Small Steps Out Of Massive Debt!
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GC how about I add another angle, I am old enough to be your mum . I had a very good life moneywise in my 20s and 30s , husband well paid only worked part time , never had to worry about what I was buying etc. Fast forward 20 years , in debt not loads but enough to now not be able to retire at 55 as I had always planned .
My moral is , if you learn how to budget now in your younger years , then when you do go on maternity leave , work parttime it will be second nature to you.
As has been said every journey is different and everyone has different ways of dealing with it. I think if the amount is going down and you are learning from the experience then it will set you up for life when you are debt free.
Take it from an oldie who should know better lol .0 -
Ohhh you guys! I'm so overwhelmed with all your support
Thank you, have a dodgy-looking group hug! :grouphug: 0 -
Hiddenidenity wrote: »After my sh!tstorm in March I deleted ALL social media, Deactivated everything. The difference in my mood is amazing! Yes I still have 'fed up' days etc that's a part of me, however its so much easier than see everyone else's perfect little lives. Honestly I will never go back on SM again. I guess here is sort of SM but when you don't have friends/family rubbing in how ideal their world is and how they have no worries/perfect their kids are etc etc its so much easier.
There is light at the end of the tunnel and you will get there, we all have our own journey and no 2 are the same, enjoy it even if it is at a slower pace than you had in mind at the start. You've done and do amazing just remember that ((Hugs)) x
Oh wow, thank you everyone! I am feeling so overwhelmed with your support Have a dodgy-looking group hug! :grouphug:
Hidden, you make such good points about social media. I deleted Instagram earlier this year because it was making me feel terrible. If I didn't know better, I would think that I'm only friends with supermodels / super-rich, super-stylish magazine editors because opening Instagram is like opening a copy of Vogue. I'm on Facebook mainly to keep in touch with friends & family members who live far away, but I think you are right, it would do me good to have a break from it at the moment.
Thank you for your lovely lovely post 0 -
Don't feel down, about the baby thing. I was feeling like that when friends had theirs last year (he's just over 1 now) then you listen to them complain about the sleepless nights and the cost of formula etc.
I think you're being very sensible and waiting until you've cleared the debt. It'll be your turn eventually in the meantime enjoy playing Auntie to all you friends kids.
When you feel fed up about the debt, just remember how far you've come (I need to remember this myself) I think you're doing amazingly! :TI've come to the conclusion that most of these lives probably aren't perfect. Well that's what I'm hoping anyway :rotfl:
I say that as I have a close friend who on the surface has that perfect FB life, with the beautiful kids etc. and I know she has over £150k of debt and is really struggling but dealing with it now.
I agree there is light at the end of the tunnel and I think our journeys make us stronger people, and while I wish I'd never got into debt it has helped me be the person I am now and I like her a bit
Thank you Peabody!
I totally understand what you mean about liking the old-you, I went through my phase of being blisteringly angry at my old self but the longer I plug away at this, the more I just feel sorry for her. I was struggling with lots of things and found some relief from spending money, even though I would rather not have ended up in a situation where all I had was £37K of personal debt and not much else to show for it, I feel like I'm tackling it from a much better place and that I'm actually dealing with things (financial and otherwise) instead of burying my head in the sand.0 -
kirtsypoos wrote: »Understand this completely! About halfway through my DF journey my sister and one of my best friends announced they were pregnant within a week or so and there have been loads since and each one I'm so happy for but god it hurts to see. I always feel so selfish but I think it's quite a normal reaction.
I think nobody should be allowed to ask when it's your turn etc as it really is horrible, especially when you have reasons that you don't want to disclose or if it's not happening!
You are so right about nursery payments though - a local nursery to us charges about £70 a month less than I was paying back at the height of my repayments so if I could still survive before, it's been good practice :rotfl:
Kirsty, you've hit the nail on the head. It isn't that I'm resentful of their news but it is still painful to see the pictures. I think a break from social media would be good, and arranging to meet up with them in person so I can get a fix of newborn cuddles
Usually I can block out the stupid questions but occasionally they get through and really hurt - I guess because they touch on something that is a really vulnerable spot. The worst was from my husband's aunt who said something like "your MIL & FIL won't want to wait forever to be grandparents!" ... it made me so angry. :mad:0 -
Hey GC - just wanted to stop by with some support and a pat on the back. I, too, understand your frustrations with getting through the drudgery of debt busting, especially when it's not a short term solution. This is just one of the lows of your rollercoaster, there will be highs again and it's not forever. Don't let it bring you down.
