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

One-step-at-a-time

All going well so far this week. I've had time in my breaks to reorganise my home office from top to bottom and have moved a few things around - the flow feels a lot better now. The room will never be minimalist (too many hobbies/too much side hustle stuff for that) but it's looking reasonably smart. The remaining bugbears are the things that don't belong in an office that still need rehoming - our ebay & Marketplace stuff is taking up most of a shelf and there are some repairs in progress sitting around. Most of that will hopefully be out of the way within the next week or so.
The best thing so far this week has been hitting 85% paid.

Re: the 'which credit card makes the most sense for us' debate that's been going on in my head (and on this diary) over the last couple of months, I made a decision. I am still very much inclined to keep hammering the debt at the current rate, as quick payoff still feels a lot better than dragging things out for longer than is absolutely necessary. Part of the decision is also the recognition that while we are spending all of our time at home is the easiest time to keep the payments high (although we are absolutely not going to start running to pubs & restaurants when restrictions lift). 
So instead of the no-fee 0% BT card and smaller payments over 18 months, the decision was made to go for the Sbury bank Nectar card for groceries instead, and continue with the original plan to be debt-free before the end of October. 
I'm still mildly horrified by how easy it can be to get credit, and have been given a frankly insane limit automatically as there was no field to request a specific amount, so I'll be reducing this to something sensible at the earliest opportunity.

There is a qualifying spend of £400 for a bonus £50 in Nectar points in the first two months. Normally the Sbury's portion of our shopping doesn't exceed £120/month so this may seem like a tall order, however we can front-load it with all the cupboard supplies/cleaning products for the next several months making use of the 0% purchase aspect, pay it off at the rate of the normal grocery budget allocation, and have everything squared up by June at the latest (I'll be adding this to my spreadsheet). Basically it's a slightly convoluted way to make a bonus £50 towards our normal food shopping, and will help to boost our points slightly on an ongoing basis.
We will obviously still need to keep a very close eye on the deferred maintenance tasks I referred to before, and tackle them in as timely a manner as we can, but hopefully we'll be able to shoehorn the essentials into our budget - and if anything does threaten to derail us, we still have a number of options (including as a very last resort the 0% purchase element of the new card which we have available for 17 months). I'm definitely not worried about that being a slippery slope - over four years of repayments I've not had a lapse in judgement over credit, and I'm far too incentivised by the thought of sticking all the post-debt money somewhere it can start working for us - sliding backwards is NOT part of the plan!

One-step-at-a-time

Working into the evening on the side hustle admin. Two new jobs on the horizon so the potential post-tax bonus income for March/April is around £300, which would be a nice boost for the savings/maintenance pot. Occasionally I could still kick myself for not waking up financially years ago, but as I keep telling myself, the past is done and not worth spending my finite mental energy on; what matters is now.

One-step-at-a-time

Thank you OH for repaying me for some fuel I paid for earlier this month - I'm ending the month at £7500

One-step-at-a-time

Happy Monday all! Decent weekend here - moved on with a few small projects, posted an important letter, got a few hours of gardening in, and otherwise just sat around talking and watching films with DH.
On the financial front, I put up more for sale, have a bid on one of last week's items that finishes today, and had a nice surprise when a large bill was less than I'd budgeted, so I'm ahead on the annual bills pot and have paid a bit more off CC4. Looking ahead to being sub-£5k now and will be pushing hard to get there before the May payments go out - it means making an extra £550 during March and April which is a stretch, but I'm up for the challenge.

One-step-at-a-time

Cracking start to raising the extra £550 - I am £135 up today from two sales Let's hope the rest of this month brings more of the same!

One-step-at-a-time

Money through from the first (cash) sale which I've paid in and knocked off the total. Tomorrow I'm heading to the post office with the other items which have been paid for, and I'll change the sig numbers again once they've been safely received. 
Feeling quite upbeat and buoyant today. I don't want to get complacent about any of this because none of us ever know what's waiting around the next corner, but with every payment made I feel a little bit lighter and more optimistic.

remote_control

I love the positive energy! I want some!

One-step-at-a-time

Have to admit the positive energy has had a bit of a wobble the last day or so, but only because I had a couple of stressy things on at work. All good now, though.
My new card arrived today and I've registered and activated it and already used it for a small food shop. I remembered to check my Nectar offers before I went out and picked up 300 extra points on beef and eggs (which were both on the shopping list anyway). The transaction is pending so I can't clear it off yet. I'll be clearing the card as I go until I reach the point next month where we will need to use the 0% spending offer on advance grocery shopping in order to bag the £50 bonus within the two month deadline. Once that's cleared it will be back to purely 'pay as you spend'.
Another £20 off CC4 today too, so not bad going there. £430 in overpayments left to find by the end of April.

One-step-at-a-time

Back after a lovely screen-light few days. I spent the vast majority of the weekend outside, and if how much I'm aching is anything to go by, good progress was made! Making a plan for the garden has been one of the best things I've done for a while as I'm going out there with a specific purpose each time and generally doing a bit more than I had planned each time. Planning to be out there at lunchtime for a concentrated 30 minute burst.
Money updates:

• Today a missing cashback claim got updated; only £4.42 but still useful.
• With the latest OP, CC4 is down to a round £1000.
• No selling updates at the moment, but there is a £1 final fees offer that doesn't expire until midnight tonight so I should be able to get a few more things listed.

Dottles1

I think a garden plan is what I need One step.  At least then I can write a list of jobs needing doing a complete as and when I have time or weather allows.  At present all I seem to do is think about it.