In it for the long haul

Wishful01

Hey all,

Well let’s start at the beginning I’ve made a lot of bad decision in my life regarding money and now is time to stop and start digging myself out of the hole I’ve managed to get stuck in. So this is it paying my debt off one step (or month) at a time. I have made a small start but now I need to knuckle down and get this done.

Debts I have are:-

Debt name Start/Left
Fashion world [STRIKE]£165.82[/STRIKE] Paid December 2019 :j
Zinc [STRIKE]£81.23[/STRIKE] Paid January 2020 :j
CCS £145.71/£126.00
Cabot £180.88/£160.00
Lowell £1,044.24/£977.98
Lending stream. £1,167.00/£1,147.00
Old rent £2,222.09/£2210.09
Lowell £1,319.85/£1,236.11
Hoist £2,515.95
Hoist. £7,045.61
Total £15,878.67/£15,375.74

November 2019 £186.98
December 2019 £219
January 2020 £52.05

Ok I think that’s it unless another one comes along and bits me in the !!!. I have made a start and I’ll be posting monthly updates as I go so I can see where I started and where I am now. I have made payment arrangements with all of them apart from the CCS one as the account is currently sat in between two debt collection agencies and neither will agree to anything which is a pain the one that contacted me has sent it back and the original one currently doesn’t have it on their system so that’ll be dealt with as and when I can.

So that’s me...

Wishful01

November payments £186.98

Debt name
Fashion world £ 165.82 £82.00 paid £84.82 left
Zinc £ 81.23 £10.00 paid £71.23 left
CCS £ 145.71 £9.71 paid £136.00 left
Cabot £ 180.88 £10.00 paid £170.88 left
Lowell £1,044.24 £34.14 paid £1011.11 left
Lending stream. £1,167.00 £10.00 paid £1,157.00 left
Old rent £2,222.09
Lowell £1,319.85 £41.87 paid £1,277.98 left
CCS £2,515.95
Total £8,833.06 £196.59 paid £8,646.18 left

Wishful01

So today I have done the following:-

Written a menu plan out using stuff ii already have
Baked two cakes so we have snacks
Organised spending jars in HyperJar for my spending to help with budgeting
Filled in CalendarBudget so I can plan for the future
Priced up carpets for the house and worked out when I can get these as moved into a new build and currently no carpets at all
Took all my cards but the HyperJar jar one out of my purse
Sorted through my clothes I defiantly do not need any for the next year

Now everything is ready and sorted out so I can get as much help as possible with planning my money, food is our worst expense so hopefully by having the jar and I can link it to my card I will plan much more efficiently.

MidsHollie

Hi Wishful,

Good luck on your journey to becoming debt free!
I was just wondering..... do you have much spare money to put towards your debt? Some of your debts are quite small compared to the others,and it might be useful mentally to really focus on those to get them gone, and then you'll have more money to put towards the larger debts. It's called a debt snowball (sorry if I'm teaching you to suck eggs!)
I've also been eating out of cupboards and freezer recently,although now at a point where I'll have to start buying a bit of meat and other bits and pieces now. There are some great boards on here that have budget meals that you can make, I'd recommend taking a look at them. Also, do post up an SOA - there are often lots of ways you can save money without even realising it

FtbDreaming

Good luck... i came on here in 2017 with £4000 and managed to make the last payment on friday. There were challenges and life hurdles on the way but i got back onto it and feels great to finally be debt free.

Id do as the previous poster says and smash the smallest ones first so then you have more money to throw at the bigger ones. Its less mentally overwhelming having 4 debts rather than 9.

Im also obsessed with rounding down to the next £10 £50 or £100 whichever i can afford, and as each debt got smaller i would pay off bigger chunks just to get it gone as quick as possible.

Good luck!

Wishful01

Hi both thank you for the replies, I don’t have any money at the moment the problem is I have just gone from weekly to monthly pay and I’m having to pay extra rent to make sure my account gets into credit so it’s just really bad timing for me to start and make any dent as such at the moment. I have an excel spreadsheet all done and it’ snowballs all my debt so I’ll be doing that eventually, I can start properly in February than really get the balances down and the small ones gone.

