Sewn's determined to do this........one final time

sunshine_raincloud

It can be very frustrating feeling like you are the only one working hard so well done for making your feelings known and it seems to have had a positive impact! Will be good to clear the MBNA card and have that crossed off your list!

Sewn

It's done!!! The MBNA massive £7700 balance is now 0, I cannot begin to tell you what a weight that is knowing it's now paid off, I've also paid the Next account down and the BNPL balance that needed to be paid on the Very account by 21st otherwise it would incur another £75 of interest, on £249! that's an enormous amount of interest and if that doesn't make you sit back and think about these BNPL offers nothing will.

Signatures have been updated and we've paid almost 75% of our debt off now, with what I've earned this week we should be under £13k next Friday. I have a heavy week workwise next week though but we're getting there. Planning next week to settle the Next account and pay off half of the Paypal balance.

I also sold some more stuff last night and earned another £25, that's gone into our account, well it's paid for fuel in my car as the £50 I put in on Sunday was almost gone, it's good to see fuel prices starting to drop a little, only a penny here and there but it makes a change to stop seeing it climbing every few days.

Sewn

@sunshine_raincloud yes absolutely, he's gone back to work today so I'm working from home, I was going to go in but decided I'll work at home today in peace, let's see if he comes home later with any overtime booked eh?

Sewn

Happy Monday! it's hot, I'm back in a sweltering consultation room for the day, it's been a good weekend, spent a bit yesterday, needed (well wanted) a plant pot for a houseplant but ended up buying said plant pot, a lantern for the garden and beers, necessities right?

I sold a lot of my craft things over the weekend and have made almost £500, most of that has come off the Next balance which is amazing, hardly anything left on that now so that will be cleared on Friday, and around half of the Paypal balance will be paid off, I have a heavy week this week and next work wise, only Friday off this week, but the extra work I'm doing this next couple of weeks means by 29th I should only have the Lloyds credit card left to pay off which is in my name and DH's MBNA card balance, it feels like the last push now, I can't believe in just over 10 days we will be down to one credit card balance each (plus the sofa and a small BNPL balance on the very account that is interest free til March), it's starting to feel a bit surreal that we're nearly there, I'll be honest a few months ago it felt impossible.

Just waiting for my DBS to clear for my new job, I'm planning to look at starting that late September, we go away on 27th August for a week and when we get back I have some locum shifts still booked but not everyday and I want to finally have a bit of a break before I start the new job.

So the plan after all this is to start getting some savings behind us, I'll clear the overdraft first so we stop living in it and then I plan for my salary to be used for luxuries/house stuff (we need to decorate badly) and my locum work will just be saved towards tax bill/long term savings pot. 

vampirotoothus

You have done really well. If you can apply this to savings going forward you will be in a fab place. I hope you get through the week as comfortably as you can

Sewn

@vampirotoothus thanks, yes I've been thinking about this a lot over the last couple of days and decided that our focus now needs to be purely on eliminating the interest bearing credit card debt and leaving the sofa to continue to run as a monthly interest free payment for the remaining year, it makes more sense rather than paying this off to start building some savings.

I checked our account yesterday and had a lot more in there that I thought so paid off the next account so that's now gone, I am tired this week as I'm working a lot and the heat of yesterday didn't help!, I worked til 10 last night (14 hr day) and have another 14hr day today, but I can cope for this week as my earnings will clear my paypal and virgin card next week then we will just be left with a credit card each and that's it.

It still feels surreal that we are nearly there, I think the biggest feeling now is this feels under control, I'm far less stressed, our minimum payments towards this debt in Feb was £2k a month approx whereas now it's about £200 including the sofa. £2k a month just on debt, there was no wonder I was so stressed and I just can't get my head around how we ended up there.

This journey I must admit is still not over, it might be in a monetary sense to a degree but I still have a lot to work on in relation to my attitude towards impulsive spending, a few months of paying back this debt isn't going to change that overnight. I look at the weeks where I've worked ridiculous hours (this week being the last one of them!) and I don't ever want to go back there, I have felt my life has been on hold for the last few months and not been able to move forward at all. I don't know how to tackle this compulsion to buy stuff, I guess it's going to take time and I will just have to keep reminding myself of these months of what has frankly been hell at times.

Next weekend (after this one) when we are down to one card each, we both have the full weekend off together, I think we are planning a day out walking in the dales with a pub lunch somewhere, we're going to raise a glass I think as to just what we've achieved and maybe start looking at some future plans

MatyMoo

Ideas to stop the impulsive spending:
- don’t take credit cards out with you
- if you really, really want it treat it as a game and research where you can get it cheaper
- if buying online put it in your basket and wait 24-48 hours before reviewing the purchase and seeing if you still feel the same
- go back to basics, is it a want or a need
- make a rule that if one thing comes in the house another has to leave, decide exactly what is going before making the purchase & follow through
- remove card details from all online buying sites
- remove any payment apps like Apple pay from your phone
- only ever pay in cash, it might mean you need to find a hole in the wall, that delay may be enough to make you change your mind

im sure there are many more ideas out there!

Sewn

Thanks @MatyMoo some great suggestions there, some I already follow/have done, I don't actually have a physical credit card now, and I've removed my credit card details from all sites so I can't use it, can you do this with paypal credit? I use paypal a lot with my debit card so the temptation to put it on the paypal credit is always there, I know I still have a balance outstanding which will be paid off next week but can you cancel your paypal credit agreement too?

My apple pay is only linked to my debit card so thats ok and I'm definitely a bargain hunter, I was looking for a bottle of prosecco in Morrisons the other day and they were all around £10 mark, DH just said to 'get one' but then I managed to find one at £5, I would have walked away otherwise as I just won't spend £10 on a bottle of prosecco!, having said that, I then wouldn't think twice about spending £30 on a new lippy, it's that I need to work on

I've just looked at the saving threads and am looking to join to save £12k for the rest of this year, some of this will be to pay my tax bill but I think this will help me change my focus from debtbusting to saving in a couple of weeks time, I've been so focussed on debt repayment these last few months that I haven't bought 'stuff' anywhere near the frequency I used to, I'm hoping I can continue in this vein whilst building up savings

Sarahwithlove

Do you have a budget? Could you maybe allocate yourself some spending money for the month and once its gone that's it? Might make you think twice about purchasing new lippy etc. Also having a good sort out of what you already have I find helps me as I find things I had forgotten about! 

sunshine_raincloud

MatyMoo said:

Ideas to stop the impulsive spending:
- don’t take credit cards out with you
- if you really, really want it treat it as a game and research where you can get it cheaper
- if buying online put it in your basket and wait 24-48 hours before reviewing the purchase and seeing if you still feel the same
- go back to basics, is it a want or a need
- make a rule that if one thing comes in the house another has to leave, decide exactly what is going before making the purchase & follow through
- remove card details from all online buying sites
- remove any payment apps like Apple pay from your phone
- only ever pay in cash, it might mean you need to find a hole in the wall, that delay may be enough to make you change your mind

im sure there are many more ideas out there!

Some great suggestions here! 

Also unsubscribing from all marketing emails. 

I used to do a lot of online shopping with paypal. Now I have a strict rule that all must spends come off one specific debit card (this is one that categorises each spend so that you can track patterns of where your money is going) so it makes it just a bit more difficult to buy things by having to enter card number etc rather than paypal where it is just a few clicks of a button! To be honest though doesn't stop me entirely as I just transfer money to that card and then spend it sometimes...