Tidying up the mess

BabyStepper

Hello lydia42. It's good to meet another babystepper. Isn't Dave R great?

It seems very sensible to pay off the debts in the order you mentioned. Hopefully you won't have to apply for any more cards ever again. 0% deals, balance transfers, transfer fees and juggling credit cards are all a pain in the neck. I will never forget the day we just decided not to do that anymore. We are stopping where we are and paying everything off. No more gut wrenching anxiety wondering if your application for yet another card would be accepted and what it meant about me, my credit rating and my future if I was declined, and how excited and pleased with myself I was when I got another 0% deal. It took someone like Dave to come along and say 'this is stupid' before I even recognised the madness of it.

Also to say, I completely respect other people are doing this differently, but these are my thoughts.

All the very best with it Lydia42. I wonder if you have a diary and if I can figure out how to find it?

BabyStepper

Thought I'd do a quick post this morning to try and keep me on track today. I'm having problems with the Halifax bank who seem to have 'lost' a faster payments transfer I did at the weekend. £260 just did not show up in another account. I have phoned them 6 times in the last 2 days and will need to ring again this morning as the cash has still not appeared. They are aware of the problem and are trying to fix it but that is no help to me when I am juggling the tightest budget in the world and need my cash to be where it is supposed to be. So infuriating.

None of my 3 invoices have been paid yet for this month and I am also due a small amount for some mystery shopping I did last month. I'm getting obsessive about checking my bank accounts waiting for money to show up. I think we need a buffer in the bill paying account to cover this.

I have also been reading some diaries and am gobsmacked by how many people almost become debt free and then within a month or 2 of debt freedom take out a 4 year car loan. It reminds me so much of myself, thinking that reducing the debt means it's alright then to take on more debt. It is so hard to change when we just want things.

Lydia42

BabyStepper wrote: »

Hello lydia42. It's good to meet another babystepper. Isn't Dave R great?

It seems very sensible to pay off the debts in the order you mentioned. Hopefully you won't have to apply for any more cards ever again. 0% deals, balance transfers, transfer fees and juggling credit cards are all a pain in the neck. I will never forget the day we just decided not to do that anymore. We are stopping where we are and paying everything off. No more gut wrenching anxiety wondering if your application for yet another card would be accepted and what it meant about me, my credit rating and my future if I was declined, and how excited and pleased with myself I was when I got another 0% deal. It took someone like Dave to come along and say 'this is stupid' before I even recognised the madness of it.

Also to say, I completely respect other people are doing this differently, but these are my thoughts.

All the very best with it Lydia42. I wonder if you have a diary and if I can figure out how to find it?

Hi BabyStepper
I saw you found my diary. I've subscribed to yours to help motivate me.
I agree Dave Ramsey is very good. He makes me chuckle when he tells people straight that they need to stop making excuses and get themselves sorted. I've made so many excuses myself. I'll admit that things aren't going to plan at the moment what with school trips (my son is moving up to secondary school so they had a lot of trips planned to celebrate) and car expenses. Also just found that our shower has been leaking too, so we need to sort the tiles out as water is running down the back of the bath and has damaged the plaster. However i still feel having done a zero based budget, like Dave R suggests, i am clear on exactly what i can tweak or cut back on to try and manage things. The next few months are going to be tricky and tight as we get our heads around everything, but i really feel like we can do this.

I'm going to close accounts as we clear them, and drop the over-draft limit as we pay the last of it off so we're not tempted to use them again. Like you i don't want to live with debt anymore.

I think if you need the motivation of seeing the smallest debt cleared first even if it isn't the highest interest then that is what you should do for now to start your journey and keep on track. There is no reason you can't change tactics as you go and focus on interest rates once you have a few successes under your belt :j

Hope your missing money appears again soon. Have a good day x

BabyStepper

I have to agree Dave R is hilarious at times. Call the 'wah-mbulance' because you're not getting to go on holiday this year, so funny. We already had commitments planned when we started this process, days out and stuff we had arranged to do with friends and family. We decided to do these things anyway rather than let people down, but tried to do them more cheaply and will be planning differently in the future.

