The way forward....

Paydaypayitback

Hi Everyone. So another weekend where I managed to stay within my budgets..... i am amazed I am actually managing this. Two weekends to go until payday and should I manage to stay within my budgets for them I should hopefully have just over £100 left at the end of the month. I NEVER thought this would happen. I will put it to good use paying down the balance of my highest interest credit card. I have decided this method works best for me - paying off the highest interest card first whilst maintaining minimums on the others and then moving on to the next one. We were going to get a takeaway last night but in the end I ended up cooking a lovely meal (after all it was Mothers Day so thought I best make an attempt!!) and it saved us the £25-30 we would have spent. I am waiting on a couple of balance transfers going through on a card I was accepted for a few weeks ago which will clear my two highest interest cards and save me £130 a month in interest at the same time. 
I am very doubtful I can clear this debt within the 2 years I ideally wanted but if I can get it down to the 25k region this will be brilliant. I finish my contract at this point and although I will then be technically unemployed I get a circa 70k payout and retain a £900 a month income for life..... sounds bizarre but it was part of my contract / terms when I started the job. (slightly niche job that I do and not many of us). Think I may look at buying a business at that point, maybe a nice pub or B&B. 

Paydaypayitback

So happy today. My balance transfers finally went through so that is my highest 2 cards cleared and transferred onto 0%. I know I still owe the money but this will save me at least £130 a month that can now go towards another card. Massive win. Also there were no transfer costs and I have it on a 24 month deal. Bit of a weight off the shoulders now and is certainly giving me the incentive to carry on. Hopefully I get more offers for 0% cards and balance transfers in the future.

londoner2019

Awesome work. I had the same thing as you re: the 0% balance transfer. I checked and assumed I couldn't get one, but all of a sudden I was offered one, took it, and I'm now saving myself £200+ a month in interest. It's such a HUGE weight lifted, and it gives me such motivation to pay it off. 

Good luck with everything! Sounds like you're doing great.

Sarahwithlove

That's great news that you managed to get it on 0% you'll really start to see the debt go down when the repayments are just that and not paying so much interest. 

Paydaypayitback

Happy Friday everyone. Well today I am absolutely over the moon... not least because its Friday and I have an (hopefully) nice relaxing weekend to look forward to with my family but also because I have just been accepted for 2 more balance transfer cards. I looked at my phone last night and had a message saying my offers had been updated so logged on and I had somehow been pre-approved for two cards (MBNA and Halifax). I thought lets apply, nothing to lose except a slight drop in my credit score and I was accepted for both. My second thought was the credit limits would likely be in the £500 to 1k region but no..... I got a combined credit limit of 10.3k!!!!!! This for me is superb. It means I can transfer all my credit cards with 1-2k limits onto 0% and it should save me another £200 (ish) a month in interest. One of the cards is 20 months and the other 28 months interest free. 
I honestly have no idea why I am suddenly eligible for these cards. I have one default (18 months ago) on my account and my credit score is in the low 300s. On the plus I have no late payments on any of our accounts and earn a relatively good amount so i can only imagine this is what is doing it. I am so happy though I may even break my rules (as a one off!!) and order a takeaway tonight with a nice bottle of wine. This WILL NOT become a regular thing but I feel it certainly needs some celebration.

MrFrugalFever

Paydaypayitback said:

Happy Friday everyone. Well today I am absolutely over the moon... not least because its Friday and I have an (hopefully) nice relaxing weekend to look forward to with my family but also because I have just been accepted for 2 more balance transfer cards. I looked at my phone last night and had a message saying my offers had been updated so logged on and I had somehow been pre-approved for two cards (MBNA and Halifax). I thought lets apply, nothing to lose except a slight drop in my credit score and I was accepted for both. My second thought was the credit limits would likely be in the £500 to 1k region but no..... I got a combined credit limit of 10.3k!!!!!! This for me is superb. It means I can transfer all my credit cards with 1-2k limits onto 0% and it should save me another £200 (ish) a month in interest. One of the cards is 20 months and the other 28 months interest free. 
I honestly have no idea why I am suddenly eligible for these cards. I have one default (18 months ago) on my account and my credit score is in the low 300s. On the plus I have no late payments on any of our accounts and earn a relatively good amount so i can only imagine this is what is doing it. I am so happy though I may even break my rules (as a one off!!) and order a takeaway tonight with a nice bottle of wine. This WILL NOT become a regular thing but I feel it certainly needs some celebration.

