everything! Bye bye EF!!
Hopefully final council tax bill won't be all bad news.
Did also have £58 of top cash back that I have cashed in, so that can be chucked at it.

System

Right just did YNAB, moved everything around. EF in my account (or BC final payment as it should be) is now £800 rather than £1K, and I've scraped across all the other budget bits and bobs to come up with the £460 to pay that bill on the 9th March.

Still got some set aside to do Mum birthday and eek also realised it's mothers day this weekend, so something for both mums. Have a 20% discount code I can use to make this as low spends as possible.

Food wise - I've got an internet shop coming tomorrow night - which is a big one with lots of store cupboard stuff, so with what we have in freezer as well we should be Ok for a while, and there's a bit left in there for milk and fresh stuff.

Also expecting in child benefit on 21st, and an interest payment from the money we have invested (£50??) and that's not yet spent in anyway so hopefully I can repay a bit of the EF from that. I've also got £130 pending on other TCB account but no idea when that will come in.

Right I'm going to sulk in bed!

System

So another weekend is nearly done and dusted. Nice time had in Rambledon. We've moved the chickens indoors (poor them, but no choice due to bird flu thingy), done som tractor repairs. Walked the boundaries and found a gazillion holes in the fence, and now got 5 mins of peace and quiet before the rest of the crew gets back from beating the boundary so have lit the fire and got a glass of red on the go.

Horrible electric payment has gone out. Got mother's day presents and a few others sorted - all with 20% discount so that's something and there was money in the budget for it so all good.

Been slowly moving more d/d's across to new household account but it's deathly boring. The ones I have left to do all have to be called up - so think that will be a job for next Friday morning. One to look forward to!

Food budget looking low, but shelves are full so should be OK for a while yet. Feeling bored of waiting for next pay day.

Poor_Single_lady

Sorry about the big bill. I would have sulked too. But at least you can pay it. And not reaching for a credit card.

And Happy Mother's Day. xx

System

Thanks PSL - that is all true. Hope you are well, and thanks for the mothers day wishes.

My DH forgot to do anything for mothers day - feels terrible about it, but I am totally not bothered. The sweetest thing was that my DD (she's nearly 3) came running out of her room shouting 'mummy mummy it's your book' and gave me the book they got me for last mothers day, full of inspirational quotes. There is no way she knew it was mothers day or could join the dots, she just did it, that was my beautiful gift!

System

What a difference 24 hrs makes. So DD had a terrible fit yesterday PM (she gets febrile convulsions) but was a bad one so we ended up in hospital. She had a runny nose but was bright and lively all day - it happened so quickly.

Relative also poorly so that's meant a couple of unplanned spends - as well as unplanned spends for us hospital parking, new thermometer as our super expensive one had broken - GRR so annoying, but can't live without it. Should get some money back from relative for spends on them, but not just yet.

Still waiting to find out what final council tax bill will be for old house - talk about slow!

Feeling more than a little bit Meh with with everything so need to focus on some positives.

Positive 1 - I worked out our DFD and updated my signature so taking more accountability for paying things down quicker.
Positive 2 - I have decided to aim to pay off the smallest debt first in full as this will hopefully show that we are making inroads into debt mountain (was previously thinking about chucking it at the biggest one). This will give me something to aim for, so going to see if I can set some goals around that.
Positive 3 - DD is OK and the fit was just a nasty episode. Relative too is improving.
Positive 4 - Going to look after my god kids at the weekend which will be mad but fun.

Right time to make some debt pay down plans.

System

So debt paydown plans as follows:

From end March payday - I am hoping to save a minimum of £150, plus the monthly payment I make of £17.40 towards this debt. I say a minimum as it is based on how much work petrol expenses I get - this does varies but the least I have had is £100, and then I have a £50 EF pot in my own personal budget. We also have a main EF and savings for birthdays / Christmas etc so I should not need to dip into this. The challenge will be to beat even this - so if I save money elsewhere in the budgets, I will turn that in, and I've created a 'Debt bust down' pot in YNAB right at the top and I will move the odd extra penny etc across to this when I can. My aim is to try and pay this debt off in the year - that's a stretch goal. I think I can comfortably pay off £2.5K - so the challenge is to see if I can do the whole of it. If I do, we will have cleared 21% of the debt this year as a minimum. Hopefully more.

I think I may get brave and post our new SOA soon. I am worried people will shout me down as I have put a lot of padding into our new increased budget to save up for all the things we should like Christmas and car maintenance, and a holiday fund. I know some people will think I should be prioritising the debt paydown more, but i think my goal right now is to strike a good balance, between getting it gone, and living a nice life. I spent 5 years of heartache hoping to have a child, and that was punishment enough - so I now want to enjoy her and my SS as they grow. The debt will get gone, but not at the expense of the every day.

A few further positives - I am using YNAB alot - so this is good. the new bank account arrangement should work well and give DH some financial freedom of his own. My mum bless her too, when I said i was going to save up for a Le Creuset first of all said she would buy me one but I refused as they are SO pricey (£150+) and then she went and got one out of her cupboard and gave it to me!

and the final biggie. When we started the DMP process, our joint income was about £25K, now it's well over £60K so that in itself is a huge step to sorting out this sorry mess.

Night night.