Isca’s Journey

Isca82

Hello, my name is Isca (well it’s not but it is in here :rotfl:), I’m 37, married mum of 2 with debts to pay.

My children are DD(8) and DS(4).

We’ve made some bad decisions in the past and been able to save ourselves from debt by depleting our savings. However a mix of factors over the last year have seen us with credit card debts we really want to get rid of. We have a few bits on different cards and I need to get it all together to see the total - I’m guessing around £6k. We plan to balance transfer them all onto a new card and then get focused on getting rid of them as soon as we can.

We have a new budget set up for June, and that has £200 allocated to credit cards. I’m hoping to make/find more this month too. I think our new card will have 0% for 23 months so that’s around £260 per month I need to pay off. Hopefully more to get it gone sooner!

My personal income varies each month, and it’s been low lately due to health reasons (one of the causes of the debt). I want this diary to help me focus and keep me accountable.

I’ll update again soon when I have figures together.

Isca82

* Apply for new credit card
* List all cards/balances to consolidate
* Get all vouchers etc together and see what we have
* Sort cash envelopes for this month
* Pay in cash laying around (coins)

redofromstart

Hi Isca, happy new diary and good luck with your journey!

beanielou

Happy shiny new diary

Baby steps are always good.

FootyFanDan

Hi Isca,

Just wanted to wish you luck on your journey.

Isca82

Quick Update, June feels like its rushing by. I'm working on a new budget for July onwards which allows us to pay off this debt.

The Credit Card and balance transfers have gone through so we have all the debt in one place at 0%. The total is £5835.29. I'm glad to have it all in one place and be able to focus on it now.

We also called Sky and managed to decrease our monthly bill with them. Now tied in for another 18 month at £55 per month (yes I know it could be cheaper but everything we have with them we use and get good value from). Reminder set to call them again in December 2020!

Isca82

I just came on here to start a diary and discovered I had already started this one. As you may guess, being consistent and following things through isn't a strength :rotfl:

To update from the last post, we now have our balances consolidated into one credit card, and the balance is approx £5580. We have 19 months to pay this off.

We really haven't been in good financial habits for some time. I am hoping to use this diary to keep me on track, and keep notes on all the small steps that I hope will add up to us kicking this credit card.

The bad weather and heavy rain has brought to the top of the list a couple of repair jobs that we need to do. Number 1 is getting the gutters cleared and this needs to happen asap.

Tomorrow we are emptying and getting rid of a storage unit we have had for a couple of years. I remember saying the day we took it that we would only need it for a couple of month, and here we are over 2 years later..... will be glad to see the back of the £92 per month bill for this, although we will need to pay a disposal bill for some of the items. I'm expecting that to be approx £350 (don't ask :eek:)

I don't really mind if anyone reads my witterings or not, I really think that keeping notes and track in this diary is going to help me and thats my main motivation!

Isca82

Credit Card balance as of 3rd October - £5503.30
A little lower than I thought!

Honeysucklelou2

Those storage containers can eat away money over time.
Good luck with the debt busting!

Isca82

Honeysucklelou2 wrote: »

Those storage containers can eat away money over time.
Good luck with the debt busting!

So true. Its cost us an arm and a leg and its been a case of out of sight out of mind, but at least we are dealing with it now. If it wasn't for us getting ourselves in check now it could have stayed there for another 2 years!

Been to the post office this afternoon and taken out some cash for our Eating Out/Takeaways envelope, and some coins to pay for Brownies each week (I'm usually scrabbling around each week for change). Feeling organised, long may it continue :rotfl:

We have also decided to split the Grocery budget off and have moved it over to my Revolut card. This should keep me on track as I will easily be able to see the balance decreasing...

darrannah

good morning Isca, i will be reading your witterings baby steps turn into giant leaps, good luck xx