Got to get started Chipping away at it.

Jay19903562

So ive been struggling with my debt for a number of years now . And have struggled with debt in the past as well .

I came out of uni in what was comparative to my earnings at the time quite a bit of debt. Managed to sort that in my early twenties and was actually really well disciplined . Then I think I fell of the wagon so to say around the time I got my mortgage for my current house . past few years in particularly I have buried my head in the sand . In december

Jay19903562

Woops pressend post then without actually finishing the post .

So in december just gone I actually got a list togeher of the balance of all my C cards . In total I owed then £11502.72 over 5 different cards . I was paying the minimum on the majority of them . So decided to fix the payments at an ammount slightly over the minimum . All the cards are charging interest at rates up to 35 % .

Ive actually just got a BT offer form one of my cards so I am going to transfer about £650 onto that from the highest paying interest card (which has a balance of about £1k)

Fast forward to April and ive reduced that to £10,878.61 .

What I didn't however do in december was add up other creditors . I have now done that and I owe other creditors including 2 loans an additional £12460 .

In total then my debt is just over 23k .

The good thing is in a month or two my income is going to significantly increase by about £15k a year gross so I really want to take this opportunity to really take a big chunk off my debt .

Lonelygambler

Hey, welcome and good luck with your diary. 

Congratulations on the new pay award! Should make light work of your debt. 

I will be following your diary 

NeverendingDMP

Sounds like the pay increase is coming at a good time. Should help get you started. Good luck with it all

Jay19903562

Lonelygambler said:

Hey, welcome and good luck with your diary. 

Congratulations on the new pay award! Should make light work of your debt. 

I will be following your diary 

Thanks , I am really hoping the pay increase lets me take a chunk out of the debt . There is also quite a decent potential for OT as well so fingers crossed I can pay even more off than planned .

I know it is going to be slightly challenging having such a big increase in pay and not just wanting to spend it on other things . But that is how I got in this situation in the first place .

Jay19903562

So Today is the first payday after my salary increase , Well after 2 weeks of it . Unfortunately a problem with my Tax code(I have two jobs) has meant that I have had a chunk taken in PAYE which I am in the process of trying to rectify for next month .

Anyway because of this , and the fact that only 2 out of 4 weeks have been paid at my new rate of pay I have only managed to be able to afford to pay an extra £150 on top of my regular payments . I paid £90 extra on my card with the highest interest rate , and £60 off my paypal credit account as well .

Hopefully next month once the tax code is sorted out i should be able to pay more like £500 extra on top of the normal monthly payments . I have actually got a few overtime shifts in already as well so maybe even able to pay £750 on top all being well .

RelievedSheff

Good luck on your journey.

I found at the beginning we benefitted from clearing some of the smaller balances first and then putting that extra towards some of the bigger balances. It meant we had less accounts to juggle but also gave that little moral boost every time an account was paid off, closed or zero balanced. 

Jay19903562

RelievedSheff said:

Good luck on your journey.

I found at the beginning we benefitted from clearing some of the smaller balances first and then putting that extra towards some of the bigger balances. It meant we had less accounts to juggle but also gave that little moral boost every time an account was paid off, closed or zero balanced. 

Thanks

Yeah , The card I paid the extra £90 on is one with the lowest balance but also conveniently the one with the higher interest rate as well . The interest rate on the paypal credit isn't the highest , but its only at about £350 so I want to try and zero it first in the next 2/3 months .

Also toying with the idea of getting rid of my current car which is a bit of a gaz guzzler and also in the next 12/18 months is probably going to need £2k spending on it to keep it going and getting something a bit older but that should be cheaper to keep running .

Aimingforthegoodlife

Hi @Jay19903562 sounds like you have some good plans going on. Snowballing is a great way to get rid of debts and there are calculators to play with which will show you how any extra payments will all help! Can be addictive! Good luck on your journey!

Jay19903562

Aimingforthegoodlife said:

Hi @Jay19903562 sounds like you have some good plans going on. Snowballing is a great way to get rid of debts and there are calculators to play with which will show you how any extra payments will all help! Can be addictive! Good luck on your journey!

Hi There , thanks , I have had a play with a few calculators and have definitely found them interesting . One of the things I have been trying to prepare for is the ability to make additional payments off my debt based on the availability of overtime at work . Obviously it is not a guranteed extra amount each month but some of the calculators let you add ad hoc additional payments  . One calculator I was playing with also showed me the amount of interest I am ending up paying which is quite scary really .

Anyway , today I did a thing which was quite difficult for me because i'm quite a petrolhead , and the car I had was the longest I had ever had a car , I really did enjoy driving it ,but Ive put my level head on and replaced it with something a bit more affordable to run .

 

It was quite a gaz guzzler giving me at best around 32-33mpg on the journeys I was making . Additionally it was well overdue some wokr that would have cost £1400 at a specialist garage . On top of that It had some jobs needed doing that I could do myself on the suspension and brakes. But the parts for that were probably another £400-£500 in parts , and a few days of my time .

I sold the previous car for £3000 and ive managed to buy a runaround for  £1350 , my research indicates it should give me 45-50mpg saving me in the region of £45/£50 a month on fuel , and ive paid the road tax for a year when I previously paid it monthly so ive freed that up from my budget for the next 12 months . Taking a few other bits I have had to pay like insurance , and keeping £200 from the sale of my last car in an envelope at home as I suspect the rear tyres will need replacing before the end of the year ive got £1100 left over which I am going to use to totally clear the balance off one of my cards and make a dent in my paypal balance as well . Obviously like everything motoring related it is a gamble that the new runaround doesnt spring me a big bill in 3 months time , but ive tried to do as much research as possible into the reliability of the new car . And in all honesty i was due a big bill from my old car as well .

Ive also been quite lucky this month in my new job that by the cut off for the next payday I should have worked 5 extra overtime shifts , which are paid at a premium rate . And I have also had confirmation from my payroll department that my tax code has now been updated and is correct as well so should be in for a fairly decent payday. im hoping to pay an additional £850 off debs based on some quick calculations  .

Jay19903562

So payday was friday , managed to pay £725 additional on top of the fixed payments ive got for my credit cards which are all slightly above the minimum as well .

Ive also paid an extra £150 off my paypal credit balance which is probably going to be the next thing I manage to get to a £0 balance .

One of my cards with the highest rate of interest should now be at £0 or very close to it anyway  , I am just waiting the statement to confirm

One of my cards a barclaycard has unfortunately reached the point where Barclays have written to me advising it will be suspended and advising me I need to take a paydown plan which will also reduce my credit limit as I pay it off . This is a shame because I would have really been able to up the payments now with having another card Zero'd and my income increasing , but I have taken out their paydown plan which at the very least reduces the interest a little bit so should save me a bit .

Next payday should also be as good as this one because ive been notified that im owed some backpay as my rate of pay was incorrect for a short while as well .