It's the final countdown...£10k to go

t2rry

Signature Shuffle complete
I've paid off another £2,000 from the Car CC.  Feeling very good about that!
I have put £500 into banked funds so that's back up to a fairly healthy amount.  Depending on how the month goes I may use some of that again to pay down the Car CC, but I was loathed to do that today when I've tightened our budgets for the month so much and who knows what may come up.

Our moveable budgets for March are very simply £475 for food & petrol, £50 for birthdays.
The rest of the month is pretty set, a few known costs coming up and budgeted for.  We have £55 set aside for OH CC, plus £30ish to cover the interest that will be attributed to the Car CC when the bill comes, as I want to keep that rounded down.

That's it, but it's a good month for us to have little desire for personal purchasing, so I really think we can have our third amazing month in a row.  And we always have the banked pot just in case it isn't.  Then I need to get a few more things on selling sites too, not loads but something.  I feel a spring clear out coming on with this sunnier weather peering.

t2rry

I've been watching a bit of Dave Ramsey...mostly because after so long here I've become really interested in topics surrounding money saving and working towards a little more financial security etc.  Can't help but wonder whether I should have stuck with getting rid of the smallest debt first, rather than snowball for interest savings.  Even now, if I concentrated on the smaller CC I could have that cleared on April payday.  Tackling the larger first, that should hopefully be cleared on May payday.

The end date will be the same though so I'll probably carry on as I am.  I've estimated the current route will cost me approx £70 interest, the other would be more like £100 - £110 I think, if someone handed me £30-£40 today I wouldn't sniff at it!!!

I do quite like his clarity on keeping just £1,000 emergency fund rather than stockpiling more though, keeps you on the straight and narrow a little more rather than 'just in case' and accepting a spendy scenario that you wouldn't if that buffer simply weren't there.  Because in any real emergency, there's always a way to fund it, anything else isn't an emergency so isn't necessary - so I'm thinking of definitely keeping my banked funds at £1,000 rather than more.  Just to decide whether to round £500 down on the Car CC now or wait until the bill comes through to get a quick pay off in before I can make the bigger payment on payday.

Sarahwithlove

I like Dave Ramsey I have joined a few of the UK groups on FB quite good for tips and stuff. I think because you are able to make such good overpayments that hitting interest charging cards is probably for the best. Snowball method works if you have lots of little debts or can only make smaller overpayments as then it still feels like you are making progress paying them off vs a massive debt where it doesn't look like it's really made any difference due to the high amount that would go on interest. 

t2rry

Sarahwithlove said:

I like Dave Ramsey I have joined a few of the UK groups on FB quite good for tips and stuff. I think because you are able to make such good overpayments that hitting interest charging cards is probably for the best. Snowball method works if you have lots of little debts or can only make smaller overpayments as then it still feels like you are making progress paying them off vs a massive debt where it doesn't look like it's really made any difference due to the high amount that would go on interest. 

That's a really good point actually, different to starting off when you're trying to get on top of things and tidying up.  Plus current plan makes my Car CC my smallest debt as soon as March payday hits, so from then on I'll be doing the 'right' thing both ways!!

t2rry

Thought I'd do a mid-month check in

Budgets are all as planned, food maybe a day or two ahead of ourselves but a no spend weekend is all that needs to get back on track, which is doable this weekend.

Overspends are as follows:
£8 on owed work syndicates (I always forget to budget this as it used to come out of cash, so swallowed by food budget!)
£18 charity donation
£47.40 on new school jumpers & shoes (kids grow quickly!)
£85 deposit for weekend away at the end of the year.  
£10 on a fb marketplace home item (see below for method to this spend)
That's £168.40....

BUT

Savings made on budget:
£2.57 selling
£14.19 refund from old broadband supplier
£100 item budgeted for that we instead found to do up on fb marketplace (the £10 spend above)
£50 gift voucher won, which will replace £50 cash budget for clothes for OH (very much in need)
£610 freelance work paid (net)
That's £776.76

Now you'd think that leaves me a 'profit' of £608.36, but actually somehow (now I'm looking at it on my tracker I'm actually not sure exactly how) I have managed to swallow the £168.40 overspend into the usual budget, and I've been able to set £750 aside into banked funds and keep another £26.19 in the tracker as a fall back for the food budget.  
That is pretty much the whole £776.76 I've managed to 'save', just 57p unaccounted for...I know I originally budgeted £100 for OH clothes, so that's where some has come from, but I'm not sure about the rest!!!

