Paying Off Debt

Dreambig_2

I'm tuning in...ive just done my first post too, Keep motivated you can smash this looking forward to hearing how you get on x

AnonymousM

Thanks Dreambig.

Well I said I spent about £30 for a home game of football and £100 if going to an away match.

We have had an away game. I drove and those I took split the petrol money and paid my entry fee in return for driving.

Bonus - no money spent, and I had enough petrol left to get to work for a week.

I didn't spend a penny over the last weekend either. So already money available / money not spent is looking more positive.

Have a long trip away this weekend coming. The train tickets were purchased in January so already saved £43 by buying in advance. The only expense on the day will be food/drink and entry fee, even this doesn't need to be an overly expensive day which is beneficial.

At my last job I was able to get my personal nectar card attached to one of our business accounts for using a courier and this earned me a good wedge of nectar points. I have been using these to purchase food / toiletries over the last 3 months also where possible so this has helped to keep actual spending down.

I've got about £150 worth left.

[Deleted User]

Hey,

Just wanted to wish you the best of luck in getting rid of this debt.

It takes a lot of effort, sacrifice and planning on your part but when you make that final payment it will be sooooooo worth it!

I totally get what you mean about having one shot each month, I found that so frustrating but I found it helped to make a long term plan to see how and when I would get the debt paid off.

Have you already approached your providers to see if they can offer you a better interest rate? They might say no but it's always best to approach them.

Once you get that loan paid off you can just direct that £358.12 straight to other debts.

Dxxx

elsien

It's the living month by month that tends to addon the extra spending because there's no planning ahead for known expenses and emergencies.

I would suggest you do a proper SOA to cover 12 months, even if you don't want to share it on here.
You've got car insurance down but nothing for MOT and maintenance l. So the first time you need a new tyre (for example) it's likely to go straight on the credit card and then you're back in the cycle. You don't buy clothes or birthday or Christmas presents? Ever?

You need to plan ahead and budget for foreseeable expenses, plus some for the unforeseeables. Then if there's not enough left over for the footy then your choice is to knock more of it on the head in the short term, or carry on racking up more debt. Your decision.

Sanctioned_Parts_List

One more message in support of preparing a fully-detailed Statement of Affairs.

Note that an SOA is not a budget, but a snapshot in time of your income and expenses, that will enable you to produce an achievable budget. A lot of people, when first realising they have a problem, will produce an "aspirational SOA," including what they'd like to be able to spend if matters were ideal. This doesn't work.

To prepare an effective SOA, take your bank statements and credit card records for at least 3 months, categorise them according to the SOA categories, add all the categories and take the average. Once done, you'll be able to work out areas of weakness (e.g. no provision for car maintenance, emergency fund etc.) and areas that could use pruning. It's also then meaningful to start looking at potential debt repayment strategies to clear it more efficiently. You don't have to publish your SOA - there's never any pressure to do so (and I've never posted mine) but others may be able to help spot something you've missed.

shiny76

AnonymousM wrote: »

We have had an away game. I drove and those I took split the petrol money and paid my entry fee in return for driving.

Bonus - no money spent, and I had enough petrol left to get to work for a week.

Whilst thats great, it's worth remembering you did spend money on the petrol (and wear&tear on your car)

AnonymousM

I didn't spend a penny on that. Yes, petrol has to be paid for but it wasn't out of my pocket.

Someone mentioned birthday / christmas presents and clothes.

Presents like that are token bars of chocolate or boxes of sweets from the supermarket for family only. Don't bother with presents for friends and they don't in return with me. Quite easy on that one.

MOT is built in later in the year so no issues there. I have a relatively reliant car, and I have the ability to do some of the work if necessary. I've just had to change the brake pads on it. Cost was £22, rather than the £100+ going to a garage.

I dislike shopping. I've had the same wardrobe of clothes for years and only really receive items of clothing for birthday / christmas alongside toiletries so that usually lasts a couple of months of the year.



I've been looking at all the other threads that appear on here and trying to take ideas away from that.

I'm a HSBC Advance account holder, thought I would try calling them to try and see if they will help with a better interest rate on the credit card than what I've got currently. The person I spoke to wasn't willing to help.

What I was hoping to get down to was 18.9%.


Just going to ring up the other 3 banks this morning and see where I can get to with them.

2 weeks to pay day and still going strong this month. It's a turning point.

[Deleted User]

AnonymousM wrote: »

Hi,

Thanks for the responses.

When I was first made redundant I found a job that I started quite quickly after about 1.5 months or so. I did 7 days with them but left without notice due to it not being as described and was through a friend. I wasn't paid for these 7 days but it does amount to £546. Can I invoice for this despite it being from May 2018?

I would absolutely be chasing up that 7 days pay that you are owned and I wouldn't rest until I had if it was me. £546 is not something to just forget about.

AnonymousM

Hi Lee - I do tend to agree somewhat but I guess the reason I wasn't so fussed at the time was because I was doing 'a bit of this' and a 'bit of that' with various people earning other money so I wasn't overly relying on this specific outstanding money.


I didn't get very far with the credit card companies. None of them were willing to help with the interest rates when I spoke to them over the weekend.

To add insult to it, I received a letter Tuesday from Halifax stating they were putting my interest rate up to 27.9% from May! Not best pleased.

Where is the best place to address letters to for these companies and their credit card sectors?

I'm right annoyed at this, evidently I'm a cash cow to them at the moment and they woudn't want to help.

I feel that only paying 1 card off at a time is my QUICKEST route to paying it all off rather than pandering to them with minimum payments and getting nowhere. I don't care about defaults appearing. I don't have any intention to want to borrow more and I won't be needing a mortgage within 6 years. It's not the end of the world.

WhenIam64

I feel that only paying 1 card off at a time is my QUICKEST route to paying it all off rather than pandering to them with minimum payments and getting nowhere

Minimum payments don't reduce debt - it actually increases it. If the monthly interest is 1.89% and the minimum is 1% then the debt grows with you paying interest on interest.

And why would Credit Card companies reduce the interest payable? You would have seen and read the terms of taking out the card, and agreed to them by using the card.

Sit down with a spreadsheet and work out how much more you are going to be in debt following your current method in a year's time.

You really have to do the numbers and decide.