Small Steps Out Of Massive Debt!
Comments
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GeorgianaCavendish wrote: »I've checked all my balances and interest rates, total debt (excluding Student Loan) is £ 35,923.17
HSBC Personal Loan - £13,634.53 (interest rate is 8.9%)
Credit Card Balances
HSBC £2411.95 @ 21.9%
MBNA £7927.97
Breakdown as follows
£3,717.36 @ 23.9%
£4,210.61 @ 27.9%
Barclaycard £10,192.01
Breakdown as follows :
£1,106.04 @ 27.6%
£9,085.97 @ 18.6%
Catalog £781.71 @ 17.9%
Furniture Finance £775 @ 0% (9 monthly repayments left)
Holiday £200 left to pay (0% interest but must be paid by 25th April 2017)
Well done on joining in and starting a diary. I have a diary but also need to check my credit cards and interest rates as like you I know some have a 0% balance and some aren't on 0% at all.
Good luck, don't forget to post the SOA. It can be daunting but we don't bite and can help you see where reductions can be made.
Naomi xCredit Cards NOV 2019 £33,220.42 Sept 2023 £19,951.00 Tilly Tidy 20223/COLOR] Sept £43.71 Here's my diary: A Ditherer's Diary Again0 -
Argh! I don't know what I am doing wrong with the SOA but every time I hit LOAD it wipes out what I input - I've done it about 6 times now. I will have to try it again when I get home, maybe it is something to do with the security settings on my PC at work? (*grasps at straws*)
However, just writing everything down on paper and actually looking at my bank accounts & credit card statements has made me realise all those places when I spend money without thinking or counting it as an expense (taxis, coffee, lunch etc). And looking at the kind of things that should be in a budget (e.g. software subscriptions, insurance etc) I have realised how much I put things like that on my credit card instead of putting aside money every month so I can pay cash for them upfront. I am going to type out my spendings in next post. *gulp*0 -
GeorgianaCavendish wrote: »
I know that I need to sort out my spending and to take a brutal look at the state of my finances and what I spend money on. I need to stop seeing credit limits as targets to reach (!!!!) and start seeing them for what they are - invitations to get into debt!
This is what I have outstanding:
£13000 on personal loan
£10500 Barclaycard
£8000 MBNA
£2500 HSBC
£870 on catalog
£800 left on furniture (this one is interest free, there are 9 repayments left)
PS. My forum name is from a Duchess in the 1700s. She was so bad with money that after she died her husband found out she was around 4 million pounds in debt. Sadly I could imagine this happening to me if I had access to that much credit
Hi GC, and welcome to the forum. Your post really hit home with me because I could have written it myself 2 years ago, down to the CC/loan totals and the card limits as targets!
The first bit is the hardest - adding up the total debt and realising, like you say, that you could buy a designer handbag every month if you so wished just using your minimum payments.
Could you look at getting 0% balance transfers for any of it? Such a massive help with paying it all off!
Congrats on your LBM, you will be ever grateful for it in a couple of years time when there is a lot less (if anything) left to repay and you can start to build the debt free life you want for yourself
:j PAID VERY, Barclaycard x3, Vanquis, Natwest, O/D, Tesco & MBNA x2 PAID :j LBM 24/07/15 - Original Debt: £0/31010.23 (100% paid) :eek:
Mortgage - £151.316.54 :eek:0 -
GeorgianaCavendish wrote: »Argh! I don't know what I am doing wrong with the SOA but every time I hit LOAD it wipes out what I input - I've done it about 6 times now. I will have to try it again when I get home, maybe it is something to do with the security settings on my PC at work? (*grasps at straws*)
However, just writing everything down on paper and actually looking at my bank accounts & credit card statements has made me realise all those places when I spend money without thinking or counting it as an expense (taxis, coffee, lunch etc). And looking at the kind of things that should be in a budget (e.g. software subscriptions, insurance etc) I have realised how much I put things like that on my credit card instead of putting aside money every month so I can pay cash for them upfront. I am going to type out my spendings in next post. *gulp*
Nooo... FORMAT to MSE - or SAVE it first that's why it's wiping it out 
Load will try to load a saved version... DFW Nerd #025DFW no more! Officially debt free 2017 - now joining the MFW's!
