Shady's debt busting tracker...

shadydaz

Hi,

I am Daz and this is my situtation...

I only came across this website last week but upon visiting now a couple of times and having familiarised myself with it, i feel i am ready to share my experience with you guys.

I had my LBM at Christmas when the OH and I hit an all time low, exceeding all od's the threat and prospect of charges made me wake up and smell the coffee....

I will try to formate our financial situation below form where we were at Christmas and explain what i have done so far to "GET A GRIP" on spiralling debts..

Debts:

Loan: 11239outstanding
my.OD1: 1000 (maxed)
ja.OD2: 500 (maxed)
oh.OD3: 50 (maxed)
CURRIES: 1000 (TV) (six month's interest free credit, purchased in Nov '07)
BCARD CC: 400 (maxed)
TESCO CC: 1250 (maxed)
OH IT course: 2600
Additions: 500 (maxed)

These are the main ones i can remeber, there may have been a few more..
Total: 18539. hmmmmm not pretty....:eek:

At Christmas, i decided something needed to be done. There was no control in terms of balancing ins/outs. We just dumped all income into the joint account and hoped that it would cover everything, which eventually it didnt.
I decided to evulate the situation and realign the three bank accounts so that payments were separated out into categories:

Joint acc: Bills, debts dd's.
my acc: car costs, my phone, my spends:
Oh acc: food, kids stuff, her phone, her gym, her money.

Very simple.. no compex budgeting such as holidays, gifts, chrsitmas etc as our shortfall far outweighed our income...

I created an Excel Spreadsheet to track payments out of the joint acc only. This has enabled me to project when things can be paid off early, and set budgets to be able to maximise payments on a monthly basis.

A bit of a rough science this scenario i know but please bear with me...as is said, i had formulated this without nay help or advice.

I have worked out our target date for Debt Free Living to be Oct/Nov 2010

since Christmas we have acheived the following..

Loan: 11239 9917.2 :beer: under 10K!!!
my.OD1: 1000 (maxed) can't sort it yet
ja.OD2: 500 (maxed) using to offset cc and other early repayments so fluxuates... currently 300
[strike]oh.OD3: 50 (maxed)[/strike] changed accs:j
[strike]CURRIES: 1000 (TV) (six month's interest free credit, purchased in Nov '07)[/strike] my Christmas bonus :j
[strike]BCARD CC: 400 (maxed)[/strike] paid using jt acc od:j
TESCO CC: 1250 (maxed) 900est
OH IT course: 2600 1755
Additions: 500 (maxed) 300 atm OH tasked with this one..

new debts!!

1.social fund: 600 (OH from before we met)
2.Inland Rev: 600 ( stung me for something i don't think i have done from about 4/5 years ago)Gets deducted automatically by them reducing PTA Taxcode...Payed off in a year.

total: 15372.2

:A :T Payed so far (month 5) £3166 :T :A

I know i have included a total in/outs balance sheet but will do in due course. I am about £140 over budget on bills this year so far:mad: .

We have done other things to cut costs and i will expand into greater detail as i post progress reports.

Any help and advice will be welcome.:D

shadydaz

Please post any comments on this one....

shadydaz

soa based on monthly averages:

jt acc:
rent: 418.72
c/t: 124
water: 22.23
gas: 20
elec: 35
ph/int: 50 (budget amount, try to not exceed on any given month)
tv lic: 11.25
car ins: 36.6
loan: 220.36
course: 65
tesco cc: 34 (min payment, nedd to sort that)
ACC INT: 2-3
total: 1040.16

acc in:
my transfer: 900
cb : 190.23
tc: 42.12
total: 1132.35

monthly ave gain to repay early: 92.19

my acc:
in: 1321.73
out:
jt acc:900
petrol ave: 180
car other:50 (held in acc)
interest: 13-14.
allowance: 160 month.

acc gain 17-18 per month.

SpendHappy

Thought I would just post to say 'hi' and well done with what you have achieved so far - without help as you say.
Once the clever peeps on here get their mitts on your SOA you might find that you can shift your debts even quicker!!
There is a snowball calculator where you can enter all your information and it gives you a debt free date. Then you can play around with entering more/less and it changes the dfd for you. V interesting.
Ill find you the link but :T :T :T and keep going!!

Beerworshipper

Hey Shadydaz,

I just wanted to congratulate you on what you've achieved so far. Thats a really good effort and a fantastic start:T :T :T


Its even more impressive when we consider that you were well on your way prior to finding this little piece of DFW paradise.

Good luck to you on your journey.

bank_of_slate

Hi Daz,
Good first post, you've grabbed the debt by the horns.
keep posting for support!
...Linda xx

shadydaz

SpendHappy wrote: »

Thought I would just post to say 'hi' and well done with what you have achieved so far - without help as you say.
Once the clever peeps on here get their mitts on your SOA you might find that you can shift your debts even quicker!!
There is a snowball calculator where you can enter all your information and it gives you a debt free date. Then you can play around with entering more/less and it changes the dfd for you. V interesting.
Ill find you the link but :T :T :T and keep going!!

Many thanks spendhappy.

shadydaz

Beerworshipper wrote: »

Hey Shadydaz,

I just wanted to congratulate you on what you've achieved so far. Thats a really good effort and a fantastic start:T :T :T


Its even more impressive when we consider that you were well on your way prior to finding this little piece of DFW paradise.

Good luck to you on your journey.

Thanks to you too, beerworshipper..

shadydaz

Many thanks Bank_of_slate.

dancingfairy

jt acc:
rent: 418.72
c/t: 124 is this over 12 months or 10? if over 10 you may be able to pay off over 12 months to make budgetting easier.
water: 22.23
gas: 20
elec: 35 have you got the low energy bulbs/turn everything off when not needed / don't leave anything on charge/standby etc?
ph/int: 50 (budget amount, try to not exceed on any given month)
tv lic: 11.25
car ins: 36.6
loan: 220.36
course: 65 what's this? Are you getting value for money? are you activiely doing the course still?
tesco cc: 34 (min payment, nedd to sort that)
ACC INT: 2-3
total: 1040.16


Just a couple of thoughts frome me: you didn't seem to mention food at all. Where does this fit in? Are you cooking everything from scratch /batch cooking/buying reduced prive /basic/value items? This is one area people can generally cut down on. I'm still cutting down - there's always more tips and tricks to learn with this one.
What about ebay/car boots etc? A good way of clearing out and making a bit of cash?
Sounds like you are well on the way. Keep up the good work.
df

shadydaz

SpendHappy wrote: »

There is a snowball calculator where you can enter all your information and it gives you a debt free date. Then you can play around with entering more/less and it changes the dfd for you. V interesting.

I have sort of cracked that already by designing my spreadsheet to forcast years ahead. It is set up to run from April to April, so i can estimate/budget individual cost projections for each bill on a monthly basis. This gives me a projection for each year so i can estimate my contribution to the account to cover all costs and a bit extra to enable me to save up and pay off unessecary debt quicker.
I realise i am fortunate not to be in a situation where my core financial obligations are in good order. (ie; water, ct, elec and gas(£80credit).one week rent arrears sson to be sorted not included in soa).
It was just the extras that started getting on top of us...