The Mental Debt Struggle...

Keedie

Yes we'll be stopping every 1.5/2 hours. The hardest part is the traffic out of London as that's just annoying and draining. But we're leaving around 11am, so we'll hopefully miss the morning rush hour and avoid the lunchtime traffic. I cannot wait for a break!

I'm trying to get through all the laundry this week so that it's dry and put away before I go. I don't like to go away and come back to it all messy and disorganised, as I find it depressing and it wipes away the happiness of getting away.

CRANKY40

I've always found that the best time to go up or down the M6 is about 4am to 5am in the morning. I hope you enjoy your holiday. 

Keedie

I can imagine the journey would be a breeze at that time, but unfortunately I have to work from 8.30-11, as I didn't have enough leave to take the whole morning off and we don't check in until 3pm. But I'll be enjoying a good lie down when we get there 🤗.

Keedie

I've seen a few diaries where people have been summarising their finances and their plans and it seems to work in terms of keeping them motivated. So I'm doing my version, and all of my debt is currently 0% interest. I'll check in with a weekly review (Retro Fitted) that will look at how my week has gone, and then do a monthly projection on the first Sunday of the month (Future Focus).

The Sunday Summary (Future Focus)

• Bank of Mum 1 (car) = £433 ~ My goal is to pay £283 this month to leave a balance of £150.

• Bank of Mum 2 (family holiday) = £300 ~ This is on hold with payments recommencing in September 2022.

• Barclaycard = £8,511.75 ~ This will remain set to minimum payments, and I calculate this month's payment to be £255.35 but will wait for the statement to confirm this, which is annoyingly being sent via paper as there's something wrong with Barclaycard's online statements and all of mine since January 2019 have gone missing! I have a 0% interest plan that has a balance of £3,366.75 that ends on 01/06/2023. I won't clear it by then, as the financial focus is my son's school fees, but I'm trying to bring down as much as I can, so that when I need a balance transfer around April/May 2023, the amount needed and the inevitable transfer fee will be lower. I also need to jig the budget to get rid of £11.75 so that I have a rounded balance, as seeing the odd numbers irrationally irritates me 

• Creation Finance = £1,142.67 ~ I'll only pay the minimum payment of £72.67 this month so that I'm left with a 'normal' rounded balance of £1,070. I have until October 2023 to clear this, and it doesn't bother me as a debt because me and my son both really enjoy sleeping on our new mattresses lol.

• MBNA = £954 ~ I'm paying above the minimum payment at £50 a month, although this is a lower balance than Barclaycard, as I need them to offer me a 0% balance transfer next year, and in the past when I've only paid the minimum, I've gone months without offers. I have two credit cards (MBNA and Barclaycard) and I don't think I'll get offered another one when I need it, as some of my debt that is due to be paid over the next 10 months won't affect my credit utilisation that much.

• Sky Mobile = £1,038.90 ~ I'm not making any payments above the minimum £32.87 and as this repayment is incorporated into my monthly bill of £53.31, I don't really feel it. When I changed contracts for my son this week, I managed to get 25G data with unlimited texts and calls for £11.25 a month on a deal for a year, and this is marginally cheaper than what I was paying before, so my monthly plan will come down next month. But this month, I have pro-rata charges on two lines with a couple of days overlap, so I don't know what this will cost until my bill is produced.

• TUI = £2,560.54 ~ I still cringe inside about the cost of this holiday, but this will just be the normal eye watering payment of £284.50. I can't wait until this is paid off in March 2023 (9 months to go)

By my calculations, my total debt repayments for July 2022 (excluding any PADs I'm able to make), will be £985.27. If I'm able to, I'd like to get it to a rounded £1,000 and tidying up the Barclaycard balance should help with that.

• Emergency Fund = £362.85/£500 so I'm 72.57% of the way there. I need to try and get this to 75% (£375) by the end of the month through tilly tidying and round ups, as my £25 standing order has already been paid for this month.

_________________________________

I used to have my budget set from the 24th of the month as that was when I got paid my salary, but as I'm paid throughout the month for weekly child benefit, PIP, Universal Credit, self-employed earnings and my part time salary, I decided to move to a budget from the 1st of the month.

