Road Trip!

Tuesday 25th November, 2008 - £7,408.16 in debt…

I’ve just noticed that most of my posts for this month have been quite cynical. From moaning about the low rate paid by Slice The Pie, to whingeing about British Gas giving away free lightbulbs (how dare they?), to ranting away like a communist about Captain Darling’s VAT cut (although I do stand by that one), I’ve been surprisingly angry this month. So I thought I’d concentrate on an unashamedly cheery subject today: McFly.

Yes, last weekend I threw caution to the wind and went to Bournemouth to see McFly in concert, even though I’m well into my mid-twenties. Ahem.

Just like the last two times I’ve seen them live, they were amazing, and they didn’t do their new emo song so I didn’t cry (it’s about suicide - how confusing).  All in all, a very successful evening, but how much did it cost me? And was it worth it?

Well, the ticket was £26, and the booking fee was £2.50, but that’s not all. Bournemouth is 126 miles away from me, according to Google Maps (or 140 if your companion swears she knows the way but then gets distracted and you take a wrong turning somewhere around Honiton like a pair of idiots). This means spending £15 each on petrol. Then there’s a tenner on food, and suddenly you’ve spent £53.50 on one unforgettable evening of childlike glee.

Luckily, I’m foolhardy enough to drive back home on the same evening, still reeling from the band’s astonishing pyrotechnic display. Otherwise I’d have had to shell out another £40 on a hotel room.

And was it worth it? Well yes, obviously. The day I turn down the chance to see McFly in concert will be the day I can no longer afford to eat and breathe.

Dunce

Friday 1st August, 2008 - £8,378.83 in debt…

Time goes so fast when you’re scrabbling around in the gutter for pennies and working 14-hour days, doesn’t it? I’m now at the end of my third month (or first quarter, in finance-speak), and here’s how it’s going.

I’m clapping my hands like a trained seal because…

1)    I’ve learned that the best way to pay off your debts is to work until your brain bleeds and earn lots of money. This month has been my best so far in terms of workload, and I should be able to shift more than £1000 to my credit cards in total once all the money comes through. I’ve paid £605 towards my debts this month, which reduces what I owe by £472.15 when you take the interest off.

2)    I saved £10 on my grocery shopping by visiting MySupermarket and then Asda. The Asda shopping experience was harrowing, to say the least, but I’m trying Morrison’s next month, which isn’t on MySupermarket but looks pretty cheap to me.

3)    I also saved £7.45 by getting McFly’s latest body of work, Radio:ACTIVE, free with Beelzebub’s latest body of work, the Mail on Sunday.

4)    I used the snowball calculator on Whatsthecost.com to help manage my debts better. It told me that, if I pay off £470 a month (including interest) in a particular order, I’ll clear my debt before my 30th birthday and save £650 in interest.

5)    I received a letter confirming that I’d opted out of the Barclays personal reserve. I already knew that I’d done this, but it’s nice to be acknowledged.

6)    I earned £118.50 mystery shopping for GfK, which is by far the nicest mystery shopping company I’ve worked for. It doesn’t bombard me with irrelevant emails, the jobs I’ve done are quick and easy, and it’s even paid for a lovely bowl of soup and a Cornish cream tea. Yum.

I’m slapping my forehead like a cartoon dunce because…

1)    I spent £52.80 on one weekend in Nottingham, buying things I wouldn’t normally buy because my companions didn’t know about my debts. This has made me think about confessing to everyone, but there’s a very good reason why I haven’t done this yet: I’m ashamed. That’s normal, right?

2)    What with temping up to five days a week, mystery shopping and disliking the idea of cabin fever, I’ve been filling up my car’s petrol tank every nine days on average. Because it’s a beautiful and tiny Daewoo Matiz, this only costs £35 a time, but it’s still about £46 per month over budget.

3)    Speaking of budget, I might have also bought a couple of McFly tickets. And a ticket to a theatre adaptation of my favourite Edward Gorey book. But that’s all – I swear. Oh, and a ticket for Blood Brothers starring one of the Nolans. I just can’t help myself.

4)    My eBay so-called “buyers” have been nothing but trouble, with four of them refusing to pay up. Hopefully I’ll be able to re-sell the stuff or settle on a good eBay alternative but, until then, I’ll wear a constant look of vague disgruntlement.

I’m jittering with anticipation because…

1)    I can’t yet be sure whether I did the right thing switching to an E.ON capped energy tariff - this will only be worthwhile if all the other energy bills in the country rise by more than about 10%, which looks likely but you never know.

2)    I’m not yet sure what kind of impact my bridesmaid duties are going to have on my finances. The next step is dress shopping with the other bridesmaid, who lives 40 miles away, and casually tossing around some hen-night ideas without sounding like I have a budget of £3.50.

