My debt-free diary

bestmumof3

You really need to get Credit Card1 transferred over; you are over your limit therefore you will receive charges and your interest rate will be higher.

What are your savings for? Why not put that amount into credit cards for a short while to reduce your balance?

Also, does your BF know about your debts? If he is good with money can you let him deal with your money?

laura2481

bestmumof3 wrote: »

You really need to get Credit Card1 transferred over; you are over your limit therefore you will receive charges and your interest rate will be higher.

What are your savings for? Why not put that amount into credit cards for a short while to reduce your balance?

Also, does your BF know about your debts? If he is good with money can you let him deal with your money?

He does know but refuses to get involved except as a creditor. very annoying as he IS good with money. grrr

The savings are to pay a big chunk of our mortgage when it comes to renewal. my BF will skin me alive if i stop paying into that! :rotfl: We will have £10,000 by next April set aside (most was an inheritance my BF got so i cannot miss out my part)

Should i just forget about CC2 and cancel it?

laura2481

Just a little post to bring my diary back up the list of threads, so that it might catch the attention of some wise person looking to impart wisdom... lol

laura2481

Ok, this is THE PLAN (please feel free to tell me if it's rubbish or you can think of something better!)

Credit Card Plan

1. Cancel CC2.
2. Move as much as poss from CC1 to other 2 credit cards
3. Concentrate on paying off CC1 by overpaying, only pay minimum on CC3 and CC4 until that is paid off. Then cancel
4. Then concentrate on CC4 (higher rate) over pay this until it's gone!
5. Then try to transfer CC3 to a 0% card (hopefully credit rating better by this time!)
6. Then get rid of CC3 balance!

Other Stuff

1. Reclaim bank charges. Should cover £200 overdraft
2. Sell bits and pieces on Ebay to put towards overdraft and/or credit cards
3. Ring LHF and see if it's not too late to claim money i spent on CL's last year (hopefully get back £90)
4. Find out what owe on loan, how long left to make repayments and if it's possible to make overpayments (I don't think it is )

Well, I think that this might work, it definitely can't make anything any worse! lol

elainec

Your plan sounds good to me!
have you used the snowball calculator on whatsthecost.com, mentioned somewhere here? i rather enjoyed playing about on it!!:o

laura2481

elainec wrote: »

Your plan sounds good to me!
have you used the snowball calculator on whatsthecost.com, mentioned somewhere here? i rather enjoyed playing about on it!!:o

I had a play with that the other day, made me realise the value of overpaying!:rolleyes:

i don't think i'll be able to clear these off by next april but at least if i get them reduced as much as possible then my out-goings will be a lot less.:p

I visited the bank today to find out about my loan. I only have £619 left out of £3000 so have made more of a head way with that than i thought:j

That means there are 14 more repayments left to make. I can't over pay but i could repay it early if i had enough money in my current account. If i also try hard i could clear this off before april and that would give me another £50 towards mortgage repayments!:T

That makes total Debt now: £5865 (less than i thought:T )

cheeks

laura2481 wrote: »

Any amount's in purple are half of the total monthly bill as my BF pays the other half. All the green ones are just mine.

Income:
£1132
Outgoings:
Mortgage: £227
Insurances(life, buildings, contents) £35.50
Elec £8
Gas £9.50
water £11
TV £6
Food £70
Homeserve boiler Ins £3
Petplan Ins £5.50
Council Tax £39.50
TV/phone/broadband(virgin) £15
Savings £66
CC1 £21
CC2 £50
CC3 £30
Loan £47.94
Bus travel £36
Contact Lenses £20
phone £20
ABDO registration £26 (essential-i can't work without it)
Total outgoings: £746.94 (less than i originally thought, i must have done my maths wrong!)

that means i could have £200 for living expenses and have money left over to pay off credit cards

Well done getting everything organized, good news that its not as bad as you originally thought! Anyway, looking at your insurances, i am sure you could knock quite a bit off that. Following Martins advice on main site my husband & i now pay £21 a month for joint life cover and when we renewed our build&conts cover the policy cost £93 for the year and we got £80 cashback from Topcashback, a years cover for £13 isn't bad! it might be worth you looking at ditching and switching? Also, if you haven't changed gas and elec suppliers recently that may be worth a look? If you don't already have one, instead of paying everyday for the bus is it poss to get a weekly/monthly ticket? hope this helps

laura2481

I think i'm tied into my insurances until next year because they come up for renewal at the same time as my mortgage. Don't really understand them
Maybe next weekend i'll find out all about the insurances!

And i already have a bus pass. it's £9 per week for unlimited travel in the area, as apposed to £1.50 per journey so quite good vaue!

Have just put a letter together asking the bank to detail my charges so that i can start the ball rolling on reclaiming, even if it's on hold until some judge deceides whether the charges are legal or not... :rolleyes:

laura2481

Capital One card CANCELLED! :j

Very disappointed they didn't beg me to stay or anything :rolleyes:

Onto stage 2 now......

laura2481

Hmm, just checked Halifax CC. Balance is now £1579 (i downloaded some music from itunes and forgot ) So only have £20.90 available. Not really worth transferring anything. If i wait until first of april and i have paid another payment then it will be worth transferring some. So, I will wait until then and then transfer some over.