£50k to zero - made it across the finish line

One-step-at-a-time

Morning all!

I had a night off from overthinking. Did a quick yellow label check on the way home, hoping to find some salmon, and got enough for dinner for a mere £1.14! Also picked up 16 wholemeal tortilla wraps for 48p, which is enough for 3 weeks of work lunches if I freeze them. This is the only money I have spent this week

Today before work I did one of the balance transfers:
Step 1: Move £2k from 4.9% for 18 months to 4.9% for 2 years - Done
Step 2: Use the space freed up on card 1 to move £3k at 17.9% from card 2 back to 4.9% for 18 months on card 1. In order to to this I had to order a replacement MBNA card because the Halifax doesn't let you do a transfer without having the card expiry date, which I no longer have as I stupidly destroyed the physical card before making a note of it (that won't happen this time though I WILL still destroy the card). As long as the card is here before the end of the month I have time to do this.
This will leave only £2061 at 17.9% by the time the March statement arrives.
It all makes more sense on my spreadsheet, which I've now added extra lines to and put in order of APR and expiry date and colour coded so it's patently obvious where the priority is for any spare money I get (I do like spreadsheets and card tetris).

The only thing I have to do today is get together a couple of bank statements and do some printing for a meeting tomorrow to figure out the debt-to-be situation.

strawberryfield2233

Good progress!
Oh and enjoy the Salmon very good bargain that!

One-step-at-a-time

Today's find - I'm currently paying £18/month for my phone SIM. I can move to £12/month which includes twice as much data as I ever use, and has £45 back through topcashback, effectively bringing the phone cost down to £8.25/month (and if I chuck that £45 cashback at MBNA it will save me a further £8 in interest over the year on top of the extra £6/month that can go elsewhere). If there is no small print to contradict me, I think that sounds like a plan!

One-step-at-a-time

Holy moly! Turns out the new mobile deal may also qualify me for a prepaid £60 BT reward card. I like today!

savingholmes

Sounds like a great mse day to me... Keep going...

One-step-at-a-time

Today is the day I will hopefully get confirmation of the number to be added to the debt.
Breathe, drink coffee, eat breakfast, and don't panic.

strawberryfield2233

Whatever that figure turns out to be you say you can cover extra £400 per month without changing anything, so I would hold on to that thought, hoping it will be the lower end figure but if not you will be ok according to your SOA, All the best.

One-step-at-a-time

Thank you for the good wishes Strawberryfield2233

Well, we won't know for sure until the submission is made and accepted, but it appears to be as good as I could have hoped for! My accountant is confident that we're at the lower end and that it'll have to be paid off with an initial sum and the rest over a year. I was (unrealistically) hoping for 18-24 months, but a year isn't impossible.

This means with the sum I can offer upfront taken off, the payments *should* be around £475 per month, and I may be owed a rebate from another period that could offset the total by as much as £700. So all being well I can say goodbye to this chapter by next March, and be back on track again!

Right now I'm aiming to tweak the SOA by £100 per month, starting with the £6/month I've just saved on the phone bill, and while I'm waiting for the paperwork containing the scary number (which should be prepared by Tuesday) I'm going to go into eBay dynamo mode, and see if I can't kick-start this thing by a couple of hundred quid.

strawberryfield2233

Hope it all gets confirmed soon

Tahlullah

Fingers crossed it goes your way.

Tx