Counting Down from £15K

purplehippo276

I'm also seeing a bit of an improvement in my credit score, finally, after it staying static for months and months on end.  Credit Karma went up 8 points today.  Still in the good territory, but not far off excellent now.  This has been my goal in case we decide to move house sometime soon.

ryanm8655

Good work!

I find the credit scores so random (not random but illogical). My debt went down by £5k but my credit score declined ha. It was because I closed a card down so I was using a higher proportion of the credit available, despite being further away from maxing out my total affordable debt...it’s not very nuanced and seems a very simplistic way of looking at things...A friend of mines score went down when he got a mortgage...

ZaSa1418

purplehippo276 said:

Payday today!  Made all my manual payments, and have a new budget to see me through the next few months.  I imagine it it will need tweaking in January as I plan to hit the debt hard after Christmas. 

Updated my signature too, and feeling good for the month ahead.  I thought I hadn't made much progress in October, but adding everything up I can see I made great progress despite veering off track a little.  Although through to Christmas I will be paying less to debt (so that I don't end up in debt) I'm feeling closer to the end goal, and I've managed to bump up my emergency fund to just shy of £900.   

You are doing amazingly well 

purplehippo276

Thanks @ZaSa1418 - looking at your signature, it looks like you are also absolutely smashing it!  Amazing stuff!

purplehippo276

@ryanm8655 Frustratingly illogical!  I really try to not get too hung up on it, but as someone who always strived for the best possible grade at school and uni then it's tricky not too!

purplehippo276

Know how I said I was going into the month feeling good?  Yeah, so, that lasted all of 12 hours, when I could smell gas.  Emergency engineer confirmed a gas leak, so now I have to dig into my emergency fund to get the pipework connecting the hob replaced as it's all knackered.  Currently awaiting a quote for that, but feeling like it's 1 step forward, 2 steps back!  

ryanm8655

purplehippo276 said:

Know how I said I was going into the month feeling good?  Yeah, so, that lasted all of 12 hours, when I could smell gas.  Emergency engineer confirmed a gas leak, so now I have to dig into my emergency fund to get the pipework connecting the hob replaced as it's all knackered.  Currently awaiting a quote for that, but feeling like it's 1 step forward, 2 steps back!  

That’s a bummer, though I guess what emergency funds are for and at least you had one...these set backs are frustrating at the best of times, let alone when on a roll with the debt clearance!

alt80

@purplehippo276 you're doing great with the debts and you've got your repair done without going into further debt - that's a massive win! 

Re credit scores mines always well into the 'excellent' range - purely as my utilisation is not that high compared to available credit but if you're closing accounts your utilisation will be negatively impacted. You want them to see you are 'responsible' haha ie not maxing cards out. I wouldn't close accounts tbf until you've near to clearing the next card so the smaller balance tips the overall utilisation down. Going down with the (res assumed) mortgage app will be a hard search and also new address. Temporary dip. I have to keep a decent credit record so am quite careful with monitoring that - would rather get a new card than max one out tbh. 

purplehippo276

Did a review of our childcare, and realised we could cut the care for our eldest in half. We pay for a childminder to pick our eldest from school four days a week, until we finish work. However, lately my husband has been starting work early and finishing by 3pm (from home), which is working well for him.  It's looking like that he is going to be working from home for quite some time, so with his new hours this means he can do the school run.  As a result, we've cut our childminding down to two days a week, saving £75 a month. I don't want to lose the childminding completely as there are very limited options where we live (rural Scotland), so happy to pay the £75 a month mostly as a retainer, but also it means if we both finish early from work we can head out for a coffee or a nice walk together without small children in tow (if you are a parent then you'll know this is priceless!) before collecting them.  

Embarrassingly, although I've been paying £50 a month to HMRC for what feels like ages to pay down my tax credits overpayment, I only just yesterday realised that tax credits overpayments are classed as a priority debt, that if you default can result in you losing your home and all sorts of consequences. As they were so amenable about the £50 payment, and the fact that it wasn't showing on my credit report, I didn't think about it as being so important. Now I have the fear!! I've got about £1700 left to pay on it, so the £75 freed up from childcare is going to go to HMRC each month as an overpayment on top of the £50 direct debit.  One day, hopefully soon, I'll be free of this nightmare and I cannot wait! 

purplehippo276

@alt80 although the Barclaycard is so very nearly paid off (£580 to go!) I don't plan to close it down for this very reason. I have only ever used it for balance transfers, so I don't know the PIN number or anything for it, so no chance of me spending on it! Keeping it open is not a temptation for me to spend on it, so happy to keep it open to make my credit utilisation look better! I tried to up my credit limit by £1K on the Barclaycard the other week to improve my credit utilisation - I've paid off almost £7K off of it this year and thought it would be fine with so little left to go - but the ***** wouldn't let me.  Not my favourite bank right now!!