Finding the way through a £100k hole

Isitdoable

Also....ethical meat choices. Any tips on this without breaking the bank? I don't want to feed my family with cheap, imported meat and this is one area I won't comprise on. We already only eat meat about 3-4 times a week.

Isitdoable

Time for some ugly numbers. I've been totting up the credit cards today, APR's etc etc. To allow the business to make a big enough profit to pay off the mammoth debts we need to have a couple of years of not taking very much at all. So a big scale down on spending....BUT....I really want to get these cards gone also. I'm pretty sure the answer will be to make more money. More on that later!

But here we are.

MY CARDS
CARD APR BALANCE
AMEX 22.9 6736
AQUA 33 2578
BARCLAYCARD 20 6382
NATIONWIDE 8 4472
CAPITAL 1 30 639
TOTAL 20807

OH CARDS

LLOYDS 15 2260
BARCLAYCARD 26 4423
VIRGIN 0 0
M&S 0 0
TOTAL 6683

OH has just managed to take out the two bottom cards which are 0% balance transfer. £1000 limit on the M&S, £5000 limit on the Virgin card. So first job is to transfer £6k off the highest interest cards.

Then going to pop the rest into the snowball calculator in the first instance.

Thoughts?

PurpleFairy26

See if you can transfer an amount from your card to his, some do I believe. That way put the highest apr on the BT card. If answer is no, moving his to 0% will be better than nothing.

Are you eligible for any 0% cards, can do a soft check on the MSE site which won’t impact credit rating. Getting as many on to 0% would really help.

Best of luck.

Isitdoable

PurpleFairy26 wrote: »

See if you can transfer an amount from your card to his, some do I believe. That way put the highest apr on the BT card. If answer is no, moving his to 0% will be better than nothing.

Are you eligible for any 0% cards, can do a soft check on the MSE site which won’t impact credit rating. Getting as many on to 0% would really help.

Best of luck.

My affordability doesn't seem great at the moment, so the only one showing with a high-ish (70%) acceptance rate is actually a different card from Aqua....so I don't think that would be a goer?

Isitdoable

Actually, the Aqua card is on 90% chance of acceptance, but I can't see that they would given I already have another with them! Tesco and Fluid are showing at 70%. Can't decide whether to give it a shot or not.

Buffythedebtslayer

Change your name to Itisdoable. Cos it is.

Weirdly (and this is weird) I used to like working out the balance transfers.

take care XXXX

Isitdoable

Buffythedebtslayer wrote: »

Change your name to Itisdoable. Cos it is.

Weirdly (and this is weird) I used to like working out the balance transfers.

take care XXXX

Thank you so much!! That really made me smile which is always needed!

Isitdoable

Notes for today....

First visit to Aldi (I realise that makes me sound like a privileged !!!!, but I'm not....I just like my normal supermarket and I know where I am with it!)
- fruit and veg is great quality and much cheaper, like a lot
- Meat, good selection, well priced, lots of British
- Baby stuff - much cheaper, this is great, I've stocked up under recommendations from friends, this could save me lots! Nappies - SOOOOO much cheaper than Pampers! And I'm told, just as good.
- Tinned goods, dried goods. Struggled in this area couldn't find the stuff I liked and wanted. Need to go and have a good look. Just stuff like baked beans....I'm a beans snob, I need Heinz!!
-Bread, eggs etc, all good.
- It does feel like they throw you through the till a bit, the queues were bad. The price you pay for the cheapness I guess?!
- I really don't know how I can manage the shop with my workload and the kids (I normally get home delivery). I think I'm working at least 50 hours a week, plus looking after a school age child and a baby. My OH is helpful, but he also works very long and anti-social hours

I've had a lady doing my ironing (to help with aforementioned heavy workload), but I've taken a view that unless the time I'm spending doing it would be spent physically earning more money than I am spending on her, I can't justify it right now. Once business number 2 is bringing in the cash, I may be able to do this, but its not right now. So I worked my way through the pile yesterday and saved myself twenty five quid.

Went to ASDA to fill up my gas guzzler - the fuel is so much cheaper there than anywhere else, it saves me about twenty quid on a fill up, but I'm not always near ASDA so I need to plan a fill up, which I actually managed to do this weekend! Normally. I always forget and end up having to go somewhere more expensive.

Also, booked in my first client meeting for business number 2, that I have quietly been working on for about a year but have been loitering in actually launching (partly due to baby). Well, there is no time like the present I guess....I've been juggling work and childcare for years already, what's another year or so?! Luckily, I seriously thrive on being busy and under pressure.

Isitdoable

Today's wins....

Made it to the post office and made two Amazon returns. Fifty pounds worth of refunds coming onto the Aqua card.

Finally banked a cheque for expenses from 2 months ago (why did I leave it that long?!). Will come straight off the card.

Set myself the challenge of getting to the weekend on the food we have in the fridge and the cupboards. I didn't do a big shop at Aldi, I was more scoping it out, but I picked up some mince. I've made a cottage pie this evening with that and some mash that was in the freezer. That will last for two days at least. Also bought some spinach and ricotta tortellini which was on offer, I'll knock up a sauce for that.

I've been reading a lot of the diaries and what has stuck out to me has been that to be successful you have to keep on going at the little things and then they build up, so I thought it I can think of at least one thing every day, things will start to happen.

Isitdoable

I've inadvertently set myself a bit of a challenge.....

I had a direct debit set up for the Aqua card to pay off the whole balance ( which I have been doing) but the last month ended up a bit mental with Christmas, a car MOT and service and paying off a few other things. Hence the high balance. I'd also been using it for fuel and food, paying in full monthly. Anyway, I got an alert this morning from my current account saying there was not enough money to pay the direct debit (£2400). I didn't want to let it bounce, so I managed to transfer the money from my business account. Essentially I've paid myself and OH early....minus about £1000! So the challenge......I'm going to see with a bit of juggling, money saving and selling stuff, whether I can avoid drawing any extra. I think it's possible. Let's see!

Over the weekend, I will work out the cards and immediate bills I have coming up. Then work out how much I need to make/save.

I will also be hearing in the next day or so what the damage is in terms of tax returns....

Business wise, I will be evaluating debts on a weekly basis. We have some rolling finance in place, and I think this is the best way to make sure it is always coming down, even by a small amount.

Wins today.....

- the two refunds are already back on my aqua card. I hate amazon for destroying the High Street but they do make life easy!!
- banked a cheque yesterday....it's already cleared! Is this new?! Do cheques now clear this fast?
- set myself up a free smol trial....seems v.good value
- have a local activity to do with the children this weekend that is going to cost me just £2
- child benefit landed in the bank....I always forget about it, and it's a nice surprise!
- still working on the HMRC repayment plan, they have agreed to an extra two weeks for me to finalise it, so I know what my position is with my tax return. They are being helpful thus far.