Venturing Out of the Vault (of Debt)

enthusiasticsaver

I saw your post on the pensions board and thought I would wander over to your diary. Some great debt busting has been going on over the last few weeks and a great result getting the FD loan at the headline rate. Seems you have had a real LBM and got very real with budgeting etc so well done on that.

Good that the overdraft is almost gone. I also completely agree with you about being in control of your finances leading to a more positive,calm and happier state of mind. Keep up the good work and before you know it you will be debt free and finding the right balance between FIRE and making the best of your money right now.

Pip_Boy_111

Thanks for stopping by and reading my ramblings on life!

Not much to report today. Everything is in order. The sun is out and it's very warm. Sat with beer in hand in the garden (budgeted for and bought from aldi).

Life is good. Have a great bank holiday everyone :beer:

brizzlegirl

Just followed ES over. You’re doing brilliantly. Well done. Am loving the complete u turn you’ve done over living with debt. It’s impressive and great to see. My LBMs have flickered and off until now when I have decided I just can’t live with it anymore so I am going all out to get rid of it (again) but with you, no chance :rotfl: you were on this from the off

Have a great weekend

Brizzle

Pip_Boy_111

Thanks Brizzle. Always nice to hear from people (and to know that someone actually reads my ramblings! :rotfl:)

Today:
Little bit of an annoyance in that my bills account can't be switched to FD until May. No biggie, just wanted it done and dusted and forgotten about, but hey ho.
All quiet again on the debt busting front. All the accounts are quietly ticking away by themselves and everything is sorted until DW gets paid and more payments can be made towards debt free nirvana :rotfl:
With all that in mind, and with the weather being absolutely glorious, we're having friends over for drinks in the garden today (sounds posh eh? It isn't. Most likely will descend into drunken anarchy :rotfl:) p.s. please drink responsibly
Beer has been stocked from Aldi (a bazillion times cheaper than going out to a beer garden) and whilst there stocked up on frozen pizzas for the inevitable munchies later on (69p! and they're tasty).
Hope everyone is enjoying the bank holiday weather. CHEERS :beer:

Pip_Boy_111

So the drinking in the garden went *ahem* well. :beer:

Been busy doing outdoorsy things with the family and generally enjoying this awesome weather. Nothing much to report spending wise. Really pleased we set a budget for our little garden party and managed to stick to it. :T
Everyone's had a great time in the sunshine and it's been like being on holiday, even though we haven't really left the street. :rotfl:
Really hammers home the fact about memories not costing a penny. Back to reality today though. Back at work and it's far too hot to be wearing overalls
Debt wise all is quiet. This is a good sign. No surprises, no nasty shocks, everything as it should be. I could get used to this calmness around money.
Need to go see a second hand bike at some point this week. Nice and cheap and will save even more on fuel for the already low petrol budget. If this works out, I'm considering reducing to one car, but not making any rash decisions until I've given it a try on a wet, windy November morning :rotfl:

Hope everyone is enjoying the weather. :beer:

Pip_Boy_111

A few hours off before night shift and I plan to use it productively.

This morning have swapped the overdraft from HSBC to First Direct due to the £250, 0% that they offer. The OD will be gone in 20 days time, but this will save a little bit of interest in that time. I know I've just swapped the debt to another bank on a lower rate for now, but as of right now I have £0 of borrowing with HSBC for the first time in nearly 15 years :j A small psychological win.

Have been messing with my spreadsheet for the next few months bills, and once the OD is gone next payday, we can then plough roughly £500 p/m into the CC, meaning that should be gone in a few months. We could do it a lot quicker, but this would require cutting back to the bare minimum and this isn't part of my "balanced" philosophy.

Hopefully around September we will just be left with the (now much cheaper) loan to pay down. At this point, all the snowballed payments from the OD and CC will be available to use. My plan here is to use roughly half of those payments to overpay the loan and half to stash away to start building a 6 month emergency pot. Again, the loan could be gone quicker if I put it all towards it, but this way the loan is not, now, an expensive drain and with the interest being a few pence over £1000 if it were to go to term, i'm more than happy to overpay by less to have an emergency fund. Fag packet calculations show that this method means we will pay under £700 total interest for the credit. I'm happy with this for two reasons.
1) It's MUCH lower than what we were looking at originally(over £8000 in interest originally).
2) It allows us to achieve a balance of paying the debt quickly and more cheaply AND to start building savings for an emergency pot (this excites me as we've never really had "proper" savings).

That's quite enough maths for this time of the morning. Off to be DFW by batch cooking something from scratch (cooking is becoming a bit of a hobby lately :j). Then it's boring housework-y type stuff, then chill out before work.
Hopefully this plan is solid and will see us right. Unbelievable that this all seems so clear and do-able when, this time last year we were bumbling along not really having a clue. Organisation :money:

Pip_Boy_111

Up and about after night shift and feeling down today. No idea why, just feel like the weight of the world is pressing down on me. May just be lack of proper sleep as there's really not much logical reason to be feeling glum

Paid another £50 off the OD :T Down to £300 and will be gone in T- 19 days. All my spreadsheets are up to date and correct. FD switch is all set up and ready to go (got a letter from both banks today confirming). Last night shift tonight then off until next Friday.

So, yeah, really no reason to be down in the dumps at all. Maybe a good shake and a walk in this terrible wet, windy weather will blow the blues away.

Sanctioned_Parts_List

Just checking in, as I ignored you (and everybody else) while on home leave Well done on the FD loan transfer, and looks like you have a solid plan for clearing the rest off :beer:

Pip_Boy_111

Sanctioned_Parts_List wrote: »

Just checking in, as I ignored you (and everybody else) while on home leave Well done on the FD loan transfer, and looks like you have a solid plan for clearing the rest off :beer:

Thanks. Hope you enjoyed your home leave. Did you get that beer in the end? :beer:

Sanctioned_Parts_List

Pip_Boy_111 wrote: »

Up and about after night shift and feeling down today. No idea why, just feel like the weight of the world is pressing down on me. May just be lack of proper sleep as there's really not much logical reason to be feeling glum

I get that a lot. To some extent, I think it's a case that, even though everything's paid off I'm still in thrall to the nagging voice saying "what if...?"