Tidying up the mess

BabyStepper

Thanks efes shareholder. After a quick look locally for ladders, they are all more expensive than the set I have seen in Argos. They might be cheap rubbish but they just need to do this one job. I think I could probably sell them easily once we're done, and maybe even for the same amount of cash we bought them for. I will get the quote from the decorator this morning so we'll see how much we can save doing it ourselves.

OH has signed up to the local Uni's psychology dept to be a guinea pig, it involves a few tests and will bring in some extra cash. He was quite excited about it.

I'm also wondering about getting the interest bearing debt moved to a new 0% card. We were trying not to apply for any more cards, but it is going to take a long time to knock the Barclaycard down and it might make sense to try and get the interest bearing part moved. I don't really want to, and am also not sure if either one of us have good enough credit, but it's something I'm thinking about.

Nothing much else to report on at the moment. It's getting chilly here but we both have winter coats in good condition so that's an expense saved.

GlendaSugarbean

Can you ask around to see if anyone has a ladder you can borrow? If not, an extendable ladder is actually a very useful thing to have in case of needing to patch up windowsills or clear the guttering. So worth the investment?

BabyStepper

Yes, borrowing things is something I'm definitely for and you've just reminded me my friend has a ladder, I'm just not sure if it's an extendable one. We have an ordinary A frame one, it's just not long enough for one small section of the hall, even when teetering on my tiptoes on the very top platform. All these high ceilings, how we loved them when we first looked at the house, what a hassle they are now. I'll ask my friend about his ladder in the next couple of days.

I've also been doing some more sums about student loans. Sorry to bore you all with this, but I think the Dave Ramsey method does not translate over here regarding student loans. My previous calculations were wrong, OH won't be paying back until he retires, it'll only be until he is 58 then the loan gets written off. This means it would be very silly to try and pay the whole amount back and would cost us around 10 thousand pounds more than we should actually have to pay. Even with several pay rises, OH won't have to pay it all back.

Executive decision made by me and OH to stop tracking the student loans for either of us, accept the hit from his wage every month and focus on the credit cards, overdraft and Hitachi loan. Realistically my student loan will have expired before I'm making enough to repay anything, but even if I did it would not be the full amount.

We will need to redo our thermometer wall chart. And I am about to post a revised list of debts excluding the loans.

Note to self: do not get caught up in indecision and change my mind about this. The decision has been made. The loans have been ignored for a long time, if it wasn't for Dave they would still be getting ignored, so just write it off. It was worth it so we could both have careers we enjoy, and we can be wealthy without paying these things off.

BabyStepper

Hitachi loan £759.60 0%
Lloyds cc £1,285.20 mostly 0 % but 403.68 @17.9%
Overdraft £2,000 0%
Santander cc £3,300.29 0%
Halifax cc £3,177.69 0%
Barclaycard cc £4,437.09 mostly 0% but £661.46 @ 16.9%
MBNA cc £5,109.60 0%

Total £20,069.47

Lydia42

Well done sticking with your diary and not smoking BabyStepper. Just seen your balance update. Wow that looks so much better excluding the student loans which as you say can't be dealt with at the moment. That must make it look more manageable :-)

DD265

I think most of us ignore our student loans to be honest. Mine will be paid off in full in 9 years at the current rate of repayment. I guess at some point when I've sorted everything else out, I may consider overpaying, but given 'everything else' will involve credit cards, a house, a car and home improvements - plus potentially maternity leave - that might take 9 years anyway!

Certainly my student loan is so cheap and because it comes straight out of my salary I don't notice it too much except when I give my payslip a cursory glance.

redmel1621

I agree about not counting student loans in your debt figure.

1, it comes out of your pay the same as tax/NI so just count your net (after all deductions) as your income.
2, It is wiped when you reach retirement age.

There is no way I will be including our student loans in any calculation as it is about 100k. We will never, ever pay it all back.

BabyStepper

Thank you everyone for your support around the student loan decision. It's a funny old system and I'm glad I investigated it. At least I better understand how it works now. If we paid it off in full we would be around £10k down for no reason. There will always be better things to spend that cash on, or we can save it, or whatever. And if OH lost his job then the payments just stop.

The smoking situation is going ok but I'm now snacking more than I used to. Need to stop that.

The quote for the hall came in at £550 plus the paper. :rotfl: Not a chance we are doing that. After a quick costing I think we can do it for less than £150 including paper and paint. It will need to wait until next month but I'm getting all the prep done just now. Stripping old wallpaper, radiators off the walls, filling little holes with polyfilla. It's going to look amazing.

Yes the debt total looks better and the mini target is to get below £20k. Need to find £69.48 from somewhere. Me and OH are both in need of some clothes and shoes so will need to budget in that. I also want to start a hall carpet fund so will need to contribute to that.

Why can life just not stop while we pay off debt? If we didn't need anything at all, this could all happen much faster.

jodles16

Hey babystepper,



You are already making some great progress, I think it totally makes sense with the student loans, seems to make things more manageable.


Best of luck, I will pop in again!


Jodles

BabyStepper

Thanks jodles. It's good to know others are in agreement with the student loan situation. It does make me wonder what the point is of lending students all that cash when it's not even going to be paid back.

In the spirit of trying to calculate a DFD, I was looking at the ending date for all my 0% deals. I had been feeling pleased that some of them are very long (October 2020) but some are not so long (£2,000 beginning to accrue interest as of next month). I had an idea that instead of snowballing, I could set all the DDs up with the right amount to get the card paid off in time before the deal ends. In my head I thought we had plenty of time and that we would never need to balance transfer again.

However, this is what I've discovered so far. To get the Lloyds, Halifax, MBNA and Barclaycard paid off in time we would need to be paying £745 per month towards them. :eek::eek::eek: At the moment we pay £226 per month in minimum payments so we're looking at another £519!! :eek::eek::eek: FROM WHERE?!?! And that doesn't even include interest on the Barclaycard because it was too difficult to figure out.

I have no idea when my Santander deal ends because it does not show on my online statement and the phone line charges a fortune so I've messaged them and am waiting for a reply. If I was being optimistic and my Santander card is 0% for 2 more years, the payment needed would be £138 per month (currently £33), overdraft £84 (currently 0) and Hitachi continues at £42 until March 2020.

So in addition to the current payments we make, we need to find another £708 per month if this will be paid off in two years. Granted there would be a snowball effect as the ending dates are all different. But still. This is massive.

This problem is far bigger than I could have imagined, even without the student loans to think about. I need more work, urgently. I'll be back in a minute with a plan of some sort.