Pennyapple - lone parent, 1 income, trying to get debt down ahead of price rises to come next year! 21 October 2022 at 2:25PM in Debt free diaries 4 replies 331 views

Pennyapple

Hi Everyone

I've been using Moneysavingexpert for years and years but this i the first time I've joined the forum.

It's me and my two kids, older one just turned 18, the younger is a teenager. I

Mortgage own my home and have a relatively small mortgage (£33K). I have 19.5 years left on the mortgage and the current fixed term runs out June next year (2023)

Credit Card debt I have £4095.87 of credit card debt on 0% cards. The 0% rate ends 22/04/2025.

Bills Gas and Electricity are fixed until October 2023, but now I don't know how much these are likely to go up to in October. 

I work full time and I took on an extra job for a few months this year to cover some extra costs (healthcare that I couldn't get on NHS) but have a bit left over and I'm working out whether it's better to pay off as much as I can on the cards, or overpay on my mortgage before the interest goes up next year.

I'm lucky that I will be getting a cost of living payment this month from work + a cost of living payrise in Jan. I will be putting any extra I can afford towards paying off more of the debts.

Anyway, if anyone's reading, thanks! If not, handy to have this written down here, and I'll update as I go along


Pennyapple



Ps. How do people get the writing under their name, like how much debt you have to pay off, goals etc? Is that in your signature?

Van_Girl

Hi Pennyapple! Best of luck with your new diary, I'm sure others will be along soon to ask questions, offer advice!

For your signature go to profile at the top right of the page, just under where it says "students" > edit profile > signature settings (down the left-hand side) and you can edit it there

I hope that makes sense!!

joedenise

@Pennyapple - good luck with clearing your debt.  With regard to what to do with the extra money the question you need to ask yourself is Can you pay off the CC debt at 0% by the time the deal comes to an end?  If you can then pay it off the mortgage, or perhaps better add it to an Emergency Fund if you don't already have one so you don't need to use credit in an emergency!

Pennyapple

Thanks for the replies!

I've worked out I need a monthly payment of £136.53 to pay off the cards before the 0% ends. I had it set to £134 so ive updated it.

I'm going to contact my bank at the weekend about overpaying the mortgage.

joedenise

Glad you've done the sums and know that you can clear the balance before the 0% deal finishes and means that you use the extra to overpay the mortgage.