Why the **** did I move to Nottingham!

MindOnMyMoney

Long story short, I was offered unpaid training by a friend in a field which interested me. I was self employed and living in Glasgow at the time, so I thought I'd relocate, carry on my self employment when I land in Nottingham and use that to fund life.

Then life threw spanners in the works, laughed, and said no.

So here I am. Living in said friend's (dad's) spare room, super thankful every day that they're being super charitable and not taking a penny from me in rent...... but I've been here four months now and just started a new 'regular' job, so it's time to do the SOA, 'fess up to my sins and face the long slog to getting my independence back.

****!

SOA.

I have four weeks of full time income during my work training period then I'm down to my contracted 25hrs per week, so right now it looks something like his:

4wk @ £8.5ph x 7.5hrs per day x 5 days pw = £318pw before tax / ins/ pension
Then
25hrs pw @ £8.5ph = £212 before break deductions, tax etc.


My current outgoings are:

Travel to work £22pw
£100 PCM to Bank of Mum (total debt £800)
£100 PCM to HMRC (£700 left to pay for 16-17, need to find my log in details to see what I owe for this year )
£25 PCM to Vanquis credit card (£385 outstanding)

SO, the plan is, skim along for as long as I'm welcome here paying everything I have to try clear these debts before I then start saving to get a place of my own and start all over again.

I know I can do it, it's just..... lets say a smidge stressful.

Hi everyone. Thanks for reading my whining x

savetosave

Hi
Are you being paid weekly or monthly?
Would your parents let you miss a month so you could pay off your credit card first?
Do you not have any other expenses at all?

Starmummy

good luck on your journey

MindOnMyMoney

savetosave wrote: »

Hi
Are you being paid weekly or monthly?
Would your parents let you miss a month so you could pay off your credit card first?
Do you not have any other expenses at all?

Thankfully I'm being paid weekly. As for skipping some months of paying my mother back, that's not an option, I don't want to burden her commitments with my c**k ups, but it's manageable for now.

At the moment all my expenses are listed above - except from hostel payments. I need to book hostels for two saturdays of the month when the local bus service doesn't get me to work on a Sunday morning.... but now that I've passed training I expect I can pull in some overtime to start making that up.

Starmummy wrote: »

good luck on your journey

Thank you Starmummy ^_^

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary

MindOnMyMoney

I'm exhausted. The commute to and from work takes up a minimum of 3hrs a day, getting overtime is competitive and restrictive in that if I DO take overtime there are times when I can't get home until midnight thanks to the limited bus service - but I'm juggling it.

This week I set up Chip to take deductions from my bank each week, something less for me to consider.

With all the overtime I had been doing up until a fortnight ago (I ended up doing so much I made myself ill) I had wittled down the debt on my mums credit card to £130.......... Then....... one of my (three) cats a vet appointment which leads to surgery, which leads to £550 back on the card.

I've just logged in to my Halifax account to write up a new SOA BUT my details aren't available at the moment, so lets improvise.

I'm going to pay all but £100 of whatever is in my account, which I expect is around £400, to my Vanquis card because despite my monthly payments and having not used the card at all since before April, my balance has increased - so that needs to get gone ASAP.

My HMRC payments are still being taken so that's fine for now, but after Vanquis, it has to be the next thing to go.

x

enthusiasticsaver

Vanquis is normally very expensive. What interest rate are you paying? Has it increased because the £25 is not covering the monthly interest?

You also need some emergency savings so you are not tempted to put things like vet bills on credit cards.

A 3 hour commute sounds awful but I guess for free rent it is worth it for now. Moving nearer to work when you are financially straight sounds a better option. I too would suggest a full soa but build in an emergency savings amount as well. Also work the soa on a monthly figure by multiplying your weekly contracted wage by 4.3. If the HMRC and mum repayments are non negotiable look to use the overtime to clear Vanquis and start saving.

Good luck on sorting this out. It is relatively low debt so sortable especially with low outgoings. To get financially independent though you will need a full time wage.

MindOnMyMoney

I'm annoyed to admit that I'm unsure of the interest rate. I've so many boxes in storage since moving home that I don't have the paperwork of the initial agreement immediately to hand. That said, now that my bank details are visible again I've just paid £295 to the Vanquis, leaving me £100 in the bank until Friday. I'm not too concerned with that as I have no further purchases or debits to make before then.

So, as it stands.

Cash in bank £100
Vanquis outstanding - £100
HMRC - £500
Mum's credit card - £680

I know this isn't the most interesting of DFW diaries, but knowing that it's here and that nice folk can chime in with pointers and advice helps.