Here’s to the future...

Scloud

July update - everything is paid and all of the statements are in so I can update this months total. 
July:
Total CC Debt: £30570 / 37488. (£6918 paid since November 2019). 18% paid off!
Focus Debt: £2077 / £3007 (£930 paid) 31% paid off!
Overdraft continues to stand at £0. Emergency fund is depleted due to a car emergency but debt has continued to decrease! 
This month is summer and with things starting to get back to normal I think it is going to be an expensive month. I predict it will be the first where it is tempting to overspend so going to take a deep breath and get through it with money awareness. No head in the sand and turning a blind eye the pennies as they slip away this summer for me. 

WinterWarrior

Well done. Some great progress there. 

Scloud

Another debt down!

So... my husband had a 0% money transfer and has used it to do a bit of juggling to get some more of our debt to 0%. We've now paid off the store card I was working on getting down (that had a massive % for minimum payment) and we are now going to work on paying our next highest interest debt together. It's a very high interest card that offers 6 month balance transfers before hitting you with 34% interest. The current total is around £4,500 - we have to wait for the dust to settle after the money transfer. Some of it is interest free currently but not for too long. We should have at least £400 per month to throw at it which means it will be gone within the next 12 months but aim to get it gone by 9 months time. That would mean our minimum payments will be reduced by £200 - something that we very much need! 

I actually feel a bit stressed by juggling debt around like this. I would prefer to keep it still and slowly chip away as we have spent a long time moving money around and it hasn't got us very far! In fact - I think it has actually contributed to getting the debt up. However, I have never tracked and been as on top of the debt as I am now so hopefully this will help us start to see a bigger dent in shifting the debt. Aiming to get another 2% off this month to take us to 20% paid off although as I had predicted - the spending opportunities are multiplying day by day! 

Jophi2b

Just read through your whole diary @Scloud and your progress so far gives me hope that I can follow your progress. The size of my debt sometimes feels very overwhelming, but I am hoping to continually chip away at it as you have evidently been. I will watch your progress with keen interest! Cheering you on 

sunshineholiday

Great progress, well done.

peb

Morning. I see you have a book habit, many of us do.  I just wanted to mention snap my eats. I'm using this to get Amazon vouchers to get new books.  This way I can justify to myself buying books that I think of as new. £10 every other month, the new Ruth Galloway is going to be bought in August.  

Scloud

peb said:

Morning. I see you have a book habit, many of us do.  I just wanted to mention snap my eats. I'm using this to get Amazon vouchers to get new books.  This way I can justify to myself buying books that I think of as new. £10 every other month, the new Ruth Galloway is going to be bought in August.  

Thanks for sharing this! I already use I-say to get amazon vouchers - I've earned £20 this year which isn't huge but is about 4 books and a few other bits so not complaining! I will look into the app.

Scloud

Jophi2b said:

Just read through your whole diary @Scloud and your progress so far gives me hope that I can follow your progress. The size of my debt sometimes feels very overwhelming, but I am hoping to continually chip away at it as you have evidently been. I will watch your progress with keen interest! Cheering you on 

It's so hard isn't it - staring at this massive mountain and finding it hard to comprehend just how long it is going to take. I get times where I feel so overwhelmed and unmotivated but I have to remind myself that there is no other way than the slow route. It really helps me to look back at my old entries and see that back in March I was 6% and getting to the 18% paid off I am now seemed impossible. The best thing for me is getting to colour in a square of my tracking chart whenever I pay off another 1% - so motivating in not wanting to let the debt sneak back up! 

Naomim

peb said:

Morning. I see you have a book habit, many of us do.  I just wanted to mention snap my eats. I'm using this to get Amazon vouchers to get new books.  This way I can justify to myself buying books that I think of as new. £10 every other month, the new Ruth Galloway is going to be bought in August.  

Thanks for this, I love a book too although I've lost my reading mojo this year 😕  but I'm going to look at this. I assume it's an app?

Naomim

Scloud

I thought I'd read so much during lockdown and that just did not happen! I'm catching up more now that things are settling. I've just downloaded the app - looks like you get £1 for every 3 receipts you upload in a month.