Looks worse when it's written down!!

GTBT123

Read these boards for years. Finally had my lightbulb moment over Christmas when I realised I didn't actually know how much money I'd spent on husband and daughters. Decided to get all the balances of my cards and work out a plan to clear them as quick as I can.

January seems a good time to start.

Going to write down balances and then update as often as possible with payments I've made, extra money I've made, new balances and anything else I feel like putting down in black & white.

Here goes

CC1 - 5006.40 - 0% deal
CC2 - 2700.43 - 0% deal
CC3 - 5454.06 - 0% deal
CC4 - 4500.00 - 0% deal
CC5 - 1004.95 - not on 0% but CC2 has a limit of 10500 so going to transfer this over today
Next - 3312.76 - not on 0% obviously, so going to see if any of the cards above have a 0% purchase which I can then change to a 0% balance transfer when needed

Total - 21978.60

I know how these debts have come about so know I can tackle the issue. I'm not going to post an SOA for the time being. I use You need a budget so know where my money goes and know where I need to cut down and be more strict.

Excited about this. Looking forward to seeing balances come down.

Today's achievements:-

Started this diary.
No spending today. Brought food to work so don't have to buy anything. Nothing planned this evening, need a quiet weekend after the Christmas craziness.
Started a meal plan. I need to lose weight and save money, so hope these go hand in hand.

Right, off I go to get the balance transfers sorted.

GTBT123

Have got the credit card balance transferred. Unfortunately don't have any money transfer offers to transfer the Next balance so need to work out if it will be worth transferring it anyway to CC5 and then balance transferring the card balance over to CC2 so it's all o 0%. I just need to see what the balance transfer fees will be and compare them to the interest. Possibly be just as cost effective to pay the Next account down as quick as possible. I have been through my you need a budget and our accounts with a fine tooth comb and if we stop just spending so frivolously, we have around 1200.00 per month to pay on top of minimum payments so could get it paid within 3 months anyway.

Starmummy

Good luck and happy new diary!

SM

GTBT123

Thank you Starmummy. Good luck with your debt busting too, looks like you're doing well with it so far.

JohnJ76

Good luck and Happy New Year.

The Next card % is prob high and it makes sense to pay off first but I've gone down the snowball route as I like to see the results of one less debt at the expense of a bit of interest. I know it is not the most efficient way of repaying but it is certainly satisfying as 'another one bites the dust.' If you can trully afford £1,200 extra a month then your debt will tumble, but don't let it consume you at the expense of everything else otherwise you may grow to hate it (even more!) and have a lapse of willpower. I've taken the attitude of making sure to build up savings hand in hand, that way less likely to have to pop it onto cc etc.

However you pay it off though doesn't really matter as long as you do. Best of luck though it sounds like you are doing everything right.

GTBT123

Thank you JohnJ, I agree with what you said. I'm not going to allocate 1200 every month, just get rid of the Next debt first because of the interest then I'll probably do 50/50 debt vs savings. I don't want to go into this full throttle and then crash & burn a few months in, as I've done that so many times before and I am fed up of the cycle.

My update today is for the last few days as I was reading diaries on here over the weekend but forgot to update my own.

A DD has gone out for minimum payment to CC3 and the minimum payment has been paid to Next. My plan is to let the minimum DD's go out each month, then at the end of the month I will know that everything has been paid so any money left in the account is definitely available.

I'm going to update totals again at the end of the month. I was going to update totals every time a payment went out, but I think it might be demotivating because it will seem small, but if I do it at the end of the month I will see bigger chunks come off the total.