My DFW Diary - blah- mildly funny stuff about my journey0 -
GC's Shameful Spending (January)
Net Income £2848.95
Household Expenses (this is my half of shared bills, except groceries which I pay in full & OH pays all car related expenses)
Rent £ 575.00
Council Tax £ 44.50
Electric £ 12.50
Water £ 33.50
Internet £ 13.98
TV Licence £ 6.06
Home Insurance £ 9.27
Groceries £ 140.00 (this is my best guesstimate)
Travel Costs £180.00 (tube & bus fares only)
Mobile Phone £ 47.50 (includes £20 pm for handset, will reduce to £27.50 from April)
Taxis £38.50 (taxi back from friends house)
Coffee/Lunch £ 114.15 (disgusted at this - all the days I was "too busy" to make lunch. plus 2 lunches out with colleagues)
HSBC Loan £370.00
HSBC Card £ 70.00
Barclaycard £270.00
MBNA £250.00
Furniture £86.00
Catalog £40.00
Gym £42.00
Magazine Sub £14.66
Cinema Sub £16.90
Book Club £10.49
Spotify £ 4.99
Audible £ 7.99
Counselling £220 (I know this is a lot of money but I really need this)
One off purchases because I didn't budget for them last year (these all went on credit card)
Travel Insurance - £79 (paid annually 1st Jan 2017 by credit card)
Anti Virus Software - £90 (paid annually 1st Jan 2017 by credit card)
Gifts - £200 (3 x big birthdays in Jan, paid on credit card)0 -
Thank you MrsTinks! That explains a lot!0
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kittykatneedscash wrote: »Hi GC well done to facing up to your debts and finding out exactly what you owe and what the interest rates are. A lot of your repayments will be just going on interest and not actually reducing the balances but looks like you can do a lot to improve your situation. If you manage to transfer any of the onto 0% you have to be strick with yourself and close the old account or at least cut up your cards to you aren't tempted to spend on them. Having a diary on here really does help also read as many as you can. It's amazing what you can pick up on the forum. It might help to write yourself a list of goals. Why you want to reduce your debt so if you are tempted to continue to spend on credit you have something to look back on and remember the reasons you are doing this in the first place. Also set yourself small manageable challenges, maybe pay back a set amount to your highest credit card in the next month, take your lunch to work everyday, aim for as many no spend days as you can in a month etc. Good luck and well done on facing up to your debt
Thank you! I am going to write a list of goals this evening, I think the reality check from working out what my minimum repayments are will help with this exercise! There are lots of things that I thought were "too expensive" yet if I wasn't paying such a huge amount to service my existing debts I could easily afford them!0 -
Hi kirstypoos - thank you for the warm welcome to the forum! It is good to know that I am not the only person who has got into this sort of situation! I am going to investigate 0% transfers but I'm not holding out too much hope for this.
I know that my problem is that I need to stop including my credit limits when I'm vaguely thinking "can I really afford this?". I have a hard time saying NO I CANNOT AFFORD THIS! which is what I should be doing and what I'm going to have to face up to from now on!0 -
What an interesting lady, this Georgiana Cavendish!
Do you buy a lot of stuff online? It may help to clear all the cookies, so that the prefilled payment boxes don't show, and you have a threshold to actually pushing 'buy'.
Dave Ramsay has a lot of sensible stuff to say about debt and debt reduction, which I think will help you (just read his debt snowball plan - don't buy anything). There are plenty of others who have sensible advice, but I think Dave is a good start.
Georgiana Cavendish is a very interesting figure, I read her biography by Amanda Foreman a few years ago and it has really stuck with me. (I also recently read the first Shopaholic book by Sophie Kinsella and I was cringing during some parts because Becky's stupid reasoning sounds SO MUCH LIKE ME that it was painful to read.)
I do buy a lot of things online, I think paypal is my downfall because it is easy to lose track. I am going to wipe my cookies and I'm also going to put myself on a paypal ban!0 -
GeorgianaCavendish wrote: »GC's Shameful Spending (January)
Net Income £2848.95
Household Expenses (this is my half of shared bills, except groceries which I pay in full & OH pays all car related expenses)
Rent £ 575.00
Council Tax £ 44.50
Electric £ 12.50
Water £ 33.50
Internet £ 13.98
TV Licence £ 6.06
Home Insurance £ 9.27
Groceries £ 140.00 (this is my best guesstimate)
Travel Costs £180.00 (tube & bus fares only)
Mobile Phone £ 47.50 (includes £20 pm for handset, will reduce to £27.50 from April)
Taxis £38.50 (taxi back from friends house)
Coffee/Lunch £ 114.15 (disgusted at this - all the days I was "too busy" to make lunch. plus 2 lunches out with colleagues)
HSBC Loan £370.00
HSBC Card £ 70.00
Barclaycard £270.00
MBNA £250.00
Furniture £86.00
Catalog £40.00
Gym £42.00
Magazine Sub £14.66
Cinema Sub £16.90
Book Club £10.49
Spotify £ 4.99
Audible £ 7.99
Counselling £220 (I know this is a lot of money but I really need this)
One off purchases because I didn't budget for them last year (these all went on credit card)
Travel Insurance - £79 (paid annually 1st Jan 2017 by credit card)
Anti Virus Software - £90 (paid annually 1st Jan 2017 by credit card)
Gifts - £200 (3 x big birthdays in Jan, paid on credit card)
Well done for getting it all down on paper! (well, forum, but same thing!)
Do you actually have £231 left over though? If so, can you chuck this as an overpayment to a CC as an immediate start for you (assuming you have an Emergency Fund, if you don't, open a separate account and start an EF) :j PAID VERY, Barclaycard x3, Vanquis, Natwest, O/D, Tesco & MBNA x2 PAID :j LBM 24/07/15 - Original Debt: £0/31010.23 (100% paid) :eek:
Mortgage - £151.316.54 :eek:0
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