Tidying up the mess

DD265

Sounds good! :beer:

BabyStepper

DD265 wrote: »

Sounds good! :beer:

Thanks DD265, I think it is all good, I just need to try and believe it.

BabyStepper

Something amazing has happened, OH's aunt has has gifted us £2,500! :T:j I can't quite believe it but it appeared in our bank account yesterday so is definitely real. Me and OH were in complete agreement that we need to use the bulk of it to pay off the interest bearing debt. There will be some leftover that we need to think about what to do with, but we can hang onto it until we decide. In the meantime, she is being allowed home for Christmas which is just lovely, and she seems to be doing very well!

Time for an updated list of debts in an effort to wrap my head around this latest development. Maybe it's a Christmas miracle?

BabyStepper

[STRIKE]Barclaycard (1) £1,953.21 16.9%[/STRIKE] PAID OFF
[STRIKE]Lloyds (1) cc £327.99 17.9%[/STRIKE] PAID OFF
Barclaycard (2) £517.12 0% March 2019
Santander cc £3,197.29 0% Dec 2019
MBNA cc £5,360.27 0% Feb 2020
Barclaycard (3) £1,250 0% Feb 2020
Hitachi loan £633.00 0% March 2020
Overdraft £2,000 0% Sept 2020
Halifax cc £3,065 0% Oct 2020
Lloyds (2) £907.57 0% Nov 2020

Total £16,925.25 :beer:

This includes minimum payments for December so is pretty much the total for the end of the year. We have paid off £4,302.82 since May and are now paying no interest. This is looking just amazing, I'm in total shock :eek: but in a good way.

I'm wondering if we should just save the remaining £200-ish to pay off the next Barclaycard when it becomes interest bearing in March. I don't think I can overpay it now as it would probably go to reduce the longer term balance of £1,250. I don't know how this works, I'll maybe phone them.

I'm not expecting anything else to change before the New Year so this is it. Sub-£17k as we head into 2019. I'm resisting the temptation to try and forecast a DFD. I'll maybe just do it anyway.

Happy day here!

Moneywhizz

That is a lovely thing to do and great that it means you are paying no more interest. Hopefully it means you will never have to pay any more interest if you can aim to have the cards paid off as the interest free period comes to an end. Great boost for you.

enthusiasticsaver

What a lovely relative. I would keep the £200 approx aside in savings until the next tranche of interest bearing debt needs clearing so Barclaycard 2 in March. Looks like that and Santander will be your focus for next year.

DD265

I'm really pleased for you BabyStepper. The gift and being able to pay those cards off must be a massive relief, but even more so that OH's aunt is able to spend Christmas at home.

This is how Barclaycard allocate payments, according to their current T&Cs:

If a payment you make is less than your total outstanding balance as shown on your statement, we’ll use it as follows:
• If you have any instalment plans on your account, to make any instalment plan payments due for that month
• To reduce your main balance (your statement balance less any instalment plan balance). We’ll start with the balances charged at the highest interest rate first and then reduce the lower-rate balances. If you have more than one promotional balance at the same interest rate, we’ll use your payment to reduce the balance with the promotional rate that ends first
• If you have any instalment plans on your account, to reduce any remaining instalment plan balance. If you have more than one instalment plan, we’ll use your payment to reduce the instalment plan that ends first

If the standard balance includes default fees, we will pay those off before the rest of the
standard balance.

So based on that, I think you should be OK to pay it off now but if you can trust yourself not to touch it unless in an emergency, I'd hold off to clear the balance at the last minute.

BabyStepper

It really was a lovely thing to do and the whole family are so pleased she is getting home for Christmas. What a boost for us, I still can't believe it, the payment to Barclaycard is now showing on the cc account, will need to wait for Lloyds to update though. Total relief to have this sorted out.

DD265...thank you for taking the time to find that info and post it here. Hugely appreciated. This means we will probably go ahead and just start making overpayments to BB2. I didn't like the idea of having to save up to pay this off, when we have cash to pay off the debt I just want to get it done NOW!

Which made me start thinking about savings pots for other things and trying to feel more stable and secure. We have the emergency fund in DD's savings account. He has another unused account so he renamed it 'Christmas fund'. I then renamed mine 'car fund' (one day) and we are using another account for 'house maintenance'. The car fund is for the future but no harm in making token payments now to get us going.

We could use the 2 months' council tax holiday to pay £340 off BC2, and only need to find £180 from our wages by March. I hope to get it paid off before this but worst case scenario it will still be paid in time.

Then yes enthusiasticsaver, Santander will be the target. The difficulty here is that the MBNA deal ends 2 months after Santander so really we will have a mountain to climb trying to pay these 2 off next year and into 2020. We're talking more than £8k. :eek: We may well end up having to do a balance transfer when the MBNA deal ends, but I'm trying to take it one step at a time. First things first, BC2. In the meantime, the extra £200 is in the house maintenance fund.

We coloured in another 4 sections of the thermometer yesterday. That felt amazing!

enthusiasticsaver

Starting up savings pots is a great idea and even making token payments until you are in a position to pay more builds up over time.

I would not worry too much yet about the fact you have the Santander, MBNA and the last Barclaycard all finishing early 2020. That is more than a year away. You had cleared more than £4000 between May and September ignoring this latest windfall and yes you may need to do another balance transfer but I would just focus on getting the debt down as you have been doing to keep the BT fee as low as possible. You will hopefully be at or close to £10k debt so affordability should not be too much of an issue. As you say one step at a time.

It looks like any extra you overpay will come off BC2 so it looks safe to do that. Lovely to have your DHs aunt home for Xmas too.

BabyStepper

enthusiasticsaver...I hadn't even noticed that Barclaycard 3 is due the same month as MBNA, so that's 3 cards with 0% deals expiring at roughly the same time. So we have a little over £9.5k to find in the next 14 months. Hmm...unlikely, but that won't stop me from trying.

Wonder if I have anything else to sell?