I'm sorry you're feeling so low about the children thing - can i tell you about my perspective? I, of course, wouldn't have it any other way, but i'm 29, got married at 22 and had my first child at 24 with no savings at all behind us. Childcare x1 was rubbishly high but we managed and our plan was to do our flat up, overpay to get out of negative equity then buy a new house before thinking about having a second.
Nature took its own course though and when my son was 1 year 10 months, I was pregnant again so we made the decision to keep our flat on and buy a house anyway...with virtually no leftover savings and an increasing pot of debt. So with two kids under 2.5 I had to go back to work when DS2 was 6 months old and that's when the £1.4k monthly childcare payments started.
What I'm getting at is that although I'd never change the way things happened because things are beginning to come good now with a lot of hard work, but if I'd have chosen my path, I'd have waited to have kids until we were much more financially stable.
I think you're doing the right thing making a dent in everything now and working towards becoming debt-free. There's nothing wrong with doing it the other way but it could be so much harder in the long run.
I'm sorry you're feeling stuck and unable to move forward. I don't feel like that on the child front of course, but I do feel like that in many other ways.
I feel like this has come out all in a jumble, but I hope you understand my sentiment.
Thank you JoJo, I do understand where you are coming from and I really appreciate your post 0 -
Silver_Queen wrote: »GC, just wanted to say you're doing really well. Sorry about the kids thing
my OH and I probably won't be able to afford kids for another 8-10 years and he's 30 so I would like to think that I kind of understand. :smileyhea
Thank you Silver Queen It does get me down but on the plus side, a lot of my relatives on my mum's side had their first children when they were in their 40s so I find that quite encouraging 0 -
That is not a winge! Thats got to be the standard thing that all of us in debtors have thought many times. If only I hadnt done it in the first place! You are just 100% normal. Sometimes its easier than others to use that feeling to channel all your efforts into debt slaying, and other times you just want to cry and have a good 'why me' at no one in particular.
Thanks Bob! It has done me the world of good to get everything off my chest. It seems so much scarier when I keep it bottled up and try to act like it doesn't bother me. I'm glad I'm not the only one 0 -
Cumbria_lass wrote: »GC how about I add another angle, I am old enough to be your mum . I had a very good life moneywise in my 20s and 30s , husband well paid only worked part time , never had to worry about what I was buying etc. Fast forward 20 years , in debt not loads but enough to now not be able to retire at 55 as I had always planned .
My moral is , if you learn how to budget now in your younger years , then when you do go on maternity leave , work parttime it will be second nature to you.
As has been said every journey is different and everyone has different ways of dealing with it. I think if the amount is going down and you are learning from the experience then it will set you up for life when you are debt free.
Take it from an oldie who should know better lol .
Thank you Cumbria Lass, I really appreciate your post I am quite hard on myself sometimes, I think - when I get into a cycle of feeling angry and depressed about the debt I end up thinking horrible things about myself and my stupidity for getting to this place. BUT as you say, I'm also really trying to learn how to deal with my finances. I've already done some things this year that I had never done before (like actually knowing what interest rate I'm paying on my debts! but also, having a budget! looking back over my statements instead of feeling slightly sick and putting them straight in the shredder! putting off purchases for a couple of months instead of slapping it on my credit card ... I probably don't have space to write everything I've learned ).
It would have been great to know all this when I was 18, but I know it now 0 -
Not much to report on the debt-busting front today. I'm in the maintenance stage of the month where there are no exciting extra payments to make.
I'll do another sweep of my wardrobe with an eye on further ebay listings but I think that if there is anything left it will be winter stuff, so I might wait until September and catch my potential buyers in a 'back to school' spend-happy mode.
I went to yoga yesterday which was absolutely brilliant. This course is amazing, the teacher breaks down the poses into the basics and I've realised how much I've been doing wrong in the classes I faffed around in before.
I had some unused classes at a posh yoga studio near my work which expired months ago (typical "old GC" behaviour there, sign up for 10 classes, go to 1 and let the rest expire) but I called them and asked if there was anything that could be done to extend them, it must have been my lucky day because the studio manager said she'd give me until the beginning of September to use them as a goodwill gesture 0
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