Sorting out my own finances, then the missuses
I moved down to London after I left school. I arrived there with very little in the way of cash, so set up my flat by means of a credit card.
Which I then struggled to pay off. It took me about 4 years, and I've actually closed the account now. Capital One made a fortune out of me.

Since then, I've got my finances in order - I get a good wodge of my monthly income (about 2/3) on the 1st of each month. Across the second, third, and fourth of each month, all of my bills are paid. For the rest of the month, I know exactly how much I've got.

The missus was in a slightly worse position when we hooked up, with a 1400 quid overdraft, and 1500 quid on a credit card. Monthly income is £1250 for her. Told her to set aside £75 each month that the bank would automatically reduce her overdraft by - it's slowly coming down. The credit card now gets rate tarted around every 6 months or so, which means she's paying next to sod all for it.

People - sort out your finances. It's not worth paying out a good whack of your income each month just to service your debt.
I put this into perspective with Her by working out that from her £1250 income each month, she was giving £100 to banks in interest charges and late payment charges. That brought it home.

On the other side of the coin, the house we have a £42500 mortgage on (and I'm overpaying £300 a month on) is now worth £130000. W00t. \o/
The building society reckon we'll have it paid off 8 years early if we carry on at this rate. Yay!

Sorry, that's not really what you wanted, is it?
( shadyron, Thu 23 Nov 2006, 21:42, Reply)