Late to the game – midway through my DFW journey

Martico

Another week, and a slight spanner in the works.

First the good: Payday came this week. CC debt is now below £7,000 and savings plus PB are a shade over £8,000.

I’m probably going to need that buffer. My work for the last couple of years has been full-time but on 3-month contracts. It’s great work; I like the company and they like me. The company is a non-profit and my work depends on them getting enough future projects funded. For the last couple of years that’s not been a problem, and they’ve sent through a new contract every three months. But they told me this week that they can’t guarantee they’ll be able to contract me from September as there aren’t sufficient projects coming through. They’ve been really good in warning me well in advance and I know they’ll be supportive with references etc if those are needed. I had this conversation once before about 15 months ago, but then enough work came through, and they signed me up again straight away.

The perfect situation would be that they say they’ll be able to contract me again from October. That would give me a month off (I’ve not had a holiday since 2019), time to recharge etc. But I have to be realistic and consider that I might end up jobhunting in September rather than going away.

The buffer I’ve built up will take me through at least six months, so I should be OK, but HMRC wouldn’t be happy come the end of January when my 21/22 tax is due.

So I’m going back to paying the minimum on the cards for now (all are 0% until mid-to-late 2023). Other than Prolific surveys – I started doing those last weekend and have already earned £15; I’ll keep on chucking any Prolific cash at the cards, it’ll be good to keep chipping away there.

savingholmes

Sorry you role is at risk. Well done on the savings - and minimum payments for now sounds wise. Are you also going to apply for new roles?

Martico

Thanks savingholmes -- I think I'll see how things go for the next couple of weeks. My boss (super caring and cool) wanted me to prepare for the worst if it does happen, but I know that she's been working hard to get new projects agreed, so there's a chance something will turn up. And then come mid-August if there's nothing on the horizon, I'll start updating my CV, LinkedIn, restarting email job alerts, and jobhunting. Although this job does come with the insecurity of short-term contracts it's a great place to work with a really good team. A month or even a few weeks off in September will be great either way, it's been a tough few years without a break

savingholmes

I get the desire for a break - it can concentrate the mind of your current employers though if you get job offers elsewhere.

Martico

Thanks sh - that's true in most places for sure. But I really feel that they'd give me another contract in a heartbeat if enough future projects were guaranteed.

Anyway, we'll see. I'll keep even more of an eye on money but otherwise carry on as normal until mid-month when I'll have another chat with my boss and see what the situation is, and only then start hunting around.

In other news, I managed nine NSDs in July, which isn't bad. And my 30-day average daily spend is back down to under £25, which is good.  

Martico

Another week flies by.

With future work uncertain I’ve been doing a few Prolific surveys, which is nice for chipping away at the cards. About £30 this week from that.

And I’ve just been reading Martin’s bank-switching article. I’m not keen on changing my main current accounts so I’ve set up a “burner” Starling account, have added £50, and am putting a couple of DDs onto that account (Spotify and Netflix). Once those have paid out once I’m gonna start on my switching journey. I assume those DDs will need to have paid out at least once for the switch bonuses to start. It’s only a few weeks to wait, but hopefully this will earn me £100 or so every few months. I’ve set up new columns and another tab in my spreadsheet    so let’s see how this goes. Hopefully all those banks with offers will keep the offers open for a while longer.

CC debt (helped by Prolific – min payment DDs haven’t come out yet this month) now totals £6,924. Plenty of time left on 0% so I’m relaxed about that for now. Nice to keep chipping away though.

And my savings + PB now total just over 6 months’ spend. But I’m painfully aware that 80% of that is due to go to HMRC at the end of January, so I’ll need to find some new income soon with only one more full-time work payday guaranteed now.

Onwards and upwards

Martico

Bah, turns our those payments aren't DDs, but from the long card number. Will have a think on which DDs to put onto Starling

savingholmes

I'd just use your smallest payments so if they don't go out on time it's easy enough to sort

Martico

Thanks, yeah - I've gone for TV Licence and S&S ISA. Both are small and won't cause undue bother if they fail on one occasion.

savingholmes

Is S&S ISA a direct debt rather than STO?