Debt Update: August

The automatic payment of £194.23 went through on my loan last week leaving me a debt balance of £5,977. I'm below £6k, at last!

September will be another tight month for me, back to school expenses have been more than I thought, but I'm hoping to snowball at least £300.

On Holiday

I'm on holiday for a week so will be unable to respond to comments; I'm having a week away from my pc....aargh...will I cope...lets hope so.

I'll be keeping a spending diary while away and blogging my spends when I come back!


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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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A New Plan

My budgeting is all over the place at the moment, what with my son moving out and the added costs of helping him out, the food parcel I bought him and then my daughters 16th next month, I believe it will be October when I finally make big inroads into my debt again. December 31st 2009 looks highly unlikely to be my debt free day, it'll be more like December 2010.

I may have overstretched myself this year. I'm ok with this, I just need to work out a new debt repayment plan that works with my budget, instead of trying to stick to my original plan and keep failing. It would be so easy right now to contribute less to the joint account, but I'm not going to, it wouldn't feel right; I've never viewed that money as my money, it's our money for our future.

How do you and your partner divide up your money? Do you have separate accounts or joint or both?

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Missing a snowball

Arghh! The lack of snowball payment is making me miserable and it's not because I'm helping my son out, I want to do that. It's the 'why am I in debt' 'I'm such an idiot' unhappy feeling that missing a snowball brings out in me; if I hadn't made all these mistakes in the past then things would be so different.

I need to pick myself up, again, and get on with this business of getting debt free.

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No snowball in August

There will be no snowball payment to my debt this month, I'll be paying the minimum payment of £194.23 on the 27th, but that's it. This may be the first time this has happened in the last few years but I want to help my son with his university expenses.

He moves into student accommodation this month and was hoping to get lots of overtime this summer at his part time job, but it's just not happened. There is an overtime ban at his place of work. So I'm going to help him out.

This will obviously put back my debt repayment a little, a debt free new year looks out of the question, but I'll keep plugging away. I'll get there eventually.

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August Goal: Just the one!

I'm not even going to report on my July mini goals; I didn't complete any of them. I'm ok with that, it was a mad, mad month work wise and I'm glad to make it to August. I did make £60.36 in extra income, which is not bad considering.

In August I have one goal and that's to keep my spending diary up to date and record every single penny.

I'm a little behind on my blog reading, I'm hoping to catch up today, so I hope you are all well and paying down that debt; if you have any!

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