Bills account

I have a bills account that I pay a set sum into each fortnight when I get paid.

This fortnightly amount is slightly more than all of the upper limits of my known expenses (PO Box, water, electricity, wood, gas, healthcare, grooming, clothing, insurances etc) annually, divided by 26. So I always have enough to pay my bills with some to spare. 

I paid my PO Box last fortnight but with my credit card, because that's the only payment method they take. The PO Box renewal is $129 annually.

What I forgot to do was transfer the money from my bills account to my credit card! I have the money for this expense saved in my bills account, so I'm robbing myself if I don't transfer it immediately - and risking being charged interest! 

As you know, I've paid my credit card down so that there is only a $100 balance remaining in total so I've transferred $100 this morning. It will take a day or two to come across but will mean that my credit card will be completely paid off. Woo!! It also means that there is an extra $29 sitting in my bills account... which is fine. I like having a bit of a buffer there in case of an emergency.

The bills account has a built in buffer thanks to my over-estimating, so it also acts as my emergency fund. It has a floating balance usually of around $1000 - $1500, but is currently a little depleted due to some unexpected bills thanks to some personal issues that I'll go into later.

I'll update balances and net worth when the transfer is completed :)

Big changes

I've been a bit absent, but with good reasons.

I've moved house - which was a very long, painful and expensive exercise.

But the house that I'm not in is lovely and there has been discussions with the owners about us potentially buying it when the time comes. So that is a positive.

The new house has solar panels, so I'm expecting that with a little careful management that I'll have no net increase in my expenses here, with the electricity windfall making up for the slight increase in rent.

I am behind the point that I last left you though, having had to redraw on some of the funds I was ahead in my loan in order to make the move happen. I've also put a bit back onto my credit card.

In response, last night I sat down and redid my budget. We're down to brass tacks here for the foreseeable future until I can right the damage that I've done to my progress.

First step is to put the credit card back to zero.

I've allocated $450 per fortnight to that.

Second is to knock my loan back down. So as soon as I've moved that credit card to zero (I cringe to say that it will be 4 fortnights until the magic $0 appears)... the loan repayments will be going from the current $300 to $750.

My medical debt is fully cleared now, so that is a massive help.

I've also gone through how I manage all my annual payments and allocated them all to my "bills" account, which is separate to my daily account. By transferring out all of the payments and future allocations the day that my pay goes in, I will only be left with a very small amount in my account which is to cover groceries, date night and $50 discretionary spending each fortnight. That discretionary spending is to cover any small incidentals - school excursions that come in last minute and so on.

All payments for this fortnight have now gone out, so I'm starting May with this renewed approach to getting my house back in order.

I suspect that anyone who is like me, not terribly great with money, has these setbacks when they start off on a debt journey. It certainly seems to be the case for most of the debt reduction blogs that I've read - even though most of them are American. I know that it is far from ideal to be having big expenditures like a move when I'm trying to pay down my debt, and worse that I've actually gone backwards as a result of it. BUT, I'm determined to pick myself up and get back to that lovely feeling of $0 on the credit card and thousands in front on my loan. It felt so good the first time and I know that I can do it quickly if I am careful with my money.

So, onwards and upwards as I keep chasing zero.