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20 August 2009

Help me decide the best route

I've always, since starting this debt journey, budgeted payday to payday. I've worked out my expenses for the month and then snowballed whatever was left over. Now I'm thinking that I should do a years budget, September 1st 2009 - August 31st 2010, which is 13 paydays (I get paid 4 weekly) and do an automatic payment every month to ensure that the debt is (definitely) all gone at the end of the 12 months. This would stop me being under pressure to make a large snowball payment every month and would mean that I would have some personal savings at the end of it.

What do you think? Does this make sense?

Sorry lots of questions :)

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7 comments:

  1. Sounds good to me, especially if you get paid every 4 weeks rather than monthly?
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  2. Hi there-its a great plan which eliminates your debt, gives piece of mind and savings too-I'd say go for it!!
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  3. I do a yearly budget, taking a longer view helps you to see the bigger picture, especially as you have a large goal to aim for.
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  4. As with most things, i can see advantages and disadvantages. Obviously one advantage would be that (barring unforeseen events), you would have peace of mind knowing that as long as you stick to your budget your debt will be paid off by a set date. Also, as you say, you will have budgeted in some savings which is a good incentive. Disadvantages i would say are that it can be hard to motivate yourself for longer term goals. You may find that focusing really hard on the monthly snowball payment, as you are now, you may pay off your debt much quicker and then still have time to build up some savings before the end of the year. I think it all depends on you really, how do you feel about it? Why not do a weekly budget rather than a monthly budget, just to be controversial? Lol.
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  5. Mu budget is planned out till the end of 2012.. ok, it needs adjusting here and there, depending on pay rises and variables such as utility bills etc.. but I can tell you what month I'll be debt free definately. Anything earlier than that is a bonus. It helps me relax about the whole thing. So if I don't make the payments I think I can make for whatever reason, it's OK, because at set month in 2012, it'll be gone anyway...
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  6. I think it sounds like a great solution. I know how snowflaking can be hard work - I, myself have gotten burned out. It might make getting that extra money fun again if you don't feel a huge pressure. You can always use it to make extra payments so you are done even faster.
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  7. I'm in the process of doing a year long budget. Rather than trying create my own spreadsheet (something I'm no good at) I used Fabulously Broke's budgeting excel sheets. It costs about 30 euros but I found worth the money.

    http://budget.fabulouslybroke.com/2009/05/budgeting-expense-tracking-analysis.html
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