Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Money matters

Find financial and money-saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum. If you're looking for ways to make your money to go further, sign up to our Moneysaver emails here.

Does this plan sound manageable?

2 replies

Newuser7592 · 07/01/2024 12:24

Income - £2600 (comprised single salary, child benefit and maintenance)
Essential bills (not including travel and food) - £1500
Remaining balance £1100

By the end of 2023 living costs and a house move left me £800 overdrawn. I've taken out an interest free credit card (purchases and balance transfers) with an interest free period of 16 months. So this month I let my salary pay my bills and am doing all spending on the credit card, which has brought me out my overdraft completely. Next month I'll revert back to using my current account to pay off the credit card in more manageable pieces.

I've worked out that by the end of this month my debt will all be interest free but total:

Credit card - £1800
Utilities (on a 12 month repayment plan due to a house move)- £350
Other interest free repayment plans (due to end in march) - £130
Total - £2280

It's all technically manageable but I want it gone asap because I can forsee at least 2 very large bills coming in this year.

My plan is to clear the sundry debt of £130, and make a similar payment to the credit card then the following month the £350 then block off the credit card in big bites totalling the two previous debt amounts. Does this seem like madness or manageable? I've never been in this much debt before, although appreciate to many this isn't a big amount of debt and it's making me anxious.

OP posts:
KangarooCapturer · 07/01/2024 15:33

Getting rid of the overdraft was a good move. I'd now cancel the overdraft completely - they're often the worst form of lending, high interest rates and just messy because they're muddled up with normal spending, making them easy to slip into and difficult to get out of.

Personally I'd just pay the debts off smallest to biggest now so you get the psychological win of clearing them. Make minimum payment only on the credit card until the two small debts are gone then throw everything possible at the card until it's gone too.

seekingasimplelife · 07/01/2024 16:49

How many children for the food budget? What are your travel costs?

New posts on this thread. Refresh page