Kezzy's debt journey 2024

kezzygirl

Evening all  
Mot much to report other than a few surprise direct debits I forgot I set up! One for barclaycard as said above (scrabbled to find £277) and another for the new natwest of £79- min payment, which I had already made! Slipped my mind I had set these up and has led to a bit of a blow to the savings. 

We've also claimed on the home insurance regarding the suspected leak in the shower, we have a company coming out Tuesday to try and detect the leak which is likely causing the stench and the mould. Excess was £650 and I used the emergency fund for this so, savings a rapidly depleted this month, which has left me feeling rather fragile, coupled with the unexpected direct debits. Roll on pay day! 

Our water usage has been high and the direct debit is now £81 a month....ouch. I have checked for a leak by taking the readings an hour apart and not using any water but the readings remaind the same. Mum bought some shower flow restrictors so hubby will fit them tomorrow. 

On a positive, I did cashout in prolific a profit of £7 which I paid off of natwest. I've also limited my deposit on national lottery to £10 a week and have taken a break from virgin games. Haven't really missed it to be honest, though the pull of winning big still calls. 

This month I will definitely redo my soa. Some direct debits have increased and I will be having a pay rise as I am now at the top of my pay band, which will bring me about £330 extra basic per month. I am thinking of having a cut off for wages a month, like I used to, and anything over that is paid off the debt. I do need to rebuild our emergency fund as it has £450 in it now. 

I have work tomorrow so I will bid you good night;)

kezzygirl

Another 25th of the month, another payday!! As I work for the nhs this means I received backpay to April,but meant serious deductions. I have also now gone to the top of my pay band from this month and a tax calculator says I should be receiving an extra £300 pm basic, though with enhancements for weekend working etc this may differ as tax, pension,student loan and national insurance will all increase too. 

On to monetary progress. So, hubs and I have been having £100 a month each pocket money. Mine goes on nails, waxing, etc and his gets spent on fishing stuff etc it has worked so well over last couple of months and has actually lessened the obsessive checking of bank accounts that I usually engage with, as I know I have only spent cash!! 

I rather impulsively purchased 2 tickets to see alanis morisette on my virgin card, so £149 of my wage had gone before it even hit my account. We are really looking forward to it and as we aren't having a hol until June, this will count as a little trip!! We will be staying at a hotel for 2 nights in Cardiff so should be fun. 

Silly tidies for straggler expenses this month; £59 to mbna for fuel (no idea how we managed to spend the fuel allowance for the month, resulting in having to use credit card)
 I'm opening hubby a chase card and putting all the money in for fuel so that he can use that card only to fill up. This will move it from his main bank to a separate one so it won't be spent!
Mbna balance zero. 

Virgin as above- balance now zero.
Natwest 0%til March 25 £3250 owed- paid £615 off it this month-ouch. 
Natwest 0% til Sept 25 £7660
Barclaycard 0% til may 2026 £7920
Very 0% til July £336 owed 

And that's it! Can't wait to not be paying so much money out on things we've already bought:( 

kezzygirl

Current debt total £19166

fatbelly

That's 5k less than in April.

Well done

kezzygirl

fatbelly said:

That's 5k less than in April.

Well done

Wow, you're right! Debt was £24501 in April. So we've cleared £5335!! 

Sarahwithlove

Well done 5k since April is great. Maybe budget based on your normal wage before enhancements then anything above that can be extra towards the debt. Especially as they vary month to month will make it easier for you to stay within budget. 

kezzygirl

Sarahwithlove said:

Well done 5k since April is great. Maybe budget based on your normal wage before enhancements then anything above that can be extra towards the debt. Especially as they vary month to month will make it easier for you to stay within budget. 

Thanks! Good idea of budgeting for my basic, this will ensure our expenses/spending doesn't go up just because we have more money. 

