Wobbling my way out of debt

IrishSean

findingthisdifficult said:

Payday in the FTD household, I'm thinking of making my card payment today or Monday (most bills go out on the 1st) instead of waiting until nearer the payment due date, looks like I can chuck £300 towards the credit card bill this month and in other good news the millstone loan drops to the £3k bracket on Monday...too excited about this.

Hey FTD

My advice would be to reset your thinking based on where you are now. You're almost at 75% paid off; you've been a consistent & disciplined DFW. The parasol is a good thing; it provides protection, will last years (well beyond the debt being gone), it's not a new £25k car which sadly ppl will be tempted by when the 3-6 month interest frees are dangled in front of those coming out of lockdown with cars that are a bit sluggish or have a flat battery.

In short, ppl will be lured into debt they can ill-afford. The difference is you, me, most others on this forum are not in that category: our journey is the other way

The important thing is to focus on what you've achieved but recognise:

A) you're probably no long 'at risk' with your debts & 
your likelihood of falling back into a 'debt hole' is slim, given the journey you've been on.

The way to approach it is, "I've achieved 'this': I can meet my goals and have a better life, including purchases such as x, y & z.

You're doing great

😀💪

IrishSean

Sunglasses guy was meant to be  'B )' 😂☝

Sry

joedenise

@findingthisdifficult - if you have your CC payment set up as a DD then I would leave the extra payment until after that has come out as they will probably take the CC payment as well, most CCs seem to.  Alternatively pay off that amount minus the DD amount so that it is the £300.  Hope that makes sense!

findingthisdifficult

Thanks for popping by IrishSean, it has been such a wobbly journey getting to this point, I don't regret the parasol purchase, especially given the amount of time we will be spending in the garden over the coming months.  
I really hope I don't fall in to the interest free traps in the future, although our car is getting old now and becoming temperamental, hoping to eek out a couple more years with it though.

findingthisdifficult

joedenise said:

@findingthisdifficult - if you have your CC payment set up as a DD then I would leave the extra payment until after that has come out as they will probably take the CC payment as well, most CCs seem to.  Alternatively pay off that amount minus the DD amount so that it is the £300.  Hope that makes sense!

Thanks for popping by @joedenise I don't have a DD for the card, I just pay whatever I can afford each month always more than the minimum of course.

IrishSean

findingthisdifficult said:

Thanks for popping by IrishSean, it has been such a wobbly journey getting to this point, I don't regret the parasol purchase, especially given the amount of time we will be spending in the garden over the coming months.  
I really hope I don't fall in to the interest free traps in the future, although our car is getting old now and becoming temperamental, hoping to eek out a couple more years with it though.

You'll be fine managing the finances from here on in💪

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand ppls need to change car or need for a reliable car for work. I also understand an aspiration to buy new. My audi is 13 y.o. but i'm fortunate to have serviced it regularly and its been super reliable. I do worry that buying new became the new norm with buyers losing a fortune in depreciation. 

I buy and sell cars as a hobby; many are sub £1000: there were / are amazing bargains even before C19.
I was referencing new car purchases in the context of other ppls finances; Many folks pre-Covid couldn't get a loan or cc for a car at £4k but a car finance company or dealer would offer them one at 3,4 maybe 5 times that amount: on top of other unsecured debt it seems a huge burden. 

Personally I think the whole car finance sector needs a shake up: heading into recession the govt shouldn't just be looking at scrappage deals but govt backed finance for sub £5k second hand purchases; this wud keep ppl out of the clutches (no pun intended😂) of new car dealers. Along with childcare those have to be the 2 big barriers to work (esp. If ppl are being told not to take public transport).

I'll save my hot take on car insurance for another forum, haha😂

findingthisdifficult

IrishSean said:

findingthisdifficult said:

Thanks for popping by IrishSean, it has been such a wobbly journey getting to this point, I don't regret the parasol purchase, especially given the amount of time we will be spending in the garden over the coming months.  
I really hope I don't fall in to the interest free traps in the future, although our car is getting old now and becoming temperamental, hoping to eek out a couple more years with it though.

You'll be fine managing the finances from here on in💪

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand ppls need to change car or need for a reliable car for work. I also understand an aspiration to buy new. My audi is 13 y.o. but i'm fortunate to have serviced it regularly and its been super reliable. I do worry that buying new became the new norm with buyers losing a fortune in depreciation. 

I buy and sell cars as a hobby; many are sub £1000: there were / are amazing bargains even before C19.
I was referencing new car purchases in the context of other ppls finances; Many folks pre-Covid couldn't get a loan or cc for a car at £4k but a car finance company or dealer would offer them one at 3,4 maybe 5 times that amount: on top of other unsecured debt it seems a huge burden. 

Personally I think the whole car finance sector needs a shake up: heading into recession the govt shouldn't just be looking at scrappage deals but govt backed finance for sub £5k second hand purchases; this wud keep ppl out of the clutches (no pun intended😂) of new car dealers. Along with childcare those have to be the 2 big barriers to work (esp. If ppl are being told not to take public transport).

I'll save my hot take on car insurance for another forum, haha😂

Ha, we've always said if we bought another car, it wouldn't be brand new as they lose so much of their value the minute you drive off the forecourt, ideally it will only be a couple of years old but we'll wait and see how things pan out.  I definitely don't want to be ending up in a situation where I worry about how I'm going to afford the monthly payments.  
I completely agree with your statement about the car finance sector, we were lucky (in a way) when we bought our current car, we had secured a low interest loan from the bank, we bought from a dealership and they were so desperate to offer us their finance (at a much higher rate of course)

IrishSean

Yeah, there have been 2 bubbles blowing this last 10 years: 

One was car finance (basically very few checks & balances being carried out) and ninja loans being given out as the car cud be repossessed by the finance house; where was the responsible lending though?
The other were stock loans in the private sector; companies borrowing against their share price rather than orders or tangible assets.

I think the out-workings of both of these are yet to be seen.
Covid, furlough, fiscal stimulus etc. Are all creating a smoke screen; as they said in 2008, you only see who's swimming naked when the tide goes out!

These should be a huge incentive for us to stick with the DF goals; things cud get pretty sticky the next few years..

findingthisdifficult

Couldn't agree more @IrishSean, I was saying to Mr FTD that if this had happened a few years ago we would have been in a right mess financially.  You literally don't know what is around the corner, so should be super careful when making big spending decisions.

IrishSean

findingthisdifficult said:

Couldn't agree more @IrishSean, I was saying to Mr FTD that if this had happened a few years ago we would have been in a right mess financially.  You literally don't know what is around the corner, so should be super careful when making big spending decisions.

Its weird, I think there's a group of ppl who the banks will see are in situational crisis and will look to make money off. 
There's also a group who will move heaven & earth not to be in debt and this crisis is facilitating it: I read somewhere there's been several billion paid back from the UK domestic debt mountain.

I have to admit I wasn't desperate for a 0% overdraft but I reckoned between april and july it was the cheapest option to cover the big bills over the summer; as it was an overdraft I already had it wud have zero impact on my credit file. N'wide gave me the full £1500 0% so I chucked the lot on payday into savings, so they wouldn't suspend the 0% offer😂
They were so mean in the past tho; we asked for a mortgage holiday of a few months when the kids were born (about 13 years ago, pre-crash) and they said no: our credit file was perfect and we were on double income. I was so cross with n'wide then. They actually disadvantaged themselves not agreeing a hol for us and making more off us in interest. 
Banks and CC companies annoy me at the best of times but that was ridiculous...

In short, the less we pay any of them in interest the better!