Cutting up the cards and saving for a house - one debt at a time!

beanielou

Hello. 

Just had a quick read. 

Great plan to hammer down that OD. 

The personalised things have really taken off. 

Great idea to ramp that up when you can. 

Take care 😊

Sarahwithlove

Well done on your debt busting so far. I think clearing the overdraft is a good idea as you don't want to be in and out of it if you can help it.
When comes to buying baby stuff most of it second hand will be fine. I also note you said you spent 1500 on Xmas this year. That's ALOT. How many did you buy for? I'm guessing the fact that you're selling stuff that's still in packaging that alot of it is probably unnecessary. Maybe some Xmas and birthday budgets need to be agreed upon especially with a baby coming. You don't want to set the bar high and then not be able to afford it. 

stokegal

Happy Monday everyone!

I've been quiet the past few days as I've finally had a burst of energy to get stuff sorted in the house and with my finances too as well as spend some nice time with OH.

Debt wise I am now on 14 NSD with a target of 25 for the month with 13 days remaining.
I took OH food shopping yesterday - BIG mistake.. I had £100 budgeted until pay day so £50 / week but ended up spending £64.90 so next week will have to be a light shop (DS is at his dads all next week so that will reduce the food bill down but I also bought stuff this week will which last the 2 weeks)
I paid off my AMEX card - I had £1000 marked in my account for this but wanted to wait until just before my statement date as it would put me in my overdraft.  My statement date is Wednesday so paid this morning so I paid it off today and it cleared straight away so as much as I hate being in my overdraft I feel so much better that my AMEX debt has gone!
Updated debt totals are now below

• Overdraft £1600 available - currently using £300 but that is because I have temporarily moved some savings into this until payday - 39.99%
• Barclaycard - £7200 - 24.4%
• Caravan - £16 093.17 - 5.9%
• Paypal Credit - £175 - 0% until April 2021
• Family loan for car - £1150 - 0%
• Very - £650 - 0%
• Sofa - £1072 - 0%
• Repayment of savings - £2800 - 0%
• Total Debt - £30 740.17

My focus is pay off Paypal Credit, Car and overdraft over the next 3 months whilst paying as much off my Barclaycard.  My credit utilisation is around 55% and I'm hoping to get a good BT around May time when it should be down to about 25%
After that I'll start to look at getting baby stuff (I'm already looking online at second hand stuff - I learnt my lesson from buying all new for DS1) and then chipping away at my Barclaycard (or whoever I BT onto)

Today I have transferred most of my DD to Santander so I can start earning Cashback on them and separated my month budget into pots using different bank accounts for each, eg - Household comes from Santander (for Cashback), Food Shopping comes from Nationwide, Savings go to Natwest (Best Regular rate aver I could find) and Debts & Adhoc comes from my main HSBC account.

I've had no luck trying to find aby cheaper utilities - based on my readings and my current charges no where is offering any savings.  I don't have a smart meter at the moment so I would like to try and change to a provider which allows me to see what my usage is (Hopefully this will encourage DS and OH to switch off lights - grr!)

Work is crazy at the moment - I have just found that Feb and March pay are going to be my qualifying months for my average pay so I am trying to earn as much commission as I can this month and next (which then gets paid a month later) to bump this figure up.

Hope every has a good week!

Parkyp

Your doing great with getting those debts down. You’ll be working your wee socks off to get as much commission as possible, I often wondered how maternity pay was worked out with people who get various amounts of commission. Most of the bigger companies will install smart meters For free not sure about smaller ones though. Also remember to look at your current provider to see if they have a better deal available. 

stokegal

Thanks ParkyP - my current supplier will supply me a smart meter for free so I might contact them. Other than that, I’ll have a look to see if there is anyone charging the same but I would benefit from cash back from TopCashback for switching.