I’ve already switched energy suppliers, cancelled the TV license as we don’t watch any TV at all my mobile is £25 a month and I don’t have broadband as I have plenty of data on my mobile. So my bills are as small as I can get them at the moment.

I’ve been here before and like most people got complacent and just started spending again instead of saving :mad: but we love and learn I guess or maybe just live. A lot of the debt is from when I got laid off and had to borrow to live unfortunately it took me a while to find work, but thank you so much for your replies

FootyFanDan

Hey Wishful.

Just wanted to pop in and say good luck on shifting the debt! At least you have a plan which is a good start and you are already looking at where you can save money.

Cheering you on! You have got this

Wishful01

Today I have batch cooked the weeks meals so I’m all set until Saturday now so that’s one saving I’ll make. I made soup from a stir fry mix I bought and really didn’t like and it worked out really well so that’ll be lunch all week for me.

Day 2 of NSD’s for me

Wishful01

This weeks focus will be the cereal cupboard and the freezer, so far I’ve used up gammon, Kiev’s, threw a stir fry mix in a soup (which worked surprisingly well) and a HM pasta sauce from the freezer. Used up two instant porridge’s and some oats in flapjacks.

I have an absolute tonne of chopped tomatoes (from when I did slimming world) I am going to focus on those and make pasta sauces, soups and other dishes to get them used, embarrassingly there are 15 cartons most of them won for slimmer of the week.

3 days of NSD’s for me today as I don’t need to get anything.

I’ve just started reading the no spend year book some very interesting things in there and once all my cleaning products start to dwindle I’ll be using white vinegar to clean, I could never go to that extreme but certainly some food for thought.

I’ve decided that Sunday’s will be my bake and batch cook day so I can keep myself organised and not lose focus.

I’ve also set up an excel spreadsheet with all my money goals and where I want to be. I have budgeted for £100 for clothes for the year but the only thing I can see myself needing and they will be needed is some new steel toe cap boots for work as mine aren’t the best my feet are starting to hurt in them and I walk about 7 miles a day in them so I’ll look when I really can’t wear them any longer, I did buy insoles for them but as they have low steel toe caps they just ended up rubbing my toes so that out of the question but right now I’ll manage for as long as I can. I’m hoping to still have a huge chunk of that left at the end of the year.

Wishful01

I was invited out by some people at work tonight for drinks luckily I had to pick up DD from work so that gave me a good excuse not to go. I knew it would be a few then a few more and really not willling to spend £30 odd on drinks as it could be used elsewhere.

So finally got my contract signed and he bad news is I have to do a month in hand so I won’t get paid until February I don’t thhink waiting to get that clarified so I’ll have to make small debt repayments in December and January for now then hit it hard from February. I have worked out I can afford £219 a month so that’s a fair chunk off each month and any extra I can save from my tight budget will get thrown at it as well.

Looking at a debt free date of October 2021 at the moment but I’m going to do my best to get that done quicker. But really it’s not that long. I’m currently paying £50 a month extra to the housing association so I will be ahead with my rent enough as I’m now paying monthly (or will be) and I have enough to continue that even if I don’t get paid for the two months so I am at the moment looking ok. The £50 extra ends in July so from August that can go to debts as I won’t really have any extra that I’ll b missing as I’m not seeing it now anyway.

Well off to bed as it’s freezing here and I’m determined I’m not putting there heating on before bed.

Wishful01

Good morning,

Work just rang and as I suspected I don’t get my first pay until February 22nd :eek: thank god I have a bit saved so I will survive but there is literally £1.12 left from the budget so I will need to stick to what I have and pray nothing major happens before then. I’ve got everything worked out on calendar budget and it is doable but the £30 a week for me and DD for food scares me slightly so every bit of food in my cupboard will need to be utilised one way of another.

This is the worst it can be until February then things start to get a lot better, I’ll be putting a little away in a savings pot from February too so I have some back up. I’ve bow made a pot for that in HyperJar and hidden it from the main page so I don’t aee it and think ohh I have extra money as it needs to be used only in an emergency and a take away doesn’t count .

Day 4 of NSD’s for me today the longest I’ve gone for ages so while it’s not going out of my bank I’m achieving my goals one day at a time