Generally speaking, I can’t complain about how this month has gone. After last month’s disastrous performance, July’s sudden onslaught of evening work has given me a ‘get out of jail free’ card and got me back on track. And, although I can’t expect this level of work every month, at least I know that I can be trusted to put the extra money towards my debt when it does happen. Well, most of it anyway…

—

First quarter results:

Amount paid towards my debt so far: £1376.63 (average £458.88 per month)

Amount I’ve reduced my debt by, after interest: £1120.62

 Bournemouth - The Promised Land

Tuesday 22nd July, 2008 - £8,810.98 in debt…

I recently asked around on some forums about services that make it easier to get out of debt, and was bombarded with links to Whatsthecost.com, which apparently is what all the cool people are using. I just went there for the first time, and I feel like I’ve arrived late to a party. A really nerdy party where the guests soberly calculate what order they should pay their credit card bills in, but a party nonetheless.

Just to recap, I have debts on:

1. Barclaycard
2. Capital One card
3. Tesco credit card
4. Barclays overdraft.

I’m paying off the Barclaycard first as it’s got the highest APR, and I’m paying a set amount on each of the others by standing order (£50 on Capital One, £75 on Tesco). I’ve been aiming to pay off £400 a month, but that’s not always possible.

Apparently, I’ve been doing it a bit wrong, but not too wrong. According to the snowball calculator on What’s The Cost, I should be setting up Direct Debits for the minimum on everything but the Barclaycard, and paying off £470 a month in total if I’m going to meet my deadline of the end of April 2010.

The best thing about the snowball calculator doo-dah is that it’s given me some fascinating facts to spur me on. For instance, if I pay everything off in my given time, in the right order, I’ll pay a total of £996 in interest. Horrified gasp. But, if I were just paying everything willy-nilly without (ahem) “snowballing”, I’d lose an additional £650.

The site has even done a good job of justifying my first act as a debt-payer-off: Getting rid of the comparatively cheap NatWest card debt first. “Sometimes, emotionally [rather than financially], it makes sense to pay off the smaller debts first. This can be a great incentive when starting to deal with your debt.”

The calculator is easy to use if you’ve got your debt information in front of you - interest rates, minimum payments, balances and interest-free periods. You’ll also have to tell it how much you can afford to pay back in total per month. By tweaking this, you can find out how much you need to pay to meet your debt-free deadline. 

The results page tells you exactly how much to pay off month by month on each debt. Supposedly, you can then login to save your results and come back to them, but this facility wasn’t working for me. Never mind though - I just saved the webpage instead.

The site is full of similar debt calculators and gadgets, and I can see it being really useful over the next 21-and-a-bit months. Now I’ve just got to encourage my friends to join me for a debt reduction party.

In other news…

Yes, I did sell my soul to the Mail on Sunday for £1.50, but it was worth it. I also got a bit carried away this weekend and fell off the wagon, budget-wise, when I booked two concert tickets. But, at least when I’m starting to chew my own knees off with boredom in November, having spent almost nothing for five months, I’ll be able to cheer myself up by seeing McFly in Bournemouth. Simple pleasures.

 ”Buttock Face” not included

Friday 18th July, 2008 - £8,810.98 in debt…

In two days’ time, I will be thrown into the most horrendous moral conundrum I’ve faced since I started paying my debts off. See, the Mail on Sunday is giving away a free copy of the new McFly album. My soul is in torment.

I love McFly. My life is made immeasurably better by their mere existence. I love their cheeky grins, their youthful exuberance, their optimism, their dogged insistence on using hair straighteners even though they’re boys… And I love the fact that one of them has a face like a buttock and nobody seems to mind.

If I were to compile a list of my top ten favourite things in the universe, McFly would easily be in the top half of that list. And, if I had to list the top two things I hate intensely, the Mail on Sunday would make the top half of that one.

The Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail represent everything McFly do not. Why they’ve formed such an unholy partnership this weekend is beyond me. The right-wing views are the least of it - it’s the misery that annoys me the most. The sheer, unrelenting, knee-jerk, disaster-mongering, panicked misery. They might as well call it the Harbinger of Doom on Sunday and tape free cyanide capsules to the front cover.

Normally, I’d rather stuff a copy of the Mail into my ear than buy it. But, if I ditched my principles and gag reflex for one day, I could get a copy of McFly’s brand new fourth (yes, fourth) studio album for only £1.50. At the moment, it’s on pre-order at Play.com for £8.95, so that’s a saving of £7.45. I’d be stupid not to.

But then.. can I bring myself to give my £1.50 to a corporation made up of what I consider the worst imaginable pondlife? I seriously hope not, but I guess I’ll find out on Sunday…