I use to work in payroll so had a good knowledge of how to get the lost out of the situation lol. Basically your employee takes an 8 week snapshot of your wages 15 weeks before your due date (or date of confinement - that term always use to make me giggle - like once you have kids that’s it - you can never leave the house again lol) they do it at this point so that you are not penalised for the tricky first and last trimester where energy levels are low. They then look at your wages for that 8 week period and divide it by 8 to give you a weekly average - you are then paid 90% of that average for the first 6 weeks. If you can time it right you can drop on (for example with an annual bonus) as all pay during this time is counted.
in my old job I use to have a quarterly target and months 1 and 2 I would be paid £850 bonus and month 3 if we hit target I would be paid £3300. Based on those figures my average salary would either be £837.50 or £1143 - so it can make a huge difference. I unfortunately did not time it right and my qualifying months are my 2 x £850 payments 🤦‍♀️ 

However last year I moved jobs to a monthly target and this can range from £0 to £1850 a month. If I hit target both months my average wage would be £1087 however it could be as low as £625 if I earn no commission during this time. My issue is I changed job at the start of the year and they have not told me what scheme I am now on - monthly or quarterly targets. So my average weekly pay could be anywhere between £625 and £1087 for a monthly target or £837.50 if I am placed on a quarterly target which will obviously make a big difference for the 6 weeks I’m off. (My work also pay 16 weeks at 100% but I suspect that may be 6 weeks at 100% including commission and 10 weeks of base pay only as it is over and beyond the statutory minimum - either way I’m very grateful to work for such a generous company)

Parkyp

Yeh, that’s an excellent maternity package. Nice to know you’ve company  value parents. 

stokegal

Soooo I’ve been quiet on here, it’s gone crazy busy at work and there’s not really been much debt busting to report.

My latest AMEX statement came in and after clearing it all on Monday I have been charged a small amount of interest so what was a balance of £0 is now £16.06 🤦‍♀️

I broke my NSD day yesterday to pick up some baby items that I bought on Facebook from a lady close by. I bought a baby bath seat, baby video monitor and jumperoo for £45 and then she also gave me an immaculate car seat for free which was I really grateful for and it will be going in OH mums car for when she looks after the baby (it was nice to send her some pictures of the things as she’s wishing she could be more involved but boo covid!) I wasn’t going to buy anything just yet but they were bargains and can go into the loft until needed.

I’ve sold a couple more things on Facebook (they make literal pennies) but it’s nice to just have the space and I’d rather them go to someone than the tip as we can’t donate to charity shops at the moment.

Aside from that there’s nothing more to report - it’s all quiet here, it’s DS1 birthday in 12 days and he has just asked for money in his bank so he can buy something when he sees something he likes rather than just having a gift for the sake of it so he’s easy enough to cater for!

hope everyone is ok! 

savingholmes

Nice when you can get bargains. It is rarely worth buying anything other than the mattress brand new for a baby as they are in it for such a short time.

beanielou

Great bargains   

stokegal

Hi everyone!

So I went AWOL for a couple of months due to the combination of working my backside off to get my commission in for my qualifying months and finding out the sex of the baby which then through a spanner in the works because I got too excited and went off plan of debt busting 🤦‍♀️

I also decided that we needed to redecorate the house so have spent far too much on that so now I need to reign it all in and focus on getting the debt down further as I’ve been given the opportunity to buy my current house but having ran through a mortgage with Halifax it got declined due to the high level of unsecured debt I have. I’m looking to reapply via a broker in a few months but need to hammer down the debt before then.

Latest SOA

• Overdraft £1500 available - not in at the moment but that is because it was payday yesterday - 39.99%
• Barclaycard - £5500 - 24.4%
• Caravan - £15732 - 5.9%
• Very - £550 - 0%
• Sofa - £1021 - 0%
• Mattress - £448 - 0%
• Repayment of savings - £2800 - 0%
• Total Debt - £27 551

That’s just over £3k less than 2 months ago - whoop! I’ve still got this months repayments to go and I’m planning on making some repayments to my overdraft and Barclaycard so it should be around £26k when they have all come out.