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

One-step-at-a-time

Number crunching time. My web hosting is due for renewal tomorrow and the pot is £23.23 short, £15 of the deficit is from helping out my Stepson with travel money when he came up short for a train ticket (I've written that money off), so I will be trying to make up the difference from surveys - I have just over £10 in my Circle account from my last payout and another £6.30 in Prolific, so I just need to find a few more to make up the difference.

I'm now at that limbo part of the month where I still have a reasonably healthy bank balance but can't make overpayments because it's all accounted for in various pots, and I don't want overenthusiastic debt-busting to leave me short. I'm less then £90 away from £18k paid off, and I would love to pass that mark by the end of November, but not if it means tipping into overdraft! One step at a time, one day at a time...

One-step-at-a-time

Happy Friday! Today I picked up a shiny penny that I found in the street today, and the old 'see a penny, pick it up' rhyme popped into my head. This evening, an item I listed for sale so long ago that I'd forgotten about sold, and if the buyer doesn't mess me around then the kitty will be boosted by around £80 after fees. I won't be doing anything with the funds until I know that the buyer is happy (been there, done that, been stung!), but it's exactly the kind of thing I needed to happen! Quiet-ish weekend should see a bit more progress being made at home, too.

One-step-at-a-time

Woah! I have done a swift about turn on my BCard zeroing plans. They have given me a new 0% offer for the first time in six years! This has put me in a MUCH better place. I've moved the interest-bearing part of my Hfax balance and (after working out what my payments would need to be to pay it all off by the end of the offer period) several £k of the other card that was at 4.9%. With fees taken into account that's more than £300 saved in interest over the BT period, and when my 0% rate on HFax ends in January I conceptually have more options to deal with it. OK, both current BT offers could evaporate next month, but for now I'm very happy indeed. It also makes it obvious where I should concentrate any overpayments in the next 18 months.

One-step-at-a-time

The worst thing about doing a large BT on a weekend: the money shows as added to the card it's being transferred to straight away, but there's no pending payment showing yet on the one it's being moved from. I'll be happy when it's all squared up.

Lunch has been made for tomorrow, now I need to pack the sold item to take to the post office in the morning and find a bit of motivation from somewhere...

One-step-at-a-time

The BTs have gone through! I cannot tell you how much more organised that makes me feel, and how nice it is that two of the three cards will have zero interest added next month.

Two weeks to go until payday, and there are a few unknowns up ahead - the overseas work trip is coming up and I will need some currency, though I can't sort my expenses until next month. The exchange rate is grim, a good 10% drop from last time I went there, in a country where food and drink is already a LOT more expensive than here. This may be the month I have to suck it up and use my overdraft for the last few days of the month, though I will do my level best not to go over. I've got £20 in my Circle account that I can use, and my Paypal account is looking healthy thanks to the latest gadget sale. but I will have to sit on that until I get word that the buyer is happy. Hopefully I'll know before I need the funds!

While I don't want to wish my life away, I cannot wait until the end of Feb when the big obligation ends and I can trickle a little bit more into the day-to-day budget. Even though the majority will be diverted to debtbusting, £25-£30/week will still make a heck of a difference.

One-step-at-a-time

Since I last posted time has flown. All of the travel and work stuff went well, and I have around £200 in expenses to reconcile next month. On paper the debt has gone up due to having to use the card, but it should get paid back to me in time not to be a problem.Three days to payday and £60 left in the bank - I'll need £12 for travel and possibly another £10 or so for food top-ups, so we've got through November intact; any positive balance will go straight to repayments. I'll update the spreadsheets and signature on Wednesday when the next round of debt payments get made.

One-step-at-a-time

i was up good and early this morning paying bills and updating totals. By the end of December I'll have reached 40% paid and total debt under £28.5k.

We have a bump in the road ahead - some ceiling repairs are going to be needed soon which aren't covered by insurance, and it's definitely not a DIY job - and I don't have anything like enough in the emergency fund to deal with it. it's likely to set us back several months, but there's no point stressing about it - we're in a really good place compared to a couple of years ago even though the numbers are still mountainous. All I can really do is keep chipping away, keep finding ways to earn/raise extra funds, and concentrate on overall non-financial quality of life (which is already pretty good).

