Paying off £37065 unsecured debt by July 2027 while continuing to travel this amazing world

Nintud

Debt repayment has slowed significantly. I’ve reduced Very by around £200 but overdrafts are almost maxed (as they are every month) and I’ve used my credit card for school uniform, park and ride, two meals out and entry to York Minster.  The latter three items were a meet up with uni friends that I haven’t seen for 12 years. Definitely not a debt busting day, but also not a day I was willing to miss.  Catching up with old friends was just what I needed. 

As for maxing the ODs, £600 was for my apartment maintenance charge so not a regular expense, but one I should have saved for.  Without that shocker, I would be in a much better position than I usually am mid-month. 

Freezer, fridge, kitchen cupboards are full. Plenty of food until payday. No more play days though!

22 days until pay day.

Sarahwithlove

When you say not regular is it more a twice a year thing? You could view it as a monthly bill and save the amount in a saver for it. 

Nintud

Sarahwithlove said:

When you say not regular is it more a twice a year thing? You could view it as a monthly bill and save the amount in a saver for it. 

I can pay monthly or annually. I’d paid £550 in a chunk earlier in the year but held back on paying the rest because the leasehold management company are awful. The roof has leaked into two bedrooms during heavy rain and they are doing nothing about repairs to the roof or other issues in the building.

Ive caved now to avoid a £60 surcharge, but I need to research how to hold them to account for essential repairs.

im setting up a pot to pay the 2026 fee, but 2025 is due in January so I shall set up a monthly DD for that year.

ive been able to pay it all at once in previous years, but with everything going up in price, I’ve had no way to save for a couple of months to produce the fee.  It’s also £200 higher than 2021, when I moved in.  It’s paid now. Three pay days until the next bill. No way I can save it all, so monthly is the way to go.

Nintud

Another £5 Vinted sale, so that has gone straight to Very. I’ve reduced that debt from £948 to £758 in two weeks. Very pleased with that!

Only one DD left to come out this month. That will leave me with 30p of my Santander OD left. I’ve had to use the £50 set aside for repaying the OD, but can replace that from child maintenance when it arrives next week.  It’s a very tight month due to the £600 leasehold maintenance fee, but I should just scrape in. All payments made on credit card will be repaid from child maintenance (new blazer and PE top being the main expense) to keep the credit cards at the level they should be after the small overpayments I made on pay day.

if I can keep focused, Very should be paid off by mid January and I can then start paying back more of my biggest overdraft.

Christmas is going to be the big test.

MFWannabe

Well done 👏 that’s a great achievement on Very 

Nintud

£2.50 refunded from Mr S after he picked two marrows instead of two courgettes. They were huge 😆 A total Mickey take that upped my basket cost. I told the delivery man the picker was taking the p! I’ll get them myself from Mr L later in the week, closer to when I need them.

i have my shopping delivered because carting £125 worth of food, especially big bags of dog food, up to a second floor apartment is my idea of hell.

i need to tot up my grocery spends for the month to see how close I am to my budget.  My freezer is full of veg and bulk cooked meals, and the cupboards and fridge are bursting too. The boys move to their other home on Sunday, so I have a week of beans on toast and baked potatoes. I’ve run out of crackers, so no cheese and cracker laziness.  I just can’t be bothered to cook for one.

No need to shop for food for a week, and hopefully there’s enough in to only need bread, fruit and milk when the boys are back. They’re not big fans of veg, so that gets hidden in bolognaise, curry and soup.  I’ve got a bag of carrots that are looking sorry for themselves, so they will need to be souped with some other veg.  I just need the boys to finish the icecream so that I have a container to freeze it in. No encouragement needed there!

Nintud

Budgeted spending so far, with 21 days until payday.

Groceries £141.69/£250
Clothing £49.71/£80
Petrol £76.22/£65

I am over on petrol, but some of that will be repaid when I claim my work mileage. My trip to York was fuel heavy. 4.5 hours in total, much of it crawling on the motorway. It’s very rare that I drive that far, so the petrol budget will stay at £65 for next month.

I will only need to do one more grocery shop this pay month, I think I will come in under £250.

No plans to buy more clothes this month, but I will keep the budget at £80 and roll any left from this month into it. There’s at least one pair of expensive trainers on the horizon, and I will need to replace my high heels with something lower soon.

Home made fish pie is cooking in the oven, and I have a part cooked portion cooking for the freezer for me next week. It will make a change from beans on toast! That’s reminded me. I need to cook the peas!

Sarahwithlove

Have you thought about making a list of your freezer and cupboard contents so you can shop from them and create a menu plan? I find that helps with my food shopping budget. 

katsu

Your white goods insurance is £190 a year. Do you get over £200 a year out of it year on year?   I would be surprised if you really always need that.  I just had to get a washing machine engineer and wnded up needing a new machine as he couldn't get parts for mine. I had owned it for 15 years with 0 servicing or repairs, just Dr Beckmann cleaning products monthly.  The new machine and his visit were under £300.

My current fridge was donated by a friend over 8 years ago. It was at least second hand then.  I think I'm the third owner. 

I don't own a dishwasher or tumble dryer. We have a plug in heated airer which we use if we need things for the next day. Maybe look at if one of those would be cheaper to use than a tumble drier?

I appreciate £200 may not seen that massive to you, but it would help you to reduce your really expensive debts.

Nintud

katsu said:

Your white goods insurance is £190 a year. Do you get over £200 a year out of it year on year?   I would be surprised if you really always need that.  I just had to get a washing machine engineer and wnded up needing a new machine as he couldn't get parts for mine. I had owned it for 15 years with 0 servicing or repairs, just Dr Beckmann cleaning products monthly.  The new machine and his visit were under £300.

My current fridge was donated by a friend over 8 years ago. It was at least second hand then.  I think I'm the third owner. 

I don't own a dishwasher or tumble dryer. We have a plug in heated airer which we use if we need things for the next day. Maybe look at if one of those would be cheaper to use than a tumble drier?

I appreciate £200 may not seen that massive to you, but it would help you to reduce your really expensive debts.

Thanks Katsu, I hadn’t looked at it in terms of annual cost.  Since I moved in to my apartment in January 2021, Ive  been through 3 dishwashers. One was here when I moved in and flooded into the apartment below during my first week here. The bottom of it had rusted. I insured its replacement and the electrics went on that within weeks of the warranty ending. It couldn’t be fixed so was replaced. My tumble dryer developed a fault and needed repairing, the metal ring in my washing machine seal was torn out by a duvet and needed repairing, and I damaged the cord on my vacuum cleaner so that needed repairing. The motor on Harry the Hoover has developed a fault now and is barely sucking, so that needs a call out.
The call out fees and repair costs probably don’t add up to the annual cost of the insurance for 3 years so I will look at getting the vacuum cleaner fixed and reassess whether the insurance is cost effective.  I am very hard on appliances and worry about everything failing at once. I have no wiggle room to repurchase if repairing isn’t possible.