My Debt confession update 1 – My Progress

My Debt confession update 1 – My Progress

I wrote about my debt confession on April 24^th 2017. The reaction has been amazing. It has been read more than 1000 times on my website, a shorter version was then published on the Huffington Post. This has been one of my writing goals for the past 4 years to be published on there, it’s a genuine stamp on my writing ability and skills. Beyond happy.

Over the past nearly 3 weeks I have been working hard to re-budget, go through my finances and work on a plan to remedy this situation. Here is what I have done.

My Budget

I have a fab budget spreadsheet that includes everything we could possibly spend money on. It includes not just monthly spends but also annual/less regular events with a monthly portion. For example, weddings this year, holiday, birthday presents, other people’s birthdays, dentist, haircut. Everything has been included. This give a much more realistic amount that must be covered every month. I will repeat my offer as I always do, if you want a copy of this new and improved budget template please email me at lynn@mrsmummypenny.co.uk and I will send you copy.

My budget has been checked over with a fine toothcomb by my wonderful writer and journalist friend Faith Archer who blogs at Much More With Less. She has given me lots of extra ideas to generate cash and save money.

I have had a good look at our expenses and have cut lots out. I have ended our childcare contract, a tough decision as our childminder is also one of my best friends but £100 a month for one after school childcare care for three children was too much.

Our dishwasher insurance (I had to take it out as dishwasher broke last year, engineer and new parts were free if I took out 1 year £14 per month insurance, method to my madness) finishes at end of May, £14 saved per month.

I made a complaint about my Barclays business banking excessive chargesand it turns out I was on the wrong tariff. Charges refunded plus an inconvenience amount given to me £80 refund and £12 savings per month

40^th Birthday party broken zip dress returned to John Lewis, £130 refund.

The mortgage has been renegotiated and from June we move to a new lower rate, saving us £100 per month in interest part of the repayment mortgage.

In total I have already stripped out £226 from our monthly expense, £2,712 per year!! This is huge amount.

Still to consider

• Call Sky and see what costs can be stripped out of the (arrrgggg) £75 per month we pay for broadband, TV, landline. Yes, we have sky sports and no we are not going to cancel it as hubby might divorce me.
• Apply for a Santander Light Account to benefit from cashback on my hoursehold direct debits
• Consider an American Express cashback credit card to use rather than my Tesco Clubcard credit card. The cashback beats the Clubcard vouchers value by far. It gets paid off in full every month and is used for regular spends, petrol, food etc.
• We are going to sell our car, a 5-year-old Smax worth £9,000. We are going to lease a hybrid Auris (probably) to half our petrol costs and save the environment. We are currently negotiating this deal.

Make some money

• We have decluttered under the stairs and the garage and have listed various items on Facebook Items for sale (I own the Knebworth one!) and eBay. We have around 100 items to sell.
• I have a few specialist items, such as George Michael genuine signed picture, Christian Dior large bowling bag to be sold. I am considering the best way to sell these. I sent an email to the Posh Pawn man from TV!!
• Mrs Mummypenny has gone boom, and the projects are campaigns are rolling in every day. The payment for these is delayed of course as I must complete the work, invoice and wait for payment but it’s all being lined up.

Repayments on what we owe

You will recall I had £15,500 that we owe. £2,500 on cards with interest being charged. £5,500 on an interest free card with 18 left on this offer and then £7,500 on another 0% card with 43 months’ interest free period (a new one).

The plan is cover the minimum repayments on all the cards of £300. Then any money I earn more than £1500 each month can be put into the cards with interest charges first.

I have already paid off £350 from the nasty interest cards. And then I have paid off another £200 from the 0% cards. £550 knocked off in month 1 is impressive!!

Timings and Goals

I am keen to pay off at least £5,000 of what we owe by the end of 2017. This includes the nasty interest charging cards first and then the £5,500 card with the 18 months remaining of 0%.

What are your thoughts? How are you doing with your repayments, what are you goals and how are you going to smash them?