Anyway, I'm now back to the age old quandary of when to pay down the Car CC with some or all of it.  I know I will have one more deposit to pay before the month is up, for another event attendance towards the end of the year, which again wasn't budgeted for - so I'll hold off, pay that and put the remainder to the CC as by then the bill will have arrived too so I can round down the interest accrued at the same time, which I've predicted to be approx. £30 but I'm hoping, with the extra & earlier payments I've made since calculating it, that this will be lower.

mark55man

That's fantastic progress, I call that magic money - when you've done your budget and its tight but OK, then some error you made, or some unexpected payment from work or family comes through.  Initially my reaction is to go half and half - pay some of as you'll be grateful later, but keep some aside to boost your EF or to give you a little slack.  I think none of us on this board would go and blow it - especially as there is not much to blow it on these days.

t2rry

mark55man said:

That's fantastic progress, I call that magic money - when you've done your budget and its tight but OK, then some error you made, or some unexpected payment from work or family comes through.  Initially my reaction is to go half and half - pay some of as you'll be grateful later, but keep some aside to boost your EF or to give you a little slack.  I think none of us on this board would go and blow it - especially as there is not much to blow it on these days.

Well I think it’s fair to say I love magic money!! I’ve now never been more impatient for my credit card bill to arrive so I can pay it down!! 

t2rry

Statement landed, £23.69 interest so a few quid saved there on expectation.  I've thrown £500+the interest at it from the £750 extra I found this month.  That leaves me with £226.31 to cover the deposit I have coming up (to be confirmed in the next week as it's an occasion someone else is arranging), and that will leave some extra too as that whole occasion is total £250, so the deposit should be minimal out of that, better to leave plenty than be caught short though I figure.  

t2rry

Just realised I'll be back under £10k again come payday in 2 weeks time.  Back in line with my diary title That's exciting!

The payrise I talked about a while back, which was promised but never happened, has been confirmed now...so it will happen, probably not until April's paycheck though.  By then it will be pretty much an entire year's worth of backpay though, so if it goes through as it should, that will bring my debt free date forward a month.  That's even more exciting.  Watch now though, I've said it 'out loud' so another issue is bound to come up!

t2rry

One step closer to the payrise again, it should be confirmed next week, with the backpay date confirmed too.  I'm wondering if/when that happens about asking payroll to run off a dummy payslip for me to see what my take home will be for April.  If they can do that, I've no idea if they can or not but worth asking I think as this wait has been quite frankly ridiculous and I really want to know!!  I have predicted, based on previous pointers here, that the take home from the back pay should be around £2,500.  As mentioned this should bring my debt free date forward one payday, but I'm not accounting for it in the budget until it's confirmed. There are one or two other things I have in the pipeline too that may bring it forward a month as well, or somewhere close to a month, but again I won't count my chickens....

In the meantime I'm just waiting for payday.  I'm still waiting on hearing about deposits for a couple of things mentioned previously, the money is still sat waiting for them whenever they come.

I am feeling so pushed to get things moving in the right direction before each payday, that I think I'm going to have a purge for selling this evening.  I'm sure I have some of the kids clothes that can go on and probably a few pieces of unwanted housewares too.  Time just doesn't seem to be my friend at the moment, even now the kids are back at school I feel like I have less time than before, certainly less than this time last year.  That's one thing I definitely can't buy, even if I wanted to!!

I'm just so impatient about all of this now.  We've been invited for a day out with some friends once we're allowed - it's not expensive, but I've gone to the extent of working out how much petrol would cost in addition to the food/drink we'd have to spend...it comes to £100 easily, so I think we're going to say no.  It goes against the grain of trying to live at the same time as paying this all down, especially when we've not seen these friends for now the best part of 2 years but I think if we were still a year away from the debt free date, we would do it, but it feels so close now that I just want to get as much gone as soon as possible so £100 feels like an amount I'd love to 'find' to pay down.  Plus we do have events/occasions happening later in the year where we will see people and which we are accepting the cost burden of.

Budgets as they currently sit should see the balance (currently £11,890) reduce as follows:
March payday down to £9,575
April payday down to £6,470 (this is without the backpay)
May payday down to £3,915
June payday down to £1,455
July payday = £0

When it's going to take £1,455 to bring the debt free date forward a month as it currently stands, I feel like £100 goes a decent way to doing that.  Then moving forwards we can say yes to those sorts of things without constantly thinking about the cost of it.

That's quite a ramble today....!