The Final Bite of the Cherry- Journey to Clear £66k

outoftheviciouscircle

Wow, 10 days since I checked in!!
We've had a bit of a financial wobble already. My husband came home from work one day to find that all the tiles behind our log burner had just fallen off the wall. DH openly admits now that he probably didn't do enough research into whether they were the right sort of tile and well.....they weren't. This has meant that we have to now buy new tiles, pay the tiler and get the stove removed for the tiling to be done. Everything I had already saved for Christmas and birthdays will be gone and the EF back to zero.I suppose the only positive to take from this is that we don't need to borrow more.
So that deflated me a lot but I have still been on the forums everyday, keeping up with challenges I committed to so I haven't lost my way completely.

I'm so pleased for everyone that January is over, for me, my main pay day isn't until next Thursday but the majority of the DD leave my account today so thats seen to a bigger dent to the debt. My expenses get paid in tomorrow and I think its my payday from my self employment tomorrow. I can never figure that out. I wait until main payday to sort all the money out though.
 I hope to get to a total of 3k paid off by the end of February. Not sure how doable that will be, but I'll certainly aim for it. The virgin credit card needs to be paid off by July, that has £3500 on it at the moment, but I'm hoping to get rid of that by May at the latest.

Prolific has been really slow for me, its just not paying out as quick as it was either. I did a couple of mystery shops this last week too which I haven't done for a while so it was fun to get back. While typing this I had a study for £11.90 that approved immediately!!!

I have a few weeks at home with the main job. That is making the grocery bill slightly higher but the total amount spent in the supermarket last month was less than £250 which I'll definitely take. That was now shop bought lunches either. We had a takeaway last night. I know thats not very moneysaving but we usually have at least 1 a week, so thats a massive achievement for us.

Sarahwithlove

Well done on the repayments. Doing really well with them. I have a loan from my dad which I pay back £100 a month and he won't let me pay any more either. So I tend to look at it as separate to the rest of my debt and found that's helped me focus on the numbers better. Might be something to consider yourself. 

outoftheviciouscircle

Sarahwithlove said:

Well done on the repayments. Doing really well with them. I have a loan from my dad which I pay back £100 a month and he won't let me pay any more either. So I tend to look at it as separate to the rest of my debt and found that's helped me focus on the numbers better. Might be something to consider yourself. 

Thank you for your words of encouragement. I am loving your signature. I hope that one day in the next few years, I can see big crosses through my figures. That really does provide me with a lot of motivation.

outoftheviciouscircle

I'm so glad its Friday!!! The comment this week has been horrible!!!

February is going really well so far. I had around £200 more from my self employment this month than I expected. I think its down to the pay cut off being early in December. Either way, I'm not complaining.
Prolific has been really kind to me the last few days. I have £43 waiting to cash out and another £10 pending. I also have a mystery shop booked for Sunday.

I've sat and done the maths tonight and I'm hoping to clear another £2k off the total this month. Theres a plan and I'm hoping that it works out.

I'm going to do the weekly shop in Sainsburys tomorrow. I've been sucked in by this nectar bonanza and I also have a few coupons for triple points and a £4.50 off £30. The I just have the cleaning to do and I'll put my feet up for an afternoon of rugby.

outoftheviciouscircle

I'm getting really rubbish at this but determined not to give it up. In the background, I'm still working really hard at pushing the debt down. There just always seems to be something that gets in the way. We are having behind the burner retiled on Monday, we had to get that done as a matter of urgency as we are unable to use it and the gas bill is shooting up because of it. The good news is that as we've been cutting back there is money there to pay for it, just less to pay off the debt this month.

We had a £120 tesco voucher through on Tuesday, this was from taking broadband out with Vodafone last summer. I had actually forgotten about it so that was a nice surprise. I've also had £56 of Cashback from Quidco, that's going straight to the credit card when it hits my bank account.

Our savings are also building nicely, I have £360 saved for birthdays and Christmas and £172 in my £2 coin pot, not bad considering we are only 41 days into the year.

I have a 5 hour train journey now, I had a work meeting in Manchester. I'm hoping some surveys will pop up on the way back but I'm going to take a guess that won't happen while I'm watching.

Its DH birthday on Monday, so we have a family meal tomorrow and we will try and do something on Monday evening as I go away for the rest of the week then.

outoftheviciouscircle

I've just paid the final £184.00 off the AO account so thats a debt gone forever. It may only be small but its nice to see the creditor list getting smaller.

I've paid all the minimum payments so everything else this month will be extra. can't wait to see the figure get into the next '000 bracket.

outoftheviciouscircle

And I've just updated my spreadsheet and I'm only £59 away from getting into that next bracket. I should be able to do that tomorrow!!

outoftheviciouscircle

Yay, it's Saturday. I must say that this week has gone pretty quick though so I can't complain. Today consists of my usual Saturday routine. Clean the house from top to bottom. I actually enjoy the cleaning, thats something I never thought I'd say. Giving myself a regular cleaning day like this stops me from leaving the house and therefore spending money. I light a candle in each room once its done and I can't wait to just sit down in my nice clean house. Although tonight we have a birthday meal for DH and my 7 year old nephew is having a sleep over after that. Between him and the dog, the house won't stay tidy for long.

I'm up early as I am every Saturday morning. The dog is like clockwork, she knows when its time for breakfast. I always say, I'll go back to sleep for an hour but it never happens. I've sat in bed this morning and earned myself £14 on prolific. My balance is actually £61 on there with £12 awaiting approval. I may cash this out later and pay it off the credit card. I will then be in the £63,000+ worth of debt as opposed to the £66k+ I was in when I started this journey the back end of last year.

I best get on, there's a busy day in front of me!! Happy Saturday everyone.

tjp70

Hi there. 

I’ve just read your diary and you are doing so well. You had a hiccough with the tiles but you had the cash to pay for that and it didn’t increase your debt. Amazing! 

Please keep posting regularly. 

outoftheviciouscircle

Oh wow, its been over a month since I posted and what a month it's been. We lost our 9 year old Labrador 3 weeks ago and I've been completely heartbroken. He had a pre existing condition and that meant the insurance would not cover his treatment. Between blood tests, scans, surgery and ultimately getting him cremated it cost £3k that we had to put on the credit card. There was always a chance that he would not respond to treatment but we had to take the chance and well it wasn't meant to be.
I need to redo my SOA due to added debt and the bills going up next week. I'm in the right head space to get back on top of this now and know its something I need to sort urgently.
I have been completing surveys and both myself and DH completed bank switches to Natwest. We each got £200 this week so that will be a massive help. I have also requested the credit from EON for the gas and electric. There is £600 on its way to us but who knows how long the will take to land in my account.
The water bill came through one day this week. I thought it seemed a lot as I'm not there all week and they had estimated the bill. I called them up and they had overestimated it a lot and my payments have now gone down by £11.50. Small steps but it all helps.
Don't even get me started on the council tax. We already live in an expensive council but the monthly payment had gone up to £263. I have requested to pay this over 12 months instead now so that has added some extra pounds into the monthly pot.
DH gets a pay rise from April 1st. It was 6.5%, not sure how much of a difference that will make a month yet so I will wait for his first payslip to change that on the SOA, he should also get his bonus in May but they are still yet to announce what exactly that will be.

I have been continuing to add to the Christmas saving etc, it would be so easy to dip into them but I don't want to be in a position where Christmas ends up on the credit card again so I felt that this was important. I'm also still doing surveys, although not as much as I was so I will get back into that ASAP.

Well I have gone on a little now, so I'll end it there and get on with housework.