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

Chrystal

That's great news :j

Sounds as though things are starting to really work out for you. X

One-step-at-a-time

Thanks Chrystal - it all keeps ticking over as long as I keep my eye on the prize!
Hubby left yesterday for his work, I will see him briefly over the weekend and one day next week, then he's away until the end of the month, so my grocery bill for the next few weeks will be minimal.

This month my big expense is that I renewed my expired passport - this may seem bonkers for someone trying to hammer down debt, but there is a very real possibility that I will need it in November for a work-related trip, so it's a gamble I'm happy to take. Including special delivery to return my old one this has set me back around £82. I've worked out that the overtime payment should come to around £120, so I will be no worse off from doing this at the end of the month, and it does open me up to some opportunities.

Now for the 'thinking out loud' portion of the post...
My weekend financial review reminded me that I have only four more CC payments until the 0% BT expires on my Hfax CC, which means that I need to be prepared for £4k rocketing back to 19.9%apr.

Unfortunately I still have £950 on there at 4.9%, so the payments of £200/mo I am currently making are all going to that, and the £4k won't have shrunk by the end of January.

My MBNA card has been giving me slightly better offers recently, the most useful being 3.9% with no fee for three years, most of the balance on that card is split between 0% and 4.9% (with all payments going to the 4.9% portion, same as Hfax)

So I've decided (which may or may not be a good idea, we'll see) to cut Hfax to minimum payments for the next 4 months, and pay the >£100/month that will free up to the MBNA card. Accounting for interest being charged to that card, I will still have lowered the balance by £1100. This will mean that by the time the 0% runs out, provided that I am still able to get that 3.9%BT offer, I will have space to move more than £2k of the high interest £4k on to MBNA. If I can't move any of it, I'll realistically be looking at accruing another £300 or so in interest before I can pay it off, moving my DFD back by a month.

That's quite enough mental gymnastics for one day, I reckon

One-step-at-a-time

Another week with very little time to sit and have a breather. Really not a lot to update on the financial front. I have around £60 in travel expenses still to go before payday (I hate that the commute has doubled in cost, but I should at least start getting some of the difference back shortly), and £50.40 to go out from a print order that I made last week, balanced with £77.20 in the bank, £30.62 in cash and £13.40 in my circle account. So basically about £10 unaccounted for in case I need food top-ups. It's just about doable. I would have left myself with slightly more wiggle room had I not got overenthusiastic and made a £15 overpayment to the CC this week before balancing my budget - oops. Still, better an overpayment than a frivolous spend, and payday is early this month as the 28th falls on the weekend, so only the next week to get through!

The one thing I haven't done at all well at this month is raising extra money, and it's now looking highly unlikely that I will manage to get anywhere near my bcard overpayment target - still, there's a chunk of October left, so it's not completely impossible.

Task for the next week:
Work out the fine details of November/December's budgets and figure out how I'm going to deal with the temporary expenses if the November work trip happens. Wow this is a dull update!

One-step-at-a-time

Well it's all gone slightly pear-shaped over the last few days - there was one eating out incident, plus I'm feeding four extra people for three nights this week (long story!) meaning that my remaining money has evaporated. I've borrowed £50 from myself in order to ensure that I avoid the overdraft, as although I will get paid back for the extra expense, it won't be this week. It's a bit silly really as I would be overdrawn by so little and for such a short time that would only incur about 10p in fees, but it's more about the stubbornness - I have successfully avoided using it for well over a year, so I prefer to behave as if the option isn't there.

One-step-at-a-time

Payday is tomorrow and we've made it through nearly unscathed - the overdraft klaxon has not sounded There is enough food in the house to get through the weekend. Hubby is due back from work on Monday night, and I have a quiet Saturday and Sunday to myself so I can *finally* get caught up with everything. My feet have barely touched the ground for the last couple of weeks.

The trip in November is definitely happening, I get to go to a couple of towns I've never been to before and work in a couple of really nice-looking venues. The up-front expenses will be in the region of £300, but it's legit use of the credit card that should be paid off before I have to start worrying about it.

One-step-at-a-time

Today I passed £17k paid :j :j :j

Working_Mum

That is a phenomenal result One Step.

You should be very proud of that!!

Keep on trucking lol

One-step-at-a-time

Nearly in to another month! All I've spent since payday last Friday is £20 out of the food budget, and other than groceries, there are no spends planned at all this week other than car hire for the work trip, which I shall book through whichever combination of topcashback/heathrow rewards/holiday extras/hire comparison sites works out cheapest. I need to sit down and sort that out this evening. Yesterday evening was an entirely computer-free night, which was lovely, but tonight I would like to get a bunch of loose ends tidied up, including updating YNAB (we will definitely not be doing anything Halloween related, there's neither the budget nor the inclination!).

I'm waiting for a couple of Prolific surveys to pay out so I can cash out and pay a tiny bit more off the CC. My Bcard is under £800 now, and although my pie in the sky plan to pay it off by Christmas is not looking great, if I get a BT offer back on my MBNA card next month, I should be able to do enough of a card shuffle to zero it that way before Christmas. That will take me down to two cards with balances on them and I can review my payment priorities again.

One-step-at-a-time

Happy Friday everyone! What a gorgeous day. I think I'll be spending my lunch break having a walk in the park and having soup and some nice crusty bread when I get back.

This month I am trying to keep the food costs right down because December is looking to be a bit of a money pit. We want to do a fair bit of travelling to see people, so although Christmas for us is usually very inexpensive in terms of gifts (token presents for immediate family only; it's all about company and food), we do spend a small fortune on fuel in the few weeks beforehand, and it's going to be a challenge to do that and still knock £1k/month off the debt, but I'm determined to not let things slip.

I'm thinking that regardless of selling fee offers, this is going to be a good week to make the big push on ebay listings. I've got more than 12kg of Lego still to sell, plus several very nice pairs of shoes and another pile of clothes, so there's potential to raise upwards of £200 from that lot. Best get moving!

One-step-at-a-time

Plodding along - when my latest payment clears tomorrow I'll do the next BT - the penultimate one on Bcard before zeroing it! It's going to be so great to see 'minimum payment £0. on *something*! I know I'm just shuffling money, but having only two cards with debt on will feel a lot more manageable

Trying to be as unspendy as possible this week after overspending the 'per day' budget on Saturday with an unplanned £17 spend at Nandos between the two of us. As we need to go out tonight, I got up an hour early to make dinner to save time later (and avoid the eating out gremlins). All done and I was still early for work.

Last night I managed to get plenty of ingredients to last the week on yellow and orange stickers, so the grocery budget has also picked up a bit of the slack.