Great news indeed, no one likes paying interest if they don’t have to!!

my biggest bit of advice now is to CLOSE the card accounts and cut the cards up for those which you will be transferring from when nil balance. The temptation to spend again will be incredible.

look at it as a ‘last chance’ extension from the creditors, so a continued focus on paying down your debts is a must, being strict about your expenditure and over paying at every opportunity. Your takeaway and wine seems like a nice touch to celebrate but even that can be done on a controlled budget.

we should start seeing them debts in your sig come down even quicker now

Paydaypayitback

MrFrugalFever thank you for the advice and I think I may do just that. I think as I pay one credit card off I will then close the one before it if that makes sense. I want my credit utilisation on my credit file to show as low as possible and closing the accounts reduces my credit available meaning my credit utilisation rises as I am closing off available credit. I am currently at 84% and need to get this lower (circa 50%) to get the better card deals and improve my score. Hope this makes sense......

Weekend was very nice and relaxed. Spent time with the little one and wife watching a few movies and generally relaxing. We did have a takeaway on Friday BUT I managed to get this within our normal weekly spends and a nice bottle of wine (and a few beers) were included in our weekly grocery shopping spends so all good. No extra spends all accounted for and a very enjoyable takeaway too. We had an Indian and it was lovely. Not sure if its because we don't order them very often now but certainly enjoyed it much more than when we just ordered as and when we felt like it.

All other spends this weekend were under budget and I actually have half a tank of petrol left in the car so well under the weekly petrol budget. Starting to think I can actually achieve this massive debt reduction now.

Finally the Save the Change pot continues to grow. I now have over £30 in there since the start of February (updated in my signature block).

MrFrugalFever

You are correct about having a buffer of available credit vs credit utilisation to ensure you still maintain a good credit report and get the offers, there’s nothing wrong with keeping one in the background to achieve this, just have to be incredibly self disciplined with it.

it is a good feeling isn’t it? Makes you think - why didn’t I do this before or even why didn’t I do this to avoid the debt in the first place?!

having a takeaway is a rare occasion for me also, but as you say, it appears to taste so much better when I do!

you’ll be surprised how quickly the odd £ adds up to and what can be achieved after say 12 months.....another lump sum paid off a card or a good EF buffer....

its a marathon and not a sprint but after a few months the adjustments you make will start to feel the norm, when you get to financial freedom it will feel amazing and I don’t think you’ll ever look back and quite possibly won’t repeat the mistake again!

Paydaypayitback

MrFrugalFever You are absolutely correct. This debt clearance is certainly a marathon as you describe and I know I am likely to be in it for the long haul. Shorter term I want to move as much as my debt onto lower interest / 0% cards to help me get it paid off faster and I thankfully have started to achieve this. I can absolutely guarantee that once I am out of this debt, unless something goes drastically wrong, I will never make the same mistake again. I will not take any credit in the future unless it is what i have heard described as good credit. I have opened 3 new credit card accounts over the past month or so but they are 0% or lower interest than I was paying. As long as they pay off other credit and don't push my debt balance up I view this as 'good' credit. 

I have now colour coded my budget excel spreadsheet and have a couple of tabs. One is my monthly budget and I then have a monthly history that shows the balance at the end of each month. If my debt balance has reduced and my savings increased the text is green, if they go the other way it is red..... its become a bit of a challenge for me now to keep all the text on the page green and it certainly is helping. Sounds strange but for me it works.

Paydaypayitback

Hi all, I have not been on for the past couple of weeks as I have been busy with school holidays and work commitments. Nothing much to report on the debt busting front. I have been making balance transfers to my new 0% cards and moving money around between them over the past week or so which means there hasn't been much reduction in the balances this month but now I have a good amount of the debt at 0% I should see the balances start to reduce over the next few months.
Save The Change fund is increasing slowly and I currently have £35.09 put away; not bad to say this is the odd amount here and there. I also have the emergency fund / savings at just below £400 which is great and I will keep saving to this every month.
Other than that I am just plodding on making the payments every month and aiming at trying to get 100% of my debt on 0% as soon as possible when they become available.