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

Nintud

One day until payday!!!

Online shop edited and due for delivery tomorrow night. It’s a £250 order as I will get 8% cash back from Monzo. The groceries, dog food and cleaning products have to last until December 21st, when my next online shop is due. I hope I have ordered enough loo roll! That’s £45.50ish per week for 5.5 weeks. I have the boys (and probably the sofa-surfing friend) for 3 of those weeks (plus son and friend/s dog-sitting for the weekend that I am away)
I’m £25 over my food budget for that length of time, but the 8% cash back makes up £20 of the overspend, and there will be about £5 worth of dog food carry over. 90% of the food gets eaten by the boys and I live off frozen left overs and cheese toasties in my solo weeks (perfectly happy with that as I really can’t be bothered to cook for one).

I pity the driver from Mr S climbing up two flights of stairs with my order. There’s a lot of dog food and bottles of squash to carry up. I’ve been told they have an assigned time for a delivery, regardless of stairs to climb. I’ll be ready with boxes to rapidly unload the crates into, so that he can be on his way at pace.

Nintud

£2 from a Vinted sale has arrived in my bank account. I daren’t transfer it to Very yet though. I’m down to £3.11 (remaining overdraft) and £3.40 (remaining of credit cards limits) until pay day 😆

This pay month has been tight, but I think I have made it. There’s about 20 miles left in my fuel tank. I have 9 miles to drive on Thursday and about 2 miles to drive to the petrol station on Friday.

I’m over my Santander cc limit by £79 (interest added). I have paid £204 off Very. That works out at a £125 debt reduction (not including car payment/loan/mortgage) plus £600 maintenance fee, paid off this month. Exceeding the CC limit is annoying. I’ve made a minute dent in the debt, but I’m ending this pay month in a slightly better position than I started it, and a whole lot better position than I would have been in without watching every penny.

Goals for the coming month are to:
🔴 Not go Christmas shopping crazy.
🔴 Stick to my travel budget (impossible as I am travelling and also have instalments due for India and Bucharest… so will be “borrowing” from December’s travel budget).
🔴 Batch cook from scratch and not top up shop beyond milk, bread, and fresh fruit.
🔴 Sell as much as I can on Vinted.
🔴 Pay down debts according to the snowball calculator (more if possible).
🔴 End the month under all CC limits
🔴Use this diary to stay accountable.

Time for bed, or I’ll need a nap again!

Nintud

£9 Vinted payment paid straight to Very.  £223.84 paid off after interest added (£247.99 paid in total). Not too shabby for one pay month.

Total Very debt is now £754.63. I’m waiting for the clock to strike midnight and my Salary to drop. I’m going to send £154.63over to get the debt down to £600 on day1 of the November pay month. I will then overpay from Vinted sales in the hope that I end the month with a £500 debt to Very.

Massive food shop arriving early Friday morning (sorry neighbours!).I’ve emptied and cleaned three of four freezer drawers and rearranged the remnants in the fridge for easy putting away.  I’ll put a chicken casserole in the slow cooker while I’m waiting for the delivery (£1 saver slot). That will use up some of the remaining frozen veg and random tins of cannelloni beans.  I will also pay all of the bills that I pay manually, and set a budget for the month.

The boys are excited for some “proper food” and not the freezer surprises they have been served up for the past couple of days. I’ll let them pick what we have for dinner tomorrow night (casserole is for the freezer and a night when I finish work late).

Feeling pretty optimistic about the month ahead. Particularly pleased to have found €35 in my travel purse 😆

MFWannabe

Morning 👋
Great find reference the Euros 😁
Did you request the money back from Gas and Electric? Are you still using that towards Very? 

Sounds like it could be a good month for debt busting 👌

RelievedSheff

Good Morning. 

Always good to find some spare travel money  

biggerpickle

happy payday @Nintud! 

I love payday as I can pay all the manual bills and feel like am making a difference after the tight last week of the month. 

I hit a new (literal!) low this morning - would seem when the car range clicks to 0 miles, there's still a mile or so in the tank to refuel. The 25 quid I put in today needs to last til the end of the month.

dawnybabes

Eek, I’d have been having palpitations being that low 🤣

Nintud

biggerpickle said:

happy payday @Nintud! 

I love payday as I can pay all the manual bills and feel like am making a difference after the tight last week of the month. 

I hit a new (literal!) low this morning - would seem when the car range clicks to 0 miles, there's still a mile or so in the tank to refuel. The 25 quid I put in today needs to last til the end of the month.

I’ve replied to your message.

My Dad despairs at me for letting the fuel get low. He says I’ll wreck my engine with all the gunk at the bottom of the tank.  Feel free to fill her up, Dad!

I will be putting a full tank in tomorrow, I currently have 15 miles left, but know from experience that I’ll get a “refuel immediately” message when I next turn the key. I’ll get dawnbaby palpitations when that happens and coast to the petrol station pleading Anastasia (a friend gave her the name, because she’s too posh for me!) to keep going. The flashing red light panics me every time.

Nintud

£13.50 more from Vinted to Very.  Son wanted to earn some money for the weekend, so I have had him photographing dresses this morning and will upload them later.  I’d have paid him more to clean the bathrooms, but that was a task too far.

son and couch-surfing friend put the laundry away yesterday. About two weeks worth and a bottomless pit of socks to sort. Payment in beer for when they watch a boxing match later. I loathe sock sorting. I now have two empty laundry baskets, which were perfect for unloading the shopping delivery into this morning.

£20 of my big shop went back with the exhausted delivery lady. Unsuitable substitutions wrecked a couple of the meals I had planned, and a short dated wilted salad went straight back.  I draw the line at gristly Stanford burgers, so everything for burger night went back. Thai Green curry paste was replaced with a kit containing ingredients that I already have, so that went back too. My freezer is now groaning so she went away with one of the loaves of bread too.

Nintud

Santander wouldn’t reduce my overdraft limit. Same affordability reason as last month, as they treat it as a new OD application.

I’ve reduced my Nationwide OD limit by £100 (2 months @ £50 per month) instead.  I used up all of my OD limits last month thanks to the maintenance fee. Hopefully nothing major appears this month.

my EF is now at £100, and I’ve put £100 in a virtual pot for my next flat maintenance fee.

£100 about to go out to pay for future Tavel bookings.

its going to be another tight month. No wriggle room if I want to reduce the OD limit again in December. Careful Christmas spending. No treats outside of my budgeted weekend in Berlin.

son has ‘lost’ a school shoe, so the clothes budget will be used to buy a new pair.  How do you lose a shoe?