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

Sewn

thanks @sunshine_raincloud I'm looking at changing my bank account to one that tracks your spending, I think Starling do this, my business account is starling and so I think this will be good to be able to see were my spending is happening.

I'm really tired today, 2 14hr back to back working days with poor sleep is hitting me hard today, I have the day off tomorrow and I'm meeting up with some friends so looking forward to that. I should be paid today for one of my contracts later this afternoon, I'm going to take that off the paypal account and the rest of my weekly pay is due tomorrow, this should take us down to 11k this week, still on track to be down to just the 2 cards left next friday

Sewn

Payday! signature updated, yesterday we were at £14k, I've paid £1700 off the paypal balance just now which takes that to £900, this will be cleared next week and paid DH's MBNA statement balance of £840 meaning he won't get charged interest this month, so we're now in the 11's, this is surreal. Next week the paypal and my Virgin card will be cleared leaving just the 2 cards left and a little bit on my very account. Home straight now woop woop! 

Sewn

So here we are, another week another night before payday, tomorrow I will be paying off the paypal balance and the virgin card in full, this reduces our outstanding debt to 4 figures and well under 10k spread across 2 credit cards only, 1 in each name. I am actually feeling quite emotional to finally get to this point, I've just been paid £500 for a contract from last week which has dropped the paypal amount outstanding to £600 and I'm itching to see this gone tomorrow and then it's being closed, paypal credit is just too tempting for me.

I think the way forward now is for us to steadily reduce the 2 outstanding cards, I think it's unrealistic to not have a credit card, they are useful if handled responsibly, and that's where I've failed in the past, I'm going to try to ensure I have this one form of credit and use it responsibly, pay it off each month and never let it get beyond having this one card.

It's 4 weeks until we go on holiday, during that 4 weeks I plan to pay off the current balance in full, although it may be used for a few bits and pieces, I can deal with that as long as each month the total balance paid off far outstrips what is spent. I need our focus to start shifting on saving soon and getting out of our overdraft. I can't quite believe we are at this point, I'll be back tomorrow to update, but for now I think I'm going to go back to the beginning of this diary and read, for nostalgia and just to remind myself how far we've come in the last 6 months

sunshine_raincloud

You have done so well paying off so much of your debt in such a short space of time and working so hard to achieve this! Always great to go back and see how far you have come. Huge congratulations! 

Sewn

@sunshine_raincloud thank you, I'm feeling rather odd this morning, I've been paid and cleared paypal and the virgin card so they are now gone, totals updated and there is now just £7.8k across each of our cards and that's it. I don't think it's sunk in yet, it's odd logging in to my internet banking each day and not seeing a massive reduction due to debt repayments, we've gone from almost £2k a month of minimum debt repayments to around £150 a month now.

Next week I will be putting £1000 into our account to cover our normal monthly bills and the other £1800 I'm due next Thurs/Friday will come off the Lloyds card to get that balance down to 3k, so 6k outstanding and takes me away from my credit limit on that card (5k).

Having 2 debts left now feels weird, but the more important thing is learning how to adjust, I've been on this treadmill since January of work work work with very little time off and when I've had time off huge guilt at spending money when we still had loads of debt to go and felt I should be working, this has become ingrained and habitual and I'm finding it hard to relax and start to enjoy life again and have some downtime.

In reality, I've been on this treadmill of constant work for the last 2 years at least, even in my last employed job I was working locum most of my days off so we had some money and the debts were just stagnant, it's going to take some time to relax and discover what else I can do with my time off.

Throughout August I am honouring my work committments, obviously there is still some debt to repay anyway, but I'm into the last week next week of a tough schedule then after that I have some extra days off each week. After our holiday at the end of August I'm only working 3 days a week throughout September, the plan then is first and foremost for me to rest and recuperate, I'm planning to really get back into proper regular exercise, I'm a runner but running has not been high up on my priority list these last few months, make time for my hobbies and spending some time with my extended family, plus redcorating the living room prior to winter.

This journey has been a massive slog but I think (and hope) it's had more impact than the IVA ever did, the amount of effort and work I've had to do to repay this in this space of time has really taken it's toll, that alone tells me I will never allow this to happen again, I don't want to ever have to work like I've worked over the last 6 months solid. We're now in a position where I'm not afraid of winter coming and the inevitable scary increases in our bills, we will be able to manage those without the debt weighing us down, we can help out our kids more starting with when DS returns to uni in September and the mortgage renewal shouldn't be so much of a worry now in October. Plus DH can look at semi retirement in 3 years now if he wants to.

But for now, I'm just going to take some time to savour this feeling and increased financial freedom

Sewn

Another week, another payment (1300 off my Lloyds card), signature updated, after the news of mortgage rates going up and impending doom over energy bills this winter I am starting to feel so very glad we have paid all this off over the last 6 months, our mortgage deal is due for renewal in October and at least now we should be in a better position to get a decent deal, albeit it our monthly payments will go up I'm sure, that's ok though as we have a fair bit of disposable income now. When we took out our last 5 year fixed deal we deliberately increased our payments by £200 a month to reduce our mortgage term quicker and we should be down to about £90k owing now. We're going to look at getting some quotes for the bifolds and conservatory conversion we want doing and then will see what that will cost us.