I started on another practical declutter this week - DH has kept the packaging from pretty much everything we've ever bought in the attic, and has finally agreed that no, we don't need to keep boxes for things we no longer have/are years out of warranty/won't be needed to package ebay stuff. So I have already jettisoned boxes for an old computer, smoothie maker, coffee machine, rowing machine and floor fan :j

I have one ebay sale to post (negligible profit but another bulky thing gone), and a small job that will net me £75 (although the money won't materialise until mid-December), and it's the perfect time to readvertise prints for sale, so that's my plan for the rest of the week.

Chrystal

You're doing fantastically well on bringing the debt down :j and I totally agree that it's not worth stressing about work on the house that has to be done. It is what it is, and has to be accommodated.... plus all the stressing in the world doesn't make it go away!

Great that you're managing to declutter- it's definitely a 'feel good' factor (one I need to employ )
Hope you have loads of luck with selling your prints. X

One-step-at-a-time

It’s been aaaages since my last post! Some ups and downs, but things are on an even keel at the moment.
We managed to have a really good, relaxing holiday after Christmas - it was family-owned accommodation and self-catered, and we kept within our cash budget with £25 to spare. I’ve barely touched a computer other than for work purposes for several weeks, which has been very relaxing (though I’m looking forward to having a good catch-up/being inspired by other posts!)

Other than keeping an eye on daily account checks, I’ve given myself time off overthinking about finances..We decided to tread water in December so the debt hasn’t reduced, however as of last week I did the BT I needed to avoid anything shooting up to 18.5%APR. The plan now is to prioritise the card with an interest-bearing balance for the next eight months until the next 0% deal ends. Boosts to the funds over the next couple of months include the two month council tax gap (£450 total) and hopefully a £200 payment that’s been promised in February, plus I only have another two instalments of the £520/month obligation to go! I *think* I am also due a tax refund of between £50 and £100 this year, so with all that I should be able to make a bit more of a dent. Tonight I am checking my receipts against my SA spreadsheet, and with any luck I will get the tax return filed tomorrow night.

For the first time MSE’s card eligibility check is showing me as pre-approved for a new BT card so I will be investigating that (I still have a chunk of debt at 4.9%APR and ideally I’d like to lower this), but I need to put some time aside to look at the offer length and transfer fee and see whether it makes sense. I then need to decide how best to go about reducing my overall credit limit.

Post-holiday decluttering is going well. In the 48 hours after we got back I filled two charity shop bags, emptied the paper shredder three times over, filled another bag with trash, weeded and tidied my art supplies and Kondo’d my entire wardrobe (resulting in the dreaded ebay mountain getting even higher). I’ve borrowed a sewing machine to speed up clothing repairs, bought some superglue to (hopefully) extend the life of a pair of boots, and flattened all the gadget/appliance boxes that we actually do need to keep for now (gaining a couple of cubic feet of cupboard space in the process).
February is my month for revisiting all the utility/comms deals and hammering topcashback, so I’m trying to make the rest of January as productive as possible to clear a bit of mental space for that!

One-step-at-a-time

Last night was another pretty productive one - I tidied up the dresser in the bedroom and both bedside cabinets. DH was enlisted to help go through a couple of bookshelves. I've been holding back from tackling the bookshelves because so much of the stuff was his, turns out he thought most of it was mine! We've agreed that about 30% of the contents can be moved on, either to the charity shop or selling online. I've also warned him that I shall expect co-operation at some point soon on the clearing out of the upstairs cupboard that's rammed with old VHS tapes.
Then we braved the cold to fill the garden compost bin and put all the recycling out for collection, including a few massive cardboard appliance boxes from the attic.

Payday is on Monday and I still have a little over £30 in the bank, £6.40 left on a prepaid mastercard, a couple of quid in cash and £2.51 on the way from TCB (I'm waiting for another £24 to come through on TCB from an insurance renewal; with any luck that will show up in Feb as well).
I need to buy a chicken, a few bits of veg and some mozzarella for the weekend's food, but will have change from £10 for all that. Anything left in the bank on Monday will go straight to February's card payments.

My goals for February are:
Earn £300 from online sales
Deal with ALL the old VHS tapes
Get new deals for phones and utilities

The online sales goal may be a little lofty, but having a figure in mind is quite motivating.