Working Hard Debt Diary - Here goes

WorkingHardDFW

I've bitten the bullet and finally ventured outside to take the meter readings. The central heating feels likes its been on all day every day since December - oh it has!! Anyway the numbers weren't quite as bad as I thought (who am I kidding) and when i entered the figures on line the account was still in credit (just). So that was good news.

So did I crack on with my studying, nah I thought lets get the figures and look to see if my energy supplier is the best. Givens its a Fixed tariff it wasn't going to be the cheapest but its not too far out. All the comp sites are recommending EDF which will be cheaper and gives nectar points (xmas/b/day pressies) and £60 cashback via Q/TCB plus a monthly saving (small). As we MSEs know every pound saved really does help so I will ponder this pm hopefully take action soon.

All quiet on the DFW front really. One week and a little bit to payday.....counting the days as the pots of money are dwindling this month!!

WorkingHardDFW

Just did my Mum's house insurance renewal. £70 to beat managed to get it for £53 with £30 cashback with TCB. Well pleased for my Mum! Off to clear up, nip into town and collect the DS's from school

In_my_dreams

I am ignoring my gas meter - if I do it just goes away doesn't it

WorkingHardDFW

I was like that. I usually get a reading monthly but I've been ignoring it too. I'm so glad we held off switching the heating off for a month in October....Still it was a chunky bill but thats only to be expected at this time of year.

Verbatim

we were over £400 in credit in December. I was really chuffed and have got £350 back and my monthly payments reduced. probably they suggested too low a figure as we are on BGas price protection 2010 which ends at the end of march so whatever we do then it will be more expensive. Still the cash came at a good time as we had 8 weeks between paydays then and again now.

Compingirl

I checked mine and the estimated less than the actual readings so Ive left it. They still want to put my dd up by £34 per month tho'. Switching companies is on my to do list so this info comes in handy thanks cgx

In_my_dreams

I need to switch but will wait for the horrendous bills to come in and will then see how much debit/credit I am in....

WorkingHardDFW

On friday as I was in the midst of delivering children to various points and organising a meal I found a new purchase of OH's in the garage. A gadget for his car that he had talked about the week before but completely unnecessary in my humble thrifty opinion. Just as I was about to launch into one, I was delayed by the kids/dog commotion he opened a letter from work to say he was getting a small bonus this month:D:D. Needless to say I rethought my approach instantly .....:o

On reflection I may have done something similar on occasion one or twice, maybe a little more (maybe a lot more) generally linked with clothes - you know the line a comment about an article of clothing which of course you've had (but not worn!!) ages!!

Anyway the bonus is excellent news and after HMRC have had their share will be about £400 . Whilst pondering this weekend though I realised that if we'd not: overspent at Christmas, OH had bought a load of clothes, we'd bought a new TV for the kitchen and started overpaying the mortgage this month we could have been DF now. As it is all the 'extra' money this month is going towards: clothes overspending, Christmas overspending, TV purchase...which leaves an extra £200 to pay of the debt this week plus the usual payment. Which is of course brilliant news and means we will be tantilisingly close to being under the £1k mark next month. This for those of you who've been following my saga is the point at which I can say we are DF since our emergency pot of savings money is £1k.

Its funny (warning I am waxing lyrical) but it does feel quite liberating not having the copious amounts of debt hanging around our necks. OH said as much yesterday as well. Mind you its not as if we are completely DF we'll still have the mortgage and the car loan (:mad:). There is something really lovely about buying something and knowing that you can pay for it. That may seem really obvious to you folks with no debt but for anyone who got into debt like us (constantly spending more than we earn't) on stuff - eg see note above ref clothes) its a great feeling. I can't lay all the recent overspending at OH's door, I knew I was spending too much at Christmas - we are equally guilty.

OH has started making much louder noises about his new car!! To be fair he hasn't been moaning or going on about it for months but he is clearly trawling the internet for the right vehicle. As chancellor of the WHDFW household I am more interested in running costs, insurance, MOT etc and how it will affect the monthly outgoings. He is aiming to pay from it from is annual bonus which is due in March. We'll see since it would be lovely to save (shock horror SAVE) some of it.

I say down tonight to bring the spending diary upto date and set up the CC payments when I realised I've only got one CC to pay now!!! How good is that. When I started on here we had about 5 plus 2 loans and 1 massive overdraft.

WorkingHardDFW

I'm starting to get quite motivated about my next challenge the MFTi3. I was wondering what was going to keep me posting once we are DF but this is clearly it. Bring it on....

Compingirl

Well done on the bonus - resut! You are so close now fantastic and very well deserved, you really have worked hard to tackle your debt and have been a huge inspiration to the rest of us - that sounds so grovelly but its true!
Well done WHDFW - soon to be WH&DF! cgx