Working Hard Debt Diary - Here goes

WorkingHardDFW

You are right we are just about 12 months away from being DF although if my OH gets his way we'll still have a car loan :mad:

That aside since the issue is parked (no pun intended) for the present and I am concentrating on debt bashing and weight bashing...

If ever I needed the motivation to get the matched betting moving its now..

WorkingHardDFW

Busy weekend drawing to a close with a small mountain of ironing to get through tonight.

I need to brace myself to write out a shed load of cheques for kids activities stuff tonight.

Nothing major money saving wise over the weekend. Few issues which i will post up tomorrow when I've more time.

My target for the week:

• Post a few more things on ebay
• Finish my tax return - I've one last little thing to get done
• Start my conservatory insurance claim - its only been on my to do list for a year!
• Sort out my diary with various dates etc - my disorganisation may cause me to miss an appointment
• Walk the dog daily - this one will make more sense when I post later on
• Plan a DFW half term treat for the children

Here goes for a cheque writing fest!:D

hypno06

Good luck with the cheque writing and the ironing - not sure which is more scary!!

WorkingHardDFW

Ok slow but steady progress the last couple of days.

The things i listed on ebay are doing well. Its always the things you don't expect which get the interest i find....always makes me laugh. I'm going to try and get a few more bits listed this week.

I picked up a mystery shop and sold a book on green met so thats another £10 in the kitty. The loan kitty is looking nice and healthy and will be bumped up considerably when I get paid this month:D .

Worked an extra day this week and the same next week so some lovely extra dosh for November's pay. If only it could be spent on something nice but something nice was bought on the CC many moons ago and now needs to be paid

With luck our debt will be down to £32.1K this month which is edging nearer and nearer the under £30k target. Its so hard though to have money sitting in the loan kitty which could get paid off the cc. One thought I had would be to pay off the MBNA card (Balance £1200) with the loan kitty with my extra money next month and then with the surplus sort the loan out by BT. This sounds and is very complicated. The reason for this is that I am:

• Desperate to clear the Cahoot loan by Dec (Balance now £2200)
• Desperate to clear the MBNA Card asap (Balance now £1200) and is having £300 pm thrown at it
• Desperate to start whacking largish sums off the IF Card (Balance £8780)

All of the above with:

• Loan kitty of £690 now with £600 due end of the month and £600 due Nov/Dec
• MBNA card when clear has a limit of £5k

I'm not sure I'm making much sense but I just want a sence of achievement from having some items cleared and something achieved.

Progress has been made on our mortgage although I think we'll hang out actually switching until the end of Jan with rates etc as thet are currently.

I did some work on my Mum's savings this am which was interesting. I am so used to dealing with debt that dealing with savings was quite odd!

WorkingHardDFW

Ok all has been pretty quiet on the debt busting front which is why i've not posted for a while.

My ebay sales went well and have netted me £30 which is good. So I've got a few parcels to get wrapped up and ready now.

I got a sneak preview of my Oct salary this month and I am likely to get £700 extra which will be fab and will have the loan fund standing at £1390:j . I'm trying not to think about the loan/cc thing I posted about earlier and I'm just focusing on building the post up to where it needs to be.

My DD came home to announce she's got a place of the ski trip in 2010 (Fab) however the money starts needing to be paid in. Its basically £50 a month between now and the end of next year, minus the school holidays. Great...I've determined that I will fund this from my ebay sales between now and the other trip being paid for and from then on I'll put £45 a month into a trip fund since from what I gather the school trip thing contines so I might as well build up a pot of money for it. In the meantime my loan fund is about to be depleted £200 to pay for the installments.

Car's have been expensive this month. I've analysed my budget and realised that the actual cost of running the cars is £700 more than I forecast therefore my budget is £50 a month short:o . It just seems to be endless you gain on one hand and loose on the other....

The dog insurance is due next month so I need to sort that out with hopefully some cashback. The car breakdown is also due so ditto with that

To make matters worse my OH is banging on about changing his car :eek: and getting some new sofa's in the conservatory (the old ones the dog has damaged hence the reason the dog is now in a kennel in the garden :T ). I'm resisting at all counts at present but he is going on and on. Being £33k in debt seems to be an irrelevance.

On the plus side we've received our new mortgage offer from Abbey :j . Its a fixed rate however we're not committed until the end of Jan when ours expires and our broker things the fixes may drop a bit between now and then - fingers crossed. I am so pleased that this has come through since back when we started getting the remortgage was a prime concern given our massive debt. So it really is good that this is all sorted now.

