Oops I did it again

Aimingforthegoodlife

I have been around on the diaries on and off over the last few years, I am never massively in debt but never actually out of debt so I want to kick my own butt and sort this out. 

I have got a loan- sat in a savings account at the moment, which I have taken out for bariatric surgery which I am planning to have in the summer of this year, and a credit card with the left overs from a new to us car for hubby's job and the end of a holiday from last year. 

I have a savings account for holidays coming up and some general savings, and have been absolutely loving the PAD thread since October this year, amazing! I do a PAD a day to my saving account, then on a Saturday, I transfer it to my loan and the credit card respectively. Always an exciting day!

Aimingforthegoodlife

I say never massively in debt, but my loan for bariatric surgery is £9777 with interest, this is huge debt to me, but it needs to be done. I pay £162.95 a month basic for this and am hoping with little OPs here and there this interest will be a lot less and it won't take 5 years to pay. I sent £9.38 today from PADs this week.

The credit card stood at £2162.22 on the 26/12/2023 and I sent over £8.10 today from PADs this week. Edit: this is 0% for 20 months, we get good deals and often tart the card for low fees and long interest free periods- this is a rolling debt for so many years, it never actually gets cleared! No more to be added!

Our mortgage is £128,422.28 in December. I extended the length of the mortgage when we remortgaged as the monthly payments were high, and this makes it manageable (though the interest makes me cry). I will send token amounts over when I can just to not ignore this. We have overpaid since we got this mortgage 9 years ago and have made good headway until this last year. 

Financially things are tighter as hubby has taken part time work to try and get a self employed job off the ground, this last year was slow but hoping things will be better this coming year. 

Plan:
1. PADs to continue
2. Any interest earned on accounts goes to paying down debt
3. Ensure holiday budget is followed to remove risk of anymore debt incurring
4. Continue with Onepoll- on waiting list for prolific
5. Extra income earned from hubby to be used wisely
6. Dry January, this will help save £7 a week on wine, this can be chucked at my loan!
7. Non spend days! Forget how good these are at helping reduce impulse buying
8. Don't forget to save in general as well

outoftheviciouscircle

Good luck!! Another one here attempting dry January. It will be the first year I've attempted it and cutting down on my alcohol consumption will save me a good £150 a month.

Aimingforthegoodlife

Happy New Year!

Thanks @outoftheviciouscircle , £7 a week for my wine is basic, so savings could well be more, I do get tempted by wine on other occasions and December has been a bit ridiculous! 

31st December saw a NSD, £1 to loan and £9 to credit card (will be added all week then sent next Sat).

Today- 1st Jan 2024- saw a PAD of £4 to loan and £58.36 to the credit card (again will be added to total next Sat).

It will be a NSD today, only plan is to walk the young dog this morning, then walk the old dogs this evening. Back to work tomorrow so chilling is what is needed. Have started watching some budgeting utubers, this has been really good and thanks to Keedie sharing with me I may do an actual proper budget this year!

Aimingforthegoodlife

Morning, here for my weekly round up: 

I have had 6 NSD out of the last 7, yesterday I made my spend day. £94.63 for shopping- includes an expensive bottle of wine for a birthday present, DH works for the store and we got 15% off this weekend so that was a bonus with the present buying! Managed to take food to work everyday, and no alcohol which is good!

I went onto V'ted last night and have bought a few items of clothing, sadly it will be for work, but I do need more clothes and this was cheaper than new! 

I also filled up the car with fuel- £56, this will hopefully take me until after my next pay day, usually have to fill up once a month depending on where work takes me. 

PADs have been very exciting this week! Have sent £300 to holiday savings, £200 to general savings, £24 to the mortgage- token gesture but something! £30.59 to my loan and £101.85 to the credit card. DH got overtime so this has allowed the extras, normal months will sadly not look like this! 

Feels like a good financial start to the year, sadly have a funeral next week and another family death this week, so emotionally it has been difficult. Not eating my emotions which is unusual!

