Divorce debt be gone!

Blackcats

It can feel like an uphill battle when trying to pay down debt and deal with life too.
the initial flurry of energy and enthusiasm moves to steady and slower progress.  It takes us a long time to get into debt so it will take us a while to payoff the debts.  You are doing well.

To quite @beanielou who is a fabulous member of these boards "keep plodding"

beanielou

Aye indeed. Whatever happens in life keep plodding. Apt on so so many levels. 🤗🤗

biggerpickle

Bit of positive money news the last couple of days - renewed my home insurance saving just under £3 per month plus a £34 cashback coming at some point and the many tentacled electricity supplier has reduced my payment by just under £26 from November's DD. I'd had a discussion with them after last winter - they wanted to increase my payments in April from £90 to £200, I demonstrated that it was a stupid increase, we settled on £130 and obviously they now see it was too much of an increase too!

biggerpickle

Bit of a stagnant debt month with only a 0.1% reduction - teenmonsters and I went away at half term so the Halifax Euro card took a hit, also used it to book some flights in December for a pre-Christmas break with DP to visit family overseas. 

Money downs: my tax code has gone down again as new employers used 1257L the last 2 paydays not my 3 figure code and TV and water DD's have increased. Oh and a screw squarely through a car tyre resulted in needing a new back pair so that was £216 I could have done without spending so some of the £350 I put in savings this month for annual costs will inevitably come back out again before pay day.

Money up: result of the month has to be car insurance - I switched to ByMiles last year as a low mileage driver, pre-bought 5k miles but have used less than half of them. The refund on these means the renewal later this month including full RAC home cover will be ~£13pm for the next 12 months. I obviously checked the usual comparisons and cash backs but nothing touched the full price for this renewal let alone taking account of the refund.

Next month should see me comfortably below £10k. I've rejigged my payments spreadsheet and hope that the M&S card will be gone in 6 months (or may be 7, depends on the interest amounts that kick in next month), the smaller items will also be chipped away in that time too. Then to hammer the NW card.

biggerpickle

Ooh another possible money up - fingers crossed for another interest rate cut tomorrow which would reduce my tracker mortgage by ~ £18pm 

biggerpickle

What a surprise - money that went into savings on payday is all now out of savings. I had a bit of an emotional spend day yesterday getting some home bits in Ikea plus have booked a weekend away in the new year. Target of £10k debt by Christmas thoroughly blown out the water by teenmonster#1 being selected for an exceptional school sports trip in 2026 and my share of that will be £1k, ex has magnanimously agreed that I don't have to pay 50% as he earns way more than 2x me. I've paid for 50% of smaller school trips in the past but this one is a corker of a cost.

My mortgage repayment has gone down by £18.46 from 1st December. I should increase my overpayment by the same amount really.

joedenise

It's definitely worth keeping your mortgage payment the same so that the overpayment is increased by that £18.46.  It makes quite a difference to reducing the amount of interest paid.

biggerpickle

@joedenise I increased my standing order overpayment by £15 as makes the total a rounder number. Depressingly, I read an article earlier about mortgage rates creeping up again - I really must chase the broker as messaged him a couple of weeks ago with no reply. 

biggerpickle

So here's a dilemma - have been sent a balance transfer offer at 6.9%pa / no fee on the H credit cards with enough scope to completely clear the Marks one (£2.7k) that ticks into interest payments at 22% in Jan. Am thinking to suck up paying interest for a couple of months at 6.9% instead of 4 months at the higher rate - still with the aim to clear it in 6/7 months. Saves having my credit file hit with opening a new 0% transfer card which would inevitably incur a 3% transfer fee anyway and then I am just paying 2 cards so less min payment juggling. I think I will save at least £100 in interest. It's almost a no brainer isn't it?

joedenise

I agree paying 6.9% rather than 22% is a no brainer.  A balance transfer fee can be anything up to 5% and no guarantee you'd be accepted for a 0% card anyway if you applied.