SOA and "found debt"

MaggieBear

Zebedee69 wrote: »

Cool! Its the little things that count sometimes!

Exactly! :j

I was so chuffed when I came off the phone last night, because it had been really easy to deal with and a good result - and with the things I've cancelled, the overtime and the council tax free month I'll be £300 better off in March than this month, which is £300 sooner to my DFD which is awesome all round.

Today: Getting orange to drop my contract bill, or cancelling it and moving to 3. :dance:

MaggieBear

hrm... apparently my Orange contract was for 24 months, not 18; I was convinced it was 18, but I couldn't find my paperwork to back that up.

Anyway, I'm locked to Orange until 29/05/08 but I managed to get the guy to alter the contract (without altering the end date ) so I get more free texts and x-network anytime minutes (both now more than I've ever used in a month) for £5 less than I'm paying a month now. :money:

It's not perfect, but it's £5 (and sometimes a bit more, if I've not been careful) a month in my pocket, not theirs until I can get it all changed :T and given they were so quick to cave when they've still got me under contract, I'm pretty psyched for when they don't!

Bagpuss741

Did you ever find out what the Dom & Gen was for?

MaggieBear

Bagpuss741 wrote: »

Did you ever find out what the Dom & Gen was for?

I did! It was for frozen food/breakdown cover for a fridge I got when I was still a student (on the day of Diana's funeral of all days, so a heck of a long time ago) 3 flats ago; I don't even have the ruddy thing any more as I sold it with the flat 2 flats ago - I'm more than a little ashamed that I didn't notice the money coming out before now and get it cancelled before, but it's done now and I'm definitely going to keep a closer watch on my finances from now on.

Not using switch to pay for anything is useful for that, I can id what all the entries on each bank statement are, and as I write down any time I withdraw money from the cashline, or deposit money in my diary (along with any expected clearance dates) and I know my monthly DD payments I can check off the entries on the statement and anything odd should be immediately obvious.

You know what? I'm actually looking forward to my bank statement this month, it'll be thin (1 page ) and there will be no surprises (mini statements for the win!) :T . I'm not completely in control of my finances yet - not whilst I've non-mortgage debt - but they're not in control of me, now, either.

MaggieBear

WOO HOO!

I've made my first Amazon sale £6.29 for me (minus the postage costs, of course) .

I'm so CHUFFED! Less crap in my house, more money in my bank!

MaggieBear

I woke up to another two notifications from Amazon today, as well

£11.37 & £11.76 (minus postage costs) - and one of those things I only listed yesterday on the excitement of having sold the first thing!

So I'm off to the post office tommorrow lunch time and off to list the remaining DVDs that I never watch right now

MaggieBear

I may mostly be thinking in exclamation marks - that's another thing gone at £4.77 minus postage costs

This listing things to sell is slightly addictive....

MaggieBear

I'm rejigging my SOA, because some of my outgoings have gone down now :T and I want to keep proper track of it here . My "month" runs from the 21st as that is payday.

Income:
Salary: £1,200 pm


Outgoings:
BT (BB& Phone):£47
Mortgage: £497.61
Council Tax: £102 (for the moment!)
Gas: £16
elec: £36
TV Licence: £11.37
Insurance(build&cont):£22.39
Mobile: £25
Life ins: £48.15
travel: £58.40
Barclaycard: £50
Halifax visa: £8.15

TOTAL Committed outlay PM: £922.07


Leaving £277.93 pm to eat, live, play, buy clothes and presents, and pay extra to my debts


Currently I aim on getting £40 cash out a week, and living on that for food, incidentals, clothes and presents. I've been doing that successfully since October (including all of Christmas :T ) and anything I've been in black by at the end of the month goes to my debts (tbh this will be the first month I'm out of my 20% O/D still at the end of the month. So that'll be one debt gone, two to go :j ).

On this budget, not including overtime, ebay/amazon stuff or council tax free months, I will be putting an average of £162.74 to my debt each month, which the snowball says makes me debt free: July 2009 :T Obviously with a little selling and grabbing any overtime I can (I'm going to see how much I can net in OT until the end of March and see if it's worth me getting a part time job instead. I've made £179 after deductions thus far) I can bring it that much closer.


Outstanding Debt as it stood 21/01

Barclaycard: £1,963.33 which consists of £1,548.44 which is at 0% until next month when it goes up to 19.9%, and the remainer is BT which is a 3% fee until feb 2009 (and is paid first). 2% Minimum Payment

Halifax Visa: £404.17 17% apr, 2% Minimum Payment

I'm still waiting to hear about my disputed insurance claim, which may result in me being a further £1,500 in debt (0%) to my parents.

I will need £299.61 for my (balance already paid) holiday at the start of May. That includes dinner and breakfast. I will be paying the £204 from my council tax free months to my CC, and then using that and ebay/amazon money to pay - I figured I may as well not pay interest on the money before I need it!

Thus far I've made £37.07 clear profit from Amazon (after fees and postage etc) and I'm going away this weekend to a gig, which is being paid for by the $ I found in my wardrobe and converted back yesterday (£45 - which will likely be too much and any that's left will go to my May holiday fund).

bananakinz

Fantastic going!

Have you checked out your life insurance? Is that just to cover the mortgage or is anything else included? Check to see if you can get it cheaper and maybe via quidco.

Is your travel your costing to get to/from work? Do your work offer a seasonal ticket loan? Some companies pay for a years travel and can deduct from your wages - can work out cheaper



Are you tied in with BT? as I pay £20 per month for line rental and broadband with talktalk - monthly bills are approx £26 including calls ...

JemimaP_3

You're doing really well

If you aren't tied into your broadband call Orange as you can get it free or very cheap if you're a contract customer.

I was paying £20 a month to BT (not including broadband) and no pay £15 a month to orange for landline and 8meg broadband, includes free evening and weekend calls and free anytime landline calls via the 'livebox'

HTH