I can't yet get the hang of zero based budgeting. There is always something I haven't thought of that needs some extra cash later in the month. I'm practicing though.

Someone is interested in buying my dress after only 2 days of advertising it. I've sent her some more pics and hoping she gets back to me. OH has bought some paint to spray his bike then that can go on sale too.

Small win with Halifax after lodging a complaint about my missing money. £50 paid into my account for the inconvenience. Great stuff. Still no sign of my actual money reappearing but the wait is easier.

The mystery shopping cash has appeared. Also good news.

I need to wait until I have my £260 back and until my big invoice is paid on Monday before I can clearly see how much can be paid off the Hitachi loan this month. I'm hoping it will be a good sized payment though and the official start of baby step 2.

Lydia42

Call the 'wah-mbulance' lol. He cracks me up.
'You aren't gonna see the inside of a restaurant unless you're working there!!' lol

Like you, we already have commitments. Luckily a lot them them have already been paid for, so things to look forward to as we cut back.

I'm on my first month of zero based budget. Definitely a learning curve and is going to take some time to get it completely right, but i have a section for miscellaneous, and am listing the things so that i can see what we paying out for eg. my daughter has a cub trip in Sept which we have only just been told about, but they needed paying last week so they know numbers and can book it.

It's definitely a work in progress. I see a podiatrist as and when i need to but when i went over our bank statements it didn't show as i always pay cash. So this has been added so i can see i will need to include it in the budget. Anything i know is coming up in future months will be added to the relevant month/tab on excel to remind me to budget for it as we get paid that month - eg. i already have school shoes and my brothers birthday listed on August tab so i can budget on pay day.

Awesome news about the £50 payment for inconvenience. Fingers crossed the £260 turns up soon.

BabyStepper

I think I need a spreadsheet too. I'll maybe try and talk OH into making one for me. I'm in my third month and still coming up with yearly bills I hadn't thought of, got an email saying our cat needs her booster jag, but I've managed to put it off until August 1st so it can go on next month's budget. Maybe it'll take a whole year to figure it all out but I'm going to keep trying.

I got some mail from Lloyds today, they are changing the conditions of my credit card and there are pages and pages of info and a booklet to read through. The main thing is that they will be increasing my monthly payment, no big deal because it is currently the lowest of them all, but it felt harrassing, getting a letter about how I manage my credit card and how they anticipate me struggling to pay it off. They gave me the card, they told me what the conditions are, I have stayed within the terms and conditions ever since I had it, less than a year, and for the last 4 months they have been charging me interest and so making money. It made me so worried I almost changed my plan and thought about paying them off first to get it out of the way.

Then I remembered another Dave R quote about how to pay off debt: 'follow the damn instructions!'

And the instructions are pay them off smallest to largest. But it will be a good day when I get Lloyds bank out of my life forever.

BabyStepper

£260 showed up again in my account so it's moved to the right place. Progress.

I messaged my wedding dress buyer and she said she is waiting for her husband to decide about buying it. Doesn't sound like it is for her wedding if she already has a husband, or even like the sale is going to happen. Who knows what's going on there.

Nothing much else to report.

BabyStepper

I keep checking and rechecking every single bank account and linked savings account, every single day, all day long. Not sure what I'm looking for but its started to feel obsessive.

Anyone else have a similar problem?

[Deleted User]

Morning,

Just wanted to wish you luck on your journey x

katsoocam

BabyStepper I do this, look pretty much everyday, don't worry it's normal! If you get a spreadsheet with all your bits in it does really help - especially because then you look at how much you owe every time you pay something and work out what percentage you have paid off. If you have a bit of free time on your hands it would be a good thing to occupy yourself a bit. I'm a MFW not a DFW (we do have debt but two 0% payment things which we have the money to pay in a high interest account).
Have you looked at your energy deal and things like that yet to pare down your monthly expenses?x