Off the get some parcels wrapped up, and some chores done!

hypno06

the expense of ski trips - now there's a subject I know a little about :cool:

Excellent news on the October salary - your targets are very achievable. And even more excellent news on being able to get a favourable mortgage deal. That takes a little pressure of, knowing that you can get a decent deal, and of course if rates DO fall further, you may get an even better one, especially if you have got rid of a couple of debts in the meantime.

:T

firesidemaid

re. the 'wanted' change of car and conservatory furniture from OH.

could you say that once the debts have been paid off then you can a) save up for the sofas and b) save up for/towards or get a new 0% card to pay for car (and then pay it off mega quick as you will have lots of free cash).

would this help your OH to help you reach your goals asap? or could you get him to give up/reduce something else to pay for monthly sofa payments? that's something i have done with my OH:rolleyes:.

re. dog insurance. i have had cashback from sainsburys and used them 2 years running - i actually cancelled after a year and then bought again with them as it was cheaper/month plus cashback. i claimed on each policy (2 dogs) twice and received the payments promptly and with no probs.

luckily they are non-recurring problems so can switch easily still at mo - i am happy with the level of cover they give, give it a look. i always book my new cover 2 weeks earlier than i need it as you are usually not covered for the first 2 weeks when you change etc. this way i am always covered.

PS. have you seen there is a free listing weekend on ebay this weekend?;)

WorkingHardDFW

Thanks for the comments folks

I am pretty sure I am be calling on your expertise on the ski trips Hypno!

OH knows the score with the debts is completely on board but is just banging on about his car and now the sofa's in the c/tory.

The reason he is banging on about the car is that he see's the car loan as a permanent debt since he gets a car allowance from work and therefore he is comfortable shelling out for a vehicle - I don't agree on this point since I don't really get cars other than being functional. My car will only be changed when it becomes non economic to continue to run it and when it does get changed we will save up the money for it rather than get a loan.

The sofa's in the conservatory are a direct result of our dog having chewed up one of the existing (very old) sofa's and last week starting on the other one (similar condition). The dog who is now 1 lives in the c/tory when we are at work or at night and to be honest since I didn't want the dog in the first place I have banged on about our c/tory being a dog kennel for the last nine months. The dog eating the other sofa was the last straw and now he has been put in the shed outside (lovely dog kennel complete with dog flap) so we now have our c/tory which is TV and usually child free to chill in. However we now have one completely devasted sofa and one with a big rip in hence the reason for the new ones. The plan is to deep clean the c/tory, refurb it with a couple of nice new sofa's and a rug and have our chill out zone back. Thats the plan but OH wants it soonest rather than wait. I can see where he is coming from but this attitude is what got us into debt like we are in the first place so I am determined we are not going to give in to temptation. I may need support on this one as we approach Christmas....

Yeap having the mortgage deal is good. I was really worried that we'd struggle but we are very lucky in that we've plenty of equity and a good monthly income even if we've got massive debts.

OH and I spoke about the debts/loan kitty at the weekend and we are sticking with the plan to save up and clear the Cahoot loan (now £2262) however what we might do is when my extra money goes into the loan kitty next week it will be at £1300. Then after the November loan payment (from Oct's salary) is made clear the loan using the loan funds and the CC. This will then leave us Nov and Dec to clear the CC (whose balance will be £1300) using the 2 extra loan payments and the normal monthly repayments. My outstanding extra earning for Nov and Dec (extra work in Oct and Nov) and the extra from not paying childcare and be put towards school trips and starting to clear the IF CC which is £8704:eek: . We are also intending to BT some or most of this to the MBNA card to get a better rate (some of its currently at 16.94%:eek: ) to help us get it cleared.

I must apologise for the long and very rambling post - most of mine seem to be. I'm intending to post later ref my 1st birthday as a DFW which I can't believe has come around!! How time flies....

lucielle

Well that plan sounds pretty good to me. A year goes by so quick it will be 12 months for us in December, at which point I intend to update the siggy. Hope you have a good day.
L

WorkingHardDFW

Thanks Lucielle it certainly has I really can't believe I've been a DFW for a year. I feel like we've made so much progress and moved forward such a lot but at times (like today) it feels like to same old thing - too little money and too much demand for it. I'm on a bit of downer today for some reason.

First day of the half term holidays one DS was sick over the weekend, the other has been sick all of last night and today so any plans have been wiped and I guess I'm feeling like I've not achieved very much today. I'm sure I will feel better pretty soon..........