Aimingforthegoodlife

Thought I would tot up how well PADing worked once I started doing it officially:

• Oct 2023- £77.35 to Mattress as PAD, paid off mattress- £700 (was 0% but freed up £50 a month to throw at CC), £50.55 to my loan
• Nov 2023- £156.06 to CC, £420 to holiday, £93.36 to my loan
• Dec 2023- £115.78 to CC, £93.70 to my loan

I got rid of my 0% mattress loan using savings once the PAD had reduced the cost. I then added the £50 monthly mattress payment to the CC basic monthly payment making it £80 a month, paid off an extra £271.84 from the CC by PAD alone. I have paid an extra £237.61 to my loan via PAD (on top of monthly payments of £162.95). Not bad at all! Holiday saving is taking a high priority at the moment as we have it booked, so saving up is important so that no more debt is incurred! CC is 0% for approx 20 months so have time to work on that. 

vampirotoothus

Hi I would suggest putting your debt in the snowball calculator to work out where your focus should be? I think the BT fees, although you only pay once could be 5% now, so how does that compare with interest rate on the loan? The calculator will work out what is best. Good luck on your journey V x

Aimingforthegoodlife

Thanks @vampirotoothus, the CC is joint monies between DH and I, and the loan is purely me. The loan would make the most sense to pay off, but I don't want joint money to do that at the moment. A bit backwards money wise but feels the best, DH wouldn't mind either way. Once the CC is gone, I will think about putting all the PADs to my loan, that would feel good! 

Based on the two full months towards the CC I reckon I can get it gone in a year if we are careful, sooner would be nicer though! 

It is hard to budget as DH's income is low, but he can do overtime, really hoping the self employed work takes off this year as that would make life easier. Ultimately, I want him to be happy though, so as long as we have enough!

Aimingforthegoodlife

Just playing with numbers, at the start of this year CC balance was: £2162.22 and I have paid £189.95 including the monthly payment and 2 PADs so far this month. So.... £189.95/£2162.22 to be gone by end of the year. 

Have worked out that my monthly payments will knock off £880 in the remaining 11 payments, and I need to find £99.30 a month to make up the remaining £1092.27. This should be doable, especially as I have worked it out and it is my priority!haha. It is good to have clarity, and generally speaking, I have been knocking off £100 in PADs for last two months.

CC balance right now is: £1972.27

Aimingforthegoodlife

Just back from a lovely, budgeted long weekend with family. We had my Grandad's funeral last week so it was good to do something positive together. Snowed today where we stayed in the Lakes, so left quite sharpish as to not get stuck, family who have stayed shared some amazing photos! Fine if you don't need to travel!haha. 

PADS for last week were:
Loan: £31.50
CC: £39.81

Worked out where our holiday budget is currently, have added left overs from this holiday budget to the overall target which has helped a lot. Feels more manageable now as well. Checked it all with hubby to make sure my maths was mathing. 

Good to be home with the pooches and guinea pig, do love our home!

Aimingforthegoodlife

Have enjoyed the rest of my week off, lots of walking which has been nice. Weather is set to be windy and rainy for this weekend, and our garden was drying out so well! Ah well, it has been good to not have a bog garden, so I will appreciate what we have had!

PAD this week:
Loan: £30
CC: £27.68

This has been a better week than normal for my personal OPs to the loan, usually it is a £1 a day this close to pay day, but with Christmas food shop and then a holiday all budgeted for, I have only had to pay for one food shop and filled my tank once this month- pay day is 23rd.

I am hoping to have a nice bit left over on payday, I will allocate this to savings rather than my loan as I still need an extra 1k for my surgery as the price increased after I got the loan. I do have £2007 in my own savings, but like the 2k buffer so would like to top this up. I am pleased it is already back to 2k as it is used for Christmas etc as well. 

Credit card payments are now at: £249.13/£2162.22

This is an overpayment of £169.13 this month so far, nearly doubling what I needed to pay to get it gone in a year, this is really exciting, am aware every month will not be like this so will enjoy it where I can! I find doing the daily PAD, weekly totals and being in challenges so helpful to help with motivation. 

The total overpayments for my loan so far is: £299.11, just over a month knocked off. £92.09 of this is from this year so far. I don't like to think about this loan really, makes me feel quite overwhelmed! The total interest for the loan is: £1277, so not even covered that yet! Ah well, I have to just accept this is part of my plan for the year, and ultimately, being smaller should allow money to be saved in the future. 

That is a big entry!