New life - debt free

CCW007

So it appears I am separating from my partner of almost 14 years.  Things are very amicable and I hope they will continue to be as it's going to be some time before we can go our separate ways.

We have a house with a mortgage - the current thinking is he will buy me out as I can't afford to buy him out.  Then I will buy somewhere on my own - location yet to be decided.

The point of this diary is to motivate and document my debt free journey.  We currently owe £56k between us (all 0%) and have cash of around £24k (S&S ISA and savings).  So debt is around £32k.  

There are assets we can sell to bring this down and I will suggest we stop overpaying the mortgage by £500 a month as we have been doing and channel that towards the debt.  The main thing will be actually reducing the balance on the cards down rather than leaving the cash in savings as we currently do.  I'm concerned that only paying minimum off each month won't be doing my credit file any favours which was fine when I didn't need it but if I'm going to apply for a mortgage I need to improve by file ASAP.

Frist steps, listed a load of stuff on eb@y, FB and tree of gum - value around £150 - and sent in an invoice for some consultancy work I completed recently which will bring in £600.  I will also chase up another invoice for £300 I submitted a few weeks ago.

 I do need to work out what my tax bill will be for the next two years though so that I have that set aside.

Scott_Weiland79

You need to weigh up how much per month your paying on debt?? I know you said its on 0 percent but could you pay less of an overpayment to the mortgage and get shot of the debts quicker?

CCW007

Definitely, that's the plan to stop the £500 OP and throw it at the debt straight away.

We are bot off next week so plan to do some serious decluttering and listing things to sell.

Will also update my stooze spreadsheet so I can see which debts are due first and target those.  Ultimately I want to pay everything off and should be able to before deals run out but it makes sense to keep the longest deals as a back-up in case I need to keep them on for a while longer than I would like to.

Scott_Weiland79

Decluttering is a good plan 

Music Magpie
We Buy Books.co.uk
Ziffit
And the obvious Ebay and facebook are good places to start.

CCW007

Thanks Scott, I have used those quite a lot recently and made a fair bit.  I've got about 200 DVDs I want rid of so will go through and scan them all.  Am thinking of doing a car boot at the end of my week off.

Two items sold on eb@y and posted, not big money but all helps.  Five more items listed on FB, need to list them on GT as well.

I have listed something for ExOH on FB / GT for £300, no serious interest yet so will drop the price at the weekend. 

Paid £100 off a card, overall debt balance doesn't reduce as it's just taking funds from savings and applying to card balance but it makes me feel like I've made a start.

CCW007

Many discussions later, we are resolved to trying again but the debt is one thing which we agree we absolutely must address regardless of what happens with us. 

The situation has also made me realise that my credit rating needs to be protected; as we are in a long term fixed rate mortgage, I have become quite blasé about it but this has made me realise I need to be ready for unexpected issues.

So, some more exact figures:

Current debt - £56,575
Savings - £24,433
Amount to debt neutral - £32,142

The debt will be slightly lower as I need to update on one CC which is on OH's name that I don't have access to.  Savings doesn't include OH's "float" that he keeps in his own account but I'm happy to under-estimate savings so that's fine.

£135 in change paid into bank today, £7 ish received from eb@y.

Payday for me is next Wednesday and OH is the following Monday so that will be next big update, however sadly we had a big CC bill last month for new boiler (planned work) which needs to be paid off so won't be a big impact this month. 

I have contacted bank and reduced our mortgage OP from £505 to £5 (psychological benefit of still OPing plus it's a round number to pay) so will be an extra £500 off the debt.

CCW007

Updated figures with OH CC balance updated:

Current debt - £56,379
Savings - £24,433
Amount to debt neutral - £31,946

CC balances and 0% end dates:

	End date	Current balance
CC1	01/10/2021	£3,074.60
CC2	21/10/2021	£6,080.12
CC3	04/01/2022	£6,407.34
CC4	08/04/2022	£12,192.38
CC5	25/05/2022	£9,677.01
CC6	31/05/2022	£6,730.48
CC7	31/10/2022	£2,598.00
CC8	TBA	£9,619.22

CCW007

Another little ebay sale today, chipping away. 

CCW007

Another small ebay sale - all helps.  No real news until next Monday when money is shuffled unless something big sells in the meantime.

CCW007

Spent a few hours this afternoon scanning CDs with Ziffit, MM and WBB - got about £25 so far but more importantly there will be loads leaving the house! Listed a few DVDs and games on Freecycle but no interest so far.

I do fundraising for an animal rescue and also foster cats myself and get given lots of CDs and DVDs to sell which is fantastic but so time consuming and takes up so much space, causing clutter.  I'm giving myself a deadline of end of July to get all the stock sold otherwise it's off to the charity shop.  

CCW007

2.5kg of mince out of the freezer and cooked up as bolognaise - jarred up and currently in the pressure canner so OH will have lots of meals ready to heat up and might save us getting takeaway or going to the shops to get something for dinner.  Also being mostly veggie means I only have to cook meat once and get loads of meals out of it!