I put something on ebay yesterday. I used to ebay quite a bit, but it's very time consuming and I used to go through phases of loving it then getting bored of the packing things up & trips to the post office all the time so haven't bothered for years. But needs must! I look round my house & we have so much stuff taking up space so it makes sense. It's something brand new in the box & already has bids on it, with another 6 days left so I think I'll get around 25.00 for it after fees & postage. Going to keep the Paypal account topped up with ebay sales because my Netflix subscription comes out of Paypal, so my ebay sales can pay for that for a few months. I might actually set myself a challenge of paying for Netflix for the year through ebay sales. Shouldn't be too difficult, the subscription is 9.99 so with the current item on ebay I've already paid for 2.5 months

My debt busting mind set is having a knock on effect in other areas of my life too. On Sunday I was sat down relaxing and started browsing on the internet. I started looking at clothes but in the back of my mind I was telling myself 'No you don't need any of that', so I shut down my ipad. Then to keep myself occupied I ended up sorting out some of my kitchen cupboards. They were such a mess, things crammed in so I couldn't find anything and had to take everything out just to find whatever it was I needed. So I sorted them out, threw out lots of expired food, put some tins that I know we won't eat in a bag for the food bank (don't even know why we have food in our cupboards that we don't like), put some mixing bowls & extra pots and pans in a box to give to the charity shop and then tidied up what was left. I'm left with super organised cupboards. I can actually see what's in all of them, the food has been sorted so the stuff with the shortest expiry date is now at the front to be used first and my pots and pans don't come crashing down every time I open the door. I can also find the ketchup! I still have a few cupboards to sort out so will get them done throughout this week.

I wanted a day of no spending today but sadly it wasn't possible because I needed fuel for my car. I had the money allocated in the budget though and filled up, which should last me around 2 weeks and I have more allocated to see me through to the end of the month then.

Time for me to eat my lunch now & then get on with some work.

P.S My pound sign on my keyboard doesn't work, which is why I don't put pound signs (just in case anybody did wonder)

GTBT123

No DD's gone out today so no reduction in debt total. I can't wait until the end of the month though when I can see the first month's total!

Today is another spend day. We are going to the theatre tonight (christmas present), so going to go somewhere for food beforehand. I have set money aside for this already though, so it's already in the budget

My productivity went out the window yesterday. I got in from work & just couldn't muster up the will or energy to do much at all. I did cook a healthy dinner though, sticking to our meal plan and using up the chicken that I had taken out of the freezer. We have 2 freezers, both stuffed full of various things so I need to start using it all. In the past I have ended up buying meat fresh from the supermarket out of ease, rather than just remembering to check the freezer. As a result we have at least 3 or 4 packs of chicken, probably the same amount of packs of mince and lots of frozen veg. Definitely going to use some of it up because I won't have to dip into the grocery budget then!

So yesterday's achievements:

Stuck to meal plan.
Used up a pack of frozen chicken and remembered to get another pack out of the freezer for husband's lunches this week.
Put in my expenses claim for work. It wasn't a lot of money but still money that is mine & I should have claimed it weeks ago but kept forgetting.

enthusiasticsaver

Nothing like seeing it all written down in black and white to bring it home to you how much debt you have or how much you spend compared to how much you think you spend. On the positive side you have a healthy surplus so with some financial discipline you can get this cleared. When does the first 0% expire? I agree that targeting Next should be done first as the interest rates are astronomical. A combination of saving and overpaying the debt sounds like a good plan.

GTBT123

It really does. I knew roughly how much the debts were but I worked out over Christmas that the debts are roughly the same as they were this time last year, so even though I was paying them last year, I was then spending the money so didn't make a dent in the total figure.

The first 0% expires in June 2020. I've been lucky to still be eligible for loads of offers even with the high total, so over the last few months I did a few balance transfers to extend my 0% period. I'm more determined than ever to clear all the debt and not pay any more interest after getting rid of the blasted Next account!

GTBT123

Well I haven't been on to update for a few days. Not because I'm slacking though, it's because my laptop broke! I've luckily been able to borrow one from work for now, which means I don't have to pay for a new one just yet. I think I'm going to have to start putting a bit of money away to get a new one though, because I won't be able to use this work one forever and to be honest I don't feel comfortable putting any personal data on it.

Anyway, I'm going to spend the morning catching up on everything and then will update later today.

GTBT123

So my update from the last few days is....... nothing! No payments have been made yet as the rest of the Direct Debits aren't due until the end of the month. The ebay item has sold and it sold for more than I expect. After fees & postage I will have just over £30, which means I've paid for 3 months of Netflix so far

I just need to get more things on ebay now so that I can hit my target of paying for Netflix for 12 months.