*sigh* this may take a while 20 December 2018 at 11:56PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Debt Free Diaries 845 replies 77.1K views

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Well, snowball comes out at August 2022, which isn't too awful. However, I'm hoping to shave quite a lot off that and it should be doable by March 2021. I hope this because:

1) I'd hope to be able to move the Virgin debt to another 0% card In September, thus not paying the predicted £728 in interest
2) I only put £400 extra above minimum payments into the calculator (so £1000 in total a month). I'm hoping we can do more than that, I'll know more after the 3 months spending diary I've got planned.
3) My husband gets a bonus every March, these aren't guaranteed, so I haven't included them. But anything he does get will go to paying down debt.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Signature done too

natsplatnat

Hi!


It looks like you have set yourself a little challenge... reducing your snowball DFD by 17 months! As you settle into reducing your expenditure and repurposing your money, keep tweaking your snowball.. it will be amazing how that date keeps getting closer and closer!
Wish you all the best on your journey - You sound determined (and you have a plan.... I love a plan!)

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Very uneventful few days due to resting my knee.... I’ve been thinking a lot about work. One of the first things I thought when I heard I was being signed off for several weeks with my knee was ‘Thank God’.
I HATE my job, but having retrained and then working my way up the ladder for 15 years alongside having 5 children, I’m at a loss what to do instead.
If I worked full time, I’d earn £40k, which is decent. But due to childcare costs (and the fact I hate it) I work 15 hours a week in the role. After deductions and childcare, I ‘keep’ £700 a month. There must be other ways I could earn that.
I’ll be using the next few weeks off to try and come up with a plan; I already work Saturdays elsewhere, so would need to be weekdays and would need to be the same sort of wage or something I could do around the children so I could earn less as no childcare costs. Hmmm, definitely a quandary....

mark55man

always a good plan to have a portfolio of incomes (although not the path I travelled), but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. childcare costs will go down and once they are all at secondary school they will become less of a constraint (in that they will want to be in their rooms or with friends, but will still expect lifts and feeding, but not actual supervision) - so at that point your 15 hours will become much more cash generative and the money can be snowballed. Also imagine finding you were in a lower paid job to look after the kids and they didn't need looking after but did need more money (secondary school trips cost! even if you avoid the big overseas [STRIKE]vanity [/STRIKE] projects

In terms of hating your job - is it just the managers, or the patients or the whole political football the NHS has become. Or is it just feeling trapped and tired of doing anything (in which cases other jobs wouldn't really help). Is there a sideways move you can take - or less managing/more specialist or maybe even less specialist/miore managing. Generally people in that skilled worker category are very wanted even if that is not shown on a day to day basis and management should make steps to chnage things for you. There is a big trend in compliance and process at the moment could you become an assurer or an auditor rather than a doer.

All the above a little constrained by the fact I don't know what you do in the slightest but I do know organisations and I do know that 15 year challenge (and was living it to some extent for years),but then it got really good again - sometimes perservernce and persistance are the best attributes

finally - I often work on multiple projects and there is a definite difference in working 3 days a week and 2 days a week in terms of inclusivity - ie at 3 days its often not noticed that you are gone for 2 days and so you are much more part of the team, whereas at 2 days its as if you are never there - so ironically could the solution be that you should do more hours not less or maybe take an extra shift when child care isnt an issue - that would be pure gravy!!

ohdearhowdidthathappen

Thanks Mark, really insightful comments.

I’m a band 6 Radiographer working in a specialised modality (I better not put what exactly on here as would potentially be identifying in RL!), then because I work in Surrey, I get a high cost living allowance on top.
I like the majority of patients and we don’t really have a direct manager... but it’s very monotonous and staffing is appalling (we’re working with 50% vacancies at the moment). In the 7 years I’ve been there, my daily patient caseload has increased by 25% and it’s pretty exhausting.
A lot of radiography roles entail shift work so that traps me in my current role really. I should definitely look at alternative uses of my qualifications though rather than automatically accepting looking into lower paid roles.
The thought of doing a third day in my current role is really not at all appealing, but I definitely agree that 2 days is ‘too’ part time to really be part of the team.

ohdearhowdidthathappen

First week of sticking to my new targets hasn't gone brilliantly...

Financially.....
- my credit card bill came.... this is the card that I put food, petrol etc on and then clearin full every month. It builds up good rewards too. However, last month we put all our Christmas expenditure on it an extra £2k to find. However, I think I can put £1k in it from January and Februarys pay packs. I that's the case, I can put March's £1k into paying the actual debt I'm supposed to be repaying and still meet target one.
- I am keeping a spending diary and so far, there hasn't been anything that isn't in my budget
- as I'm signed off work, I'm eating at home anyway.

Health
- I did 2 AFN this last week, which was ok
- the exercise targets will have to wait, because of my knee
- I did lose 1lb this week, a pleasant surprise considering I've been pigging out and sat on my !!!!

Must try harder in this coming week!

mark55man

Don't beat yourself up - if we were perfect we wouldn't be here. In any case, I've seen worse January reports - losing weight over xmas is spectacular!!

24ta

crunch_time wrote: »

Subscribed!! Debt is debt whether you owe £500 or £50,000 or whether you earn £1000 a month or £5000 plus a month. It's all relative.

Good luck with your debt busting!

Crunchy xx

Agreed, good luck, subscribed

ohdearhowdidthathappen

My OH and I have been doing really well; thinking before we buy, eating what we have in the house rather than buying etc... the little extras come from the children, it's like a bottomless pit! This week's examples... daughter lost a trainer (how?), new ones required, 2 Birthday parties this weekend, a scout camp deposit and 2 forgotten lunchboxes requiring 2 paid lunches. That little lot totals £75 :-(
On the other hand, my knee is feeling better and the swelling is going down, our 10 year old car passed it's MOT and I managed a good renewal on our car insurance (hasn't gone down, but substantially less than was originally quoted).