Compulsive borrower to compulsive saver?

Hillwalker17 · 6 March 2017 at 7:38PM

Hello MSE

I've been a visitor to this website for many years, but I've never signed up or posted. I'm hoping to turn my financial mess of a life around and I'm hoping this diary will help

I'm in my mid 20's, live with my partner is her house (she bought it because I had no money

) and I work in a decent job for about £2k a month.

My financial situation is a bit of a mess due to having past gambling issues (still not over) and spending stupid money on expensive cars/s. I've had numerous loans and credit cards over the years and have struggled financially the past 2 years paying everything off.

I have 3 loans and a credit card. I was on track to have they paid off by the end of the year, but circumstances have slightly changed and I just can't do it. I have applied for a £10k loan over 2 years so give myself some breathing space.

This £10k loan will pay off the 3 other loans and the credit card. I think the totals are about

Loan 1 - £3.6k
Loan 2 - £3.4k
Loan 3 - £1.2k
Credit Card £1.4k

I've signed the documentation for the loan and hopefully the money should be in my account later this week.

My aims this week are to

1) Find out the exact balances of each loan and see how much of the £10k I will have left
2) Pay off the old loans and credit card with the new loan money
3) Build up an emergency £500 fund (cash so I can't gamble it away).
4) Sort out my online gambling issue (I've relapsed recently

).

I've done ok for 2 years with both the money aspect and no gambling however 2017 has seen me place a few bets and loose quite a bit of money. This was me being stupid and careless. I will sort this out by reading again (hobby) and making sure I do other things when i'm bored.

I've seen people post an statement of their income/outgoings. I will do this once this weeks tasks have been completed and it will hopefully put me back in the green with my monthly accounts

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, I have no savings either

All the best

HW17

Naomim · 6 March 2017 at 8:22PM

Hi,

Posting up an SOA is a great place to start and lots of people will be able to help I'm sure.

Naomi

SkintTeacher · 6 March 2017 at 8:25PM

Hiya,
just popping by to wish you luck... and suggest that you can't fix the gambling problem without some kind of outside help. Your partner sounds supportive - I assume she knows the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Hillwalker17 · 8 March 2017 at 1:12PM

Hi Niomim and SkinTeacher and thanks for posting

I'll first write about the good news, the £10K loan was approved by Santander at a rate of just under 7% and upon checking my bank this morning, it is already sitting there

Also, no more gambling thoughts and I closed down the online account I had been using. No more stupid money going to these rich online companies

My partner knows about the previous habits and my exact financial situation, however I haven't broken the news about my recent relapse and the loan. She is going through a few issues at her work the moment so it needs to wait a while. I don't want to put too much on her and this is obviously a huge weight.

First thing I did this morning was I logged into my credit card account and paid £1K off the balance. The balance hasn't update in a few days and as I used the card a few days before creating this thread, there are a few transactions yet to appear :sad:. I'm hoping it's only going to be another £200/£300 for it to be completely paid off.

I'm waiting until Monday to phone the 3 loan providers and pay off the loans as all my monthly payments for them have been in the last few days and one tomorrow. I'm hoping if I wait till Monday all the balances will be 100% accurate and I can just pay them off all in the same day.

I can't wait to do my incoming / outgoings as I know I should have a good bit left each month now. I will definitely do these once the loans are sorted. I actually only have about 3 direct debits anyway so it will be pretty short :rotfl:

Ohhhhh I nearly forgot, I got a new book from a charity shop yesterday for £1!!!. Its absolutely fantastic. Anyone else heard of Mark Billingham and the DI Tom Thorne series :dance:

I've been on here a lot recently, trying to get into the MSE mode. Anyone got any tips to joining any challenges?

Thanks for reading

H17

VelvetFreak · 9 March 2017 at 11:21AM

Hello! Found you!

Best of luck. Sounds like you're on track so far.

My number one tip would be - look up Dave Ramsey. I will admit that I am not his biggest fan, as he is kind of obnoxious and a bit too traditional/religious for my taste, but his method is what finally set me on the right path. I have always been "good" with money, to a degree. I work in financial services and have always had a keen interest in this sort of stuff, but it was Dave Ramsey that actually made me wake up to myself once and for all.

Obviously you need to do a budget and all of that jazz. A tip I will give for cutting costs is to look at the big things but also look at the small things. If you can save a huge chunk on your phone bill every month, then that is great, but also look at doing little things like switching to a cheaper brands of household products, etc.

Minimise and Declutter! It is so motivating as you get to really see all the utter crap that you've spent money on over the years. This will discourage buying more crap.

I'm not from your neck of the woods so I won't be able to help much with this part, but you should definitely post your SOA so you can get some help with where you might be able to cut back.

