One step at a time

Shoddyshardy

Afternoon all,

I’ve been lurking on these forums a very long time and due to our future being rather uncertain at the moment I want to make sure we are in the strongest position should it all go belly up. There is myself my wonderful husband our teenage son and daughter. I consider us very lucky we are very happy and healthy and whilst we have debts they’ve never been a problem but as mentioned above we are going into a period of uncertainty. We do have about £4.5k in savings I don’t want to touch this as I like the safety net behind me for the unexpected and we have approx £60k equity in the house.

However I’ve decided to tackle them one at a time as quickly as possible and I’ve been inspired by you lovely lot to keep a diary.

So the first debt is a credit card at £410.66. This is the smallest one and should be easy to clear before the children go back to school. The plan is to Make min payment, rounding down of current account and any weekly underspend to go onto this. Unfortunately car needs repairing (a common theme on here I’ve noticed lol). I have £300 put aside for this. Any more will have to go into this card but any underspend will go to the debt.

I hope I don’t bore you all too much x :j

Shoddyshardy

Ok so just added up all we owe. It’s more than I thought but that’s I guess what happens when you look at it as a whole. If you don’t mind I’ll just mention them on here one at a time as it’s a bit horrifying . I think going for the quick win is what is right for now. Thanks for reading

System

Welcome!! I've seen debts on here for some members be over £100K, so don't be scared about putting the total figure up. I know it's scary but it's part of the process

pidge04

Good luck!

It will give you a boost if you can clear this first one, I am sure!

raldo

Good luck xx

Shoddyshardy

Good morning MSE world. I thought I’d stop by before I leave for work . Thank you so much for all your kind messages so far. Made a payment to my card today of some unallocated money in the current account. ( really money that was allocated but a few bills came in under budget. I try and budget the maximum each month for gas, elec etc and then save the surplus. This has been great as I have an emergency fund but for the next while this will be going to my debt). It was £55 which is not to be sniffed at so the first card is down to £355.66 which is great and payday on the first so Tuesday the min payment will be paid as well. I’m expecting a work claim to be paid in the next few days so that will go straight into the card.

Today should be a nsd as well

Hope you all have a good day whatever you are doing :T

Shoddyshardy

Hello MSE world.

Payday today :j so the minimums on both cards made (this is my minimum not the actual minimum. Several months ago I looked at the actual min payments ar the time, £97 for one and £35 for the other, and created my own so I was able to knock off some balance as opposed to just the interest so now I pay £150 for the big card and £50 for the smaller one)

My expenses claim came through with me wages so that is an extra £32.57 that also went to the little card this morning and as I like round numbers I rounded up the payment to that card to £100 so the balance is now £255.66 :j. Once I have my monthly statement I’ll see what the actual interest is and try and get that as an extra payment (it was 16 last month but the balance was lower. Annoyingly I had nearly paid it off but I got carried away for my sons 18th. Although he had a great time and they only turn 18 once. )

raldo

Well done... glad to see im not the only one that likes rounded numbers!
You are doing well x

Shoddyshardy

£5.66 paid off today so it!!!8217;s a round £250 left. We are at friend this weekend for a child free weekend with lots of gin and beer gardens. Not driving home until tomorrow. So far stayed on budget this weekend as far as I can tell although there are 8 of us going out to dinner tonight. Hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend

ftbwannabe

I like round numbers too! Have found the !!!8216;payment a day!!!8217; thread useful for making little payments matter, eg I paid .83p to one card today to round it out, & added about 56p onto a payment yesterday to get my total on one card under £100. It all adds up nicely! Enjoy the gin & beergardens, sounds like a a great weekend.

pidge04

I think I am going to take up round numbers too!