So the next couple of months will see me transition to paying a little extra in each pot for my bills, debt repayments and my virtual cash stuffing pots (with my Starling account) for things like birthdays, Christmas, car maintenance etc. I've sketched out a new budget spreadsheet that has the dates for each payment in the month, and how much that relevant pot that the payment comes from will have in it at that time. So that I know what to put in when I get my various incomes.

I just need to have a little think about how I want the formulas to work so that I can build the spreadsheet. This will really help as my Universal Credit is calculated after I submit my self-employed earnings, and that fluctuates every month so I need to think about how I will manage a weekly allowance to my Chase account which is my spending account as I get the 1% cashback and 5% interest on round-ups. I've managed to earn £2.30 in cashback and £4.16 in round ups as I booked our activities for Blackpool using the Chase account. It all adds up, slowly but surely...

beanielou

I have no idea how you can pay £900+ a month to your debt!

Keedie

beanielou said:

I have no idea how you can pay £900+ a month to your debt!

With difficulty that’s for sure! 

I don’t have much disposable income at all. But I’ve somehow made it stretch. If I didn’t get disability payments I’d definitely struggle more. But the downside is that I live on my PIP and child benefit more or less and I’m trying to save for a new walking stick and ergonomic crutches, but I’ve ended up prioritising things that’s aren’t worth it in some ways. 

So on this debt free journey, I also need to work out how to put me first as well. Because I’m tired of making everything and everyone else a priority and only making myself an option. 

Changing mentally will be harder than making financial changes… 🤔. 

LittleMissDetermined

You may find (as I did) that you go almost full circle with the mental side of debt... I went from paying my minimums to then throwing ALL my disposable income at my debt but now I have found a happy medium. If you don't allow some fun money for you to have a bit of a life or a treat every now and again, you are more likely to fall of the DF-wagon. 

You're doing so well with your debts @Keedie, and you have a clear plan in place of what to tackle and when which I really admire.  I often changed my plan when I had multiple debts and flipped from prioritising the one with the lowest balance and the one with the highest interest.

Keep up the great work
LMD x

Squirrelz92

You have a great plan @Keedie and its incredible admirable! Amazing how you are managing to pay off such a huge amount of debt each month

CRANKY40

The best way that I found to deal with multiple income dates was to save enough to pay my direct debit bills a month ahead. Once I did that all payments that contributed to that amount throughout the month get stashed away until it is time to pay myself on the last day of the month. I use the weekly payments (tax credits) for food and fuel. I realise that this may not work for you but it's an idea for the future once you've paid debts off and have enough to put aside through the month. 

Keedie

Thank you you for all of your support and advice everyone, this forum is so invaluable!

@LittleMissDetermined I think I do need to find a happy medium and once some of the smaller debts are gone, I'll have more breathing space. I want the debt gone ASAP as I feel really trapped in my job, and with these school fees, but I know that by August 2023 when I've completed the school fees I'll have a much healthier balance. It's just trying to get on top of everything now, and still find ways to treat myself that is the problem. I feel mentally better when I have a plan in place, but the whole situation is stressful and draining.

@Squirrelz92 thank you, that's really kind of you. I don't actually know how I'm managing to make all these payments, I think it's because I've compartmentalised everything in my head to be able to cope. And I did also use up the money that I had set aside for my tax bill, so I need to do my tax return for the 2021/22 tax year and see what needs to be paid by January 2023 so that I can tackle it. But I'm feeling a bit vulnerable at the moment, so I probably won't do that until after I've paid the deposit for the school fees, as it's too much numbers floating around otherwise...  .

That's a good idea @CRANKY40, I'm trying to get into a position where I have each pot/account credited by the end of the month for the payments to come out over the course of the next month. So I'm steadily building a surplus in each pot/account to help with this. As my outgoings are so high, it will take a few months to get to that point, but it will definitely help once I have achieved it. My PIP comes at random times as it's paid 4-weekly, so I might just remove that from budget altogether and instead of paying it into my Monzo, change the account to my Chase spending account and then I can budget that way for things like food, petrol,toiletries and socialising etc. I'll have to play around with the spreadsheet structure, but I'll focus on building up my 'bills' pot first so that I have that set to a month in advance, then I'll do the pot with the debt repayments.