I have finally been cleared for my new job and have agreed a start date of beginning of October, I have some work commitments already booked until then anyway and will be spending a lot of September getting the house and garden in order for the winter, redecorating and just having some much needed down time.

The next couple of weeks will involve balancing paying down our 2 cards to get them to below £1k each whilst getting us out of our overdraft and back in the black permanently, next Friday I will be paying £2k off between the 2 credit cards and the rest will be going into our account which will clear our overdraft. We go on holiday 3 weeks tomorrow the balance for that is due next friday and I envisage we will be down to about £900 between the 2 cards plus having money left in our account by the time we go away and our next monthly payday is here. I think all in all that's a good place to be.

I have our budget sorted for when I start my new job, after all bills are paid we will have £1500 spare for food, fuel for work and anything else, I'm planning to split that into £750 a month into savings and the remaining amount will cover food/fuel and any other spends we want. We should be comfortable. I am still planning to do some locum shifts as my new job is only 3 days a week and any locum I earn will just sit in my business account towards my tax bills.

I'm working this weekend for the full weekend but it's the last full weekend I'm doing now for a long time, it finally feels all this is paying off and I'm starting to relax more.

Sewn

Chuffed to bits! DH's credit rating is now in the 'good' category (mine still 'needs work', that blasted default grrr) so he's applied for a Tesco 0% balance transfer and been accepted woohoo! its a 22 month balance transfer but the max he can transfer is £2k so we will pay £1200 off the MBNA balance next week and transfer the remainder to the Tesco card with the aim of paying it off at £100 a month, that way it will be clear before the 0% period is up, I'll just set it up as a direct debit for 20months and then the card can be disposed of, I'll then be able to pay my Lloyds card off in 2 weeks before the next bill is due and it racks up more interest.

I think we will then leave the sofa and the Tesco cc balance just ticking away in the background as they're both 0% and will concentrate on rapidly building up some savings, we only owe £980 on the sofa now and we really need that emergency fund now and some savings behind us, it makes more sense to have some savings earning interest than overpay the remaining little bit of debt that is at 0% I think.

Sewn

Not updated in a couple of weeks, it's not been the greatest couple of weeks tbh, my mental health took a nosedive and I've been struggling with crippling anxiety for over a week now this has affected to me to the point all I've been able to manage is just getting to work each day to do my job, when I've been getting home I've just sat on the sofa for the evening and then gone to bed. The house is a mess, I'm not eating properly and certainly done no exercise, DH is on nights this week too which doesn't help as he is such a massive emotional support to me and he's not around when I'm home.

I don't know what's brought this on, I think it's a combination of things, I had a bad day on one of my contracts a couple of weeks ago so much so that I walked out half way through the shift as the managers were just resorting to bullying tactics, healthcare is hard enough without this, son consequently they refused to pay me for the full time I worked, I tried to argue this but I don't have the emotional strength and I've just moved on from it.

My dad is very ill and his wife died just over a week ago, the funeral is next week, the day before we go on holiday.

I'm feeling a little bit more upbeat today, I slept better last night than I have all week so far, workwise I'm not doing any extra evening clinics now and this is my last 5 day working week, from next week onwards I'm working 3-4 days a week normal hours so slowly starting to get back into some normal working hours and I'm hoping once my head sorts itself out I'll be able to start being a bit more productive with my time off at home.

On the debt front we are still at 6k, we have transferred 2k of DH's MBNA balance onto the Tesco cc now with the 0% balance transfer, this MBNA card has been racked up a little over the last few weeks as we've been always near our overdraft limit so it's needed to be used for food/fuel and other emergency spends. I'm setting up a DD from September to repay that at £150 a month, there is still a few hundred left on that card which I'm settling next week. I'm paying just over 1k off my Lloyds card tomorrow and a further £1400 into our account tomorrow to repay the overdraft this puts us back in a positive balance,  my priority now is to not get overdrawn again there'll be another £1k off the Lloyds being paid next friday and that will leave us with another £1k going into our account on friday next week for holiday spends for the week, I'm hoping we won't spend all that though and still have some left when we come home.

So by the time we go on holiday next week we will have £1395 left on my Lloyds card and £2k on the Tesco which is going to be repaid within the 22 month interest free period (plus the sofa balance of around £800). My work bookings go down in September so we won't be able to pay anymore off the Lloyds card until mid September (unless there is any money left from what I've allocated for our holiday) as I'm not using the overdraft anymore. September is the first month I'm starting to put money away into savings, we can manage around £750 a month to start with and this should leave us plenty for all the bills and a few little luxuries. That remaining Lloyds balance should be paid off by late September and then I will be saving hard

sunshine_raincloud

Hi Sewn. Just wanted to check in and see how you are getting on? Hope you've had a nice holiday.  Sorry to hear about your dad and his wife. Sounds like you have a lot on so I hope you've got the chance to relax a bit.