New year, new career & £8K to clear

zedonk

I'm starting a diary here for accountability.

About me: early 40s, single mum to two girls in primary school, half Scottish, loves cats, books, singing and the great outdoors.

I have just under £8K debt, as follows:

• Tesco credit card, £4837.72, 0% until May 2024
• Santander credit card, £3009.52, 0% until July 2025

Total: £7847.24

£3K of this was an unexpected vet bill but the rest has been me living beyond my means. I've been freelance for many years and with recent world events my business has been really struggling, plus my PIP was stopped because my mental health has improved (good news overall but bad news financially!)

I'm now changing career and will be starting a new job in mid-February. I never thought I'd be so excited about a stable salary and a pension. Money will be a little tight for the first two years while I retrain, but is enough to cover my essential expenses and minimum payments, and I'm thinking of keeping up a little freelancing on the side. Then salary should go up a lot (touch wood!)

Savings are as follows:

• £1094.98 in Monzo pots, earmarked for specific purposes (mostly self-assessment tax and vet!)
• £550 in Help to Save account

I'm expecting to get extra income in February and March, because I'll get paid a month sooner as an employee than I do as a freelancer, so this will help reduce the debt. I'm also expecting £175 switching cash next month, and will try to have a declutter and sell some stuff.

FootyFanDan

Good luck

Less_Talk_and_More_Action

Good luck.  Having a stable salary will be great to enable you to budget consistently.  Anything extra is then a bonus.  

I’ve just started a diary and know from my experience that small, consistent steps are the way to go for me. That and planning menus. 

Look forward to seeing how you get on. 

L x 

zedonk

Thank you both, and happy New Year! 

A little update: I had about £200 spare this month that I was planning to put towards the debt, but this morning my electric shower stopped working. So I'm holding off until I know how much that will cost to repair/replace.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to find free and low cost ways to enjoy myself. It's been a beautiful day here (very rare that it's not raining ) and I've been making the most of it. I can't afford new plants for the garden, so I planted some garlic cloves as a fun project to see what happens! I also detoured through our local tiny nature reserve on my way home from the supermarket.

misstara

Happy New Year zedonk.  How lovely that you've got a wee nature reserve so close to you.  Good luck with paying down your debt this year and I hope you have success with the garlic.

zedonk

Thanks misstara!

I've just paid £280 for a replacement shower incl. installation. I did look into having it repaired, but it would only have been slightly cheaper if repairable, and would have ended up costing more with callout fees if not repairable, so I went for the known option that I can definitely afford. That's put paid to me overpaying on the debt this month (until/unless the Barclays switching cash comes through) but at least I haven't got into any more debt. It's nice to have a minor household emergency and not have to put it on the credit card!

Couldsavemore

Hi

I'm in a similar amount of debt. I know its hard when you try and then an unexpected bills lands.

Good luck with the new job and salary.

Have you joined any of the challenges?

zedonk

Couldsavemore said:

Hi

I'm in a similar amount of debt. I know its hard when you try and then an unexpected bills lands.

Good luck with the new job and salary.

Have you joined any of the challenges?

It is frustrating, isn't it? I'd started to build up an emergency fund in the autumn, then my cat had to be hospitalised and the large project I was meant to be working on got cancelled, meaning I had v little income that month. Now I'm ready to start again and this happens It is just a small setback, though.

I've joined the pay off debt by Christmas 2024 challenge, with a target of £5K.

Re: the new job, I'm anxiously waiting for my provisional start date and offer to become official. It's the civil service so there's a lot of red tape to get through. No reason to think it won't be confirmed, and worst case scenario is probably my start date getting delayed a bit, but I'd like to know it's all sorted.

Couldsavemore

@zedonk
I hope your cat is better.
I had a 500 bill for my cat in November followed by 500 for a car repair.

Sometimes it feels like I can't catch a break but I need to try and focus this year.

A job with the civil service sounds secure. Hopefully the date will be soon..

I joined the same group.

Also the 1p challenge and grocery challenge 

zedonk

An update from me:

I had a small windfall in January that meant I was able to pay off £1.5K of the debt. It now stands as follows:

• Tesco credit card, £567.77, 0% until May 2024
• Halifax credit card, £2839.94, 0% until Jan 2025
• Santander credit card, £2979.42, 0% until July 2025

Total debt: £7847.24 £6387.13

I was probably a bit hasty transferring some of the Tesco balance to the Halifax, when the 0% is good until May, but Halifax sent me an offer that was due to expire on 31 Jan. Of course, two days after it expired they sent me a new, better one. But I'm hoping to avoid a DMP and I need the 0% deals to keep affording my minimum payments, so I didn't want to risk missing out.

I've now got £400 saved in my emergency fund and £650 in my Help to Save account, plus around £600 in my Monzo pots (sinking fund - lower as just paid tax bill).

Got my start date confirmed for the new job. It's 12 Feb so not long now until I have a stable income!

No sign of the garlic growing yet, but it's early days.

zedonk