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

Dottles1

Good to see you back and re-motivated. This money crunching is hard work and sometimes we all need a break to take a rest and recharge. Looking forward to reading how you get on.
Take care and happy debt busting

One-step-at-a-time

Hi all! Long-ish time no post...

We've been plodding along - had some not-great news last week with the passing of a friend. It was not expected and feelings are still raw. The funeral is in a couple of weeks.
I'm not going to dwell on the sadness on here though - will stick to MSE things for the purposes of keeping posts upbeat.

The debt total hasn't altered for a couple of weeks, though I have £20 just in from an eb4y sale and around £8 pending in Prolific so I will be able to make another tiny dent soon and get fully back on the case by the end of the month. Payday is tantalisingly close now, it really has felt like the longest month ever!

I scored a very nice freebie on FB marketplace at the weekend - something that was on my 'someday' wishlist, but with a retail price of £65 and not a priority item, it wasn't going to be bought any time soon. Pretty pleased about that. My desire to spend *anything* is so low these days, but I get very excited about useful free stuff that was already on my radar at full price!

One-step-at-a-time

Evening all!

It's been a good day and I'm home nice and early. Payday has dropped at last, and I am celebrating it by buying....nothing The pension payments have started going out, but I have got over the initial wincing at the smaller pay cheque and am thinking about the greater good.

I'm planning on having as close to a week-long run of NSDs (other than the one planned supermarket trip) as I can. This month is budgeted down to the last penny, and there is really not much wiggle room at all, but both DH and I appear to be in planning and problem solving mode at the moment. It seems to be the case that every few months I get a renewed case of turbo-charged determination, and it came along and kicked me in the butt today. If previous form is anything to go by, April should be very productive!

One-step-at-a-time

I had an absolutely glorious sleep last night, probably caught up on the whole of last week!
Spreadsheets and totals have been updated today. I am now less than £3k from the halfway point! I'm not sure how long it's going to take to reach it, though - for the next few months I am likely to be treading water; we have some expenses coming up which will mean not really making any headway; payments will be cut to minimums for a while to make sure that we have money in the bank to deal with new payments rather than needing to add much more to the debt.

I spent £24.50 on some side-hustle related stuff which was necessary for moving forwards, but was also half of my 'spare' cash for this month, so I'm trying to earn it back via surveys. I'm not doing badly so far; up to £17.16. I'll cash out at £25 which will hopefully be within the next week.

I'm still finding it stressful to spend money on anything at all that isn't debt reduction.
I almost prefer the days of not being hypervigilant about spending, not least because of how painfully aware I am of how much money has been wasted in the past.

On the plus side, DH finishes paying back the family loan for our replacement old banger this month, so from May onwards he'll have a sorely needed £250 extra available to service his card.

Not anticipating being around much this month as the nose will be to the grindstone, but I'll be back if anything 'newsworthy' happens

One-step-at-a-time

Nipping back in to report something newsworthy!

Side hustle has netted me £1k pay, half paid today, the other half coming before the end of the month. This is from a job I did last year that was originally going to pay £2-£400, but there has been some extra usage. Currently a bit gobsmacked about this, and naturally over the moon, as it will offset some of the expenses of the coming months nicely.
Celebrated by spending nothing and looking forward to the debt total going into the 25s for a bit

Other than this one thing, it's been an uneventful and frugal week - I've clocked up a week of NSDs (packed breakfasts and lunches).

The next couple of weeks - well, I'm preparing for a bit of an emotional wobble. Our friend's funeral is on Wednesday, and then next week my Dad and one of my closest friends are having surgery within a couple of days of each other. Although April is zooming by already I just want it to be the 19th already. Don't care about Easter, just want the medical stuff to be done and for them both to be recuperating!

Kitten868

Hello there,

I've read your diary and I'm so impressed with you. I can't keep up with all your balance transfers and I'm in awe that you haven't been complacent with moving it around which is always hard. Moving money is the same as paying it off, right? So double impressed. I think you're getting to the planning stage. Theres more than debt going on here and you're getting better 0% offers in just the 2 years you've been tackling the debt. You've got the mortgage and pensions to think about too.
Have you found out about your employers pension offering? How high will they match it to? 5%? You really need to work out how much it would cost you and how much it would benefit you. I am not perfect and only started being able to afford my pension recently (thank you kids!) so please don't think I'm being preachy. I think you feel pressured to not prioritise savings and pensions which is why I'm saying it. Plus now the millstone around your neck is gone there is room for movement.
I'm certain you can do this: you're so determined xxx

One-step-at-a-time

Hi Kitten868,
Thanks for taking the time to wade through all that!

The pension contributions actually started going out last payday. I think my employer matches at least 6% - once I get the activation key for my online account through the post I will be able to verify that.
This month onwards I'm adjusting to the debt repayments dropping 20% per month due to the pension contributions - it's definitely worth it, though.
I don't give the mortgage much thought at the moment as it's small ( <10% of house value) and has less than nine years left to run - I do want to pay it off early, but not start attacking it until the card debt has gone completely.
I think my last post may have been a bit misleading; when I say I resent spending on anything that isn't debt reduction I only mean unnecessary consumer purchases, not savings! The savings are at a dribble, but they do exist - as well as the EF and all the household pots I have £50/mo going somewhere I can't easily get at it, so it will gradually build, and next January we *may* choose to do something non-MSE with it if we are really in need of a break by then.

BabyStepper

You're definitely doing the right thing with your pension. Long term, all that free cash from your employer will really help you, it's just short term it's not so great for debt busting. But we're playing a long term game here, I remind myself of that daily. And congrats on the unexpected £1k, great windfall, does that cover most of the shortfall from pension contributions? Hope so.
Keep going. You're working miracles and doing so well.

One-step-at-a-time

Morning all!

Thanks BabyStepper - the 1k after tax is equivalent to more than 5 months of pension contributions so it's definitely helped my mind to settle

We haven't really got much done this week - the funeral really knocked the wind out of our sails, the circumstances are just so sad. I don't want to dwell on that here, though.

We're planning a quiet weekend (which should bring us to 12/14NSDs in the last two weeks), and the only planned spending before Easter is a top-up of food shopping (milk & eggs). Lots of small, non-stressful jobs to do around the house and garden so I will be hauling my backside off the sofa shortly!

We're away for one night over the Easter weekend which will involve fuel and a meal, but both are budgeted for. I've managed to drip-feed more money into various pots and should end the month with a small surplus.

Two unknowns next month - our energy price fix comes to an end so I will need to start shopping around again (via TCB of course), and pay anything outstanding, and I've received notification of the annual dividend from a tiny number of shares I have. Last time it was about £14 so I'm not exactly holding my breath waiting for it, but whatever arrives will be allocated to something sensible

One-step-at-a-time

Happy Easter weekend everyone!

I'm doing a bit of cooking in preparation for today's road trip. Picnic lunch planned. We've got a few places earmarked to potentially stop off en route depending on timing & traffic. Tonight's do is catered so we just have our small drinks budget. Yesterday was a brilliant gardening day and I got loads done, although I stayed out there too long and got eaten alive by midges :mad:

I had a shock when I looked at my credit report (habit when I get the monthly email through). My score had plummeted, and I mean nosedived by nearly 200 points, which although irrelevant to me in real life, was a bit of a red flag - when I looked at the credit balance it was almost 9k higher than it should have been! Turns out the report was run mid-balance transfer so all the money I was shifting around got counted twice :rotfl:

My last two payments for the month go out on Tuesday, payday is Friday and I have more than £45 left for the week excluding travel, which is the best I've done for a few months.