Lonelygambler

Smashing it. Well done 

kezzygirl

I've done a few round ups for the natwest card: £6.60 from prolific, plus rounded down on my bank a few times. I have cashback of £9.39 on my chase with £1.81 pending. I'm going to save it up for a few months and then pay a lump sum off natwest. Max cashback is £15 a month. We popped out Saturday morning for a breakfast and a schmooze around a local popular village. Every purchase we made (gift card for a Xmas present from angling direct, the breakfast, a cake from a deli) I funneled money from my nationwide to chase, for the pure benefit of earning cashback for spending as normal! Love it! I have also made a few xmas pressie buys using chase, funnelling from starling savings pot. I'm starting to get in the mindset of being frugal again: getting cashback and discounts where I can, even if its a quid. Our son wanted a watch for Xmas and I found it on offer in h Samuel's and used blue light card code and chase to buy it. 

When we were paying down debt before while saving for a house we were frugal and used discount codes as much as possible. 

This week the shopping from tesco came to £189. This included laundry tabs and dishwasher tablets (4 for price of 3), toiletries, a few Xmas treats, dog treats etc. It was a big shop. I also had a butcher delivery today, totalling £68. Last month the meat lasted us all month and so I'm hopeful this month will do the same. 

As for natwest, well, it sits at a tantalising £3186.82 and by 25th Nov I've set myself a goal to have it below 3k using all these little extras I'm earning. Our daughter starts paying rent this month (£150 and so we will be paying this straight off the card). We have about 2k sat in savings as we've saved about £500 this month. So tempted to pay a couple of hundred off naywest but I'm going to hold fire. 

The Xmas fund now has zero, and I'm conscious it's only 2 paydays before Xmas. I started my savings pots midyear, hence why we don't have so much saved. I think we will have to not put any money in savings for next couple of months to ensure we have enough for Xmas and to pay off the card. 

In other news, I'm due to work boxing day. This will be double pay or time plus 60% as its a Bank Holiday. Only trouble is, it is my side of the families christmas day and we will all be coming together. Such as lot of money to lose, though my colleague has offered to work it for me. Decisions decisions!! 

Anyway, must get round to a new soa.im on leave this week but have an assignment to write and other jobs to do. Il squeeze it in somehow.

kezzygirl

Just a little update:I have managed to pay natwest down to a lovely £2967! This has been a combination or rounding down my account to end at a zero (for example If I had 243.67,paying the £3.67 off natwest), along with paying daughters rent of £150 off too. She started paying rent this month so I am going to be using it to pay off debt-its money we never had and don't really need if we budget properly, so it won't be missed! The goal of having natwest paid by March is looking very real now though with 2 paydays till Christmas, our overpayment may be reduced this month. 

Going to get our daughter a pair of boots she would like and need to get her a couple of other bits to open, along with our son and the rest is cash: £20 to three grandchildren, probably £80 to stepson and dil, need to discuss with hubby what cash we are giving our two. I have 2 days overtime being paid this month plus my increased wage, so it will be interesting to see what my payslip says. 

One thing I must stop doing is a massive shop when paid. We have £156 left in shopping pot to last us until 25th- 18days. The freezer is full of meat thanks to the butcher, but I find the weekly top ups so expensive. I have a shop with tesco being delivered this weekend and it sits at £76.just for sandwich and fridge bits! We did have an expensive weekend as my relative visited and we paid for a takeaway Chinese at £60 along with an indoor crazy golf for seven of us at £56. Coupled in with eating out for breakfast etc it all adds up. He has a lot of money and paid for dinner for the seven of us,totalling just over £400 at the ivy, so I feel obliged to pay out too, instead of being frugal. It was a nice weekend but perhaps that's where the money has gone.

I have £70 in my account for the rest of the month to pay for swimming and my nails tomorrow(the cash i had taken out for this went to the chinese). Il check with hubs what he has left though I should think it's about the same. We plan to go to the cinema Sunday using free sky tickets and will get snacks from poundland and smuggle them in to keep the costs down. 

Going to defo do the soa tomorrow-im off sick today due to this stinking cold that's doing the rounds, so I will have time.