Link to SOA calculator http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/soa.php

Hillwalker17 · 9 March 2017 at 6:54PM

Hi VelvetFreak and thanks for the post. You have reminded me about my phone contract, it ends later this year and I need to look at a sim only contract, so i'm not paying silly money for the latest phone :cool:

Today has been a good day. Me and the girlfriend went away on a wee day trip which was good fun. On the way home I withdrew £300 from the bank and used £32 of it to fuel up the car so that's it full for another while. I'm keeping £3 for my spends this weekend (wee treat) and put the remaining £265 into my emergency pot. I already had £175 in there before hand so now there is £440 sitting in it. I'm looking to get this up to £600/£700 ASAP after the loans are paid off. I've joined the emergency pot challenge on here with the long term target of saving 3 months wages (around £6k). This is something that will take years but there is no harm in starting now I suppose

I sold a few things on Ebay last months so I had to pay around £8 in fees so that was something else to come out of the account.

I'm still waiting for the paperwork for the loan to come through for me to know what date the new loan comes out. The new loan is roughly £450 a month.

My other direct debits are

Mobile Phone Bill - £50
Car Tax - £25
Car - £25

My phone contract doesn't end until the end of the year so I can't reduce it at the moment. It's something that I will look into in the later part of the year. As for the car tax/ , my renewals are in the Summer so I will see about paying these off straight away rather than in installments

I contribute between £750-£800 a month into the joint account between me and the Mrs. This covers everything household related and all the birthdays/trips away. This means that whatever i'm left with is mine. I do intend however to save every penny

The only spends I can think off at the moment is a weekend away with a few friends in April, should cost about £100. This is a yearly thing and not something I wouldn't cancel.

I think my wee car is on the way out, it's an old Skoda... She's been great for 4 years but it's not time to think that it won't last forever. Hopefully it flies through the MOT in July and doesn't cost me much :rotfl:

Anyway enough of me, how is everyone else?

HW17

[Deleted User] · 10 March 2017 at 10:03AM

Hi, VelvetFreak:wave:. Your mention of Dave Ramsey reminded me of another challenge that Hillwalker might be interested in.

Someone set up a £1000 Emergency Fund Challenge at the end of 2014 after listening to Dave Ramsey. He now has 225 members (after fearing initially that he'd only get a handful:rotfl:). It's a nice, supportive group and something you might like to have a look at, Hillwalker. Looks as if you are already well on your way with your current Emergency savings anyway:T. £1000 is a lot easier to aim for than the 3 month one, although I do both now my £1000 pot is full and ready and waiting for the next emergency to hit:eek:

Link here:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5076051

Tonkaaaa · 10 March 2017 at 10:38AM

Looks as though you have everything going in the right direction! I've been through the wringer with gambling and have come out the other side. I found the biggest problem was I didn't see the money because it was all online! Once I overcame that it suddenly hit me that I was being an absolute berk not just to me because that doesn't matter but to my family, that's when it really hit home.

Anyway, good luck with your endeavours, we have a similar amount to pay off hopefully we can stay motivated!

Hillwalker17 · 15 March 2017 at 2:44PM

0Well it's only been about 9 days since I started this journey and I couldn't keep it together for that long. DISASTER. I've been careless on the gambling front again. I sat on the laptop the other night, logged in to MSE and wanted to do my update which I was happy about, but instead I gambled.....ALOT....

I don't really know why, I don't know if it's the buzz or the money aspect, but for some reason I do it. The 10K loan wasn't fully blown thankfully, but lets just say the majority of it was

This was my financial situation before I got the 10k and see updates now

Loan 1 - £3.6k (Paid off £2.6k - balance now 1k)
Loan 2 - £3.4k
Loan 3 - £1.2k - (FULLY PAID OFF)
Credit Card £1.4k

Loans 2 and the credit card haven't been touched..Ahhh how could I have been so careless...:mad:

And the news gets better..In the panic that I thought I couldn't pay the next 2 months loan payments, now totallying around £1400 until the 1k is paid off (2 months), I applied for more loans.

£6k over 2 years at £270 a month
£15.5k over 4 years at £490 a month

I know everyone is thinking WHY and what a careless idiot. Trust me I think the same. The larger loan hasn't been accepted yet and as it was going to take 2 days to review due to the amount, I applied for the smaller one straight away and it was accepted. I'm waiting for the money to be transferred to my account. If I get the larger one as well, I will pay off everything else and just have that one for 4 years.

Now, there is nothing I can do about it and the only way for me to move on is to stop gambling. I've said this time and time again though. For years and i'm still bloody doing it. It has affected my heath, sleeping and stress over the last few days and i'm sure some people with be wondering why i'm so tired.

Plan, well there is no point having one because I never stick to it. What I have done is uninstalled all banking apps on my mobile and I plan on cutting up my debit cards/credit card. If I need cash out the bank i'll need to pop into the local branch with some paperwork and ID.

On the only positive note, I have £900 in my emergency fund still in cash squirreled away. Why hasn't this been spent.. because I only do online gambling so if it's in cash I can't use it.

This has been a hard update to post as I know the majority of you reading this will judge and think i'm reckless, which I know I am. I physically can't gamble without a debit or credit card so maybe this is the first of many steps? Maybe if I do a step a day it will keep me on track.

Step 1 into my recovery - Get rid off my 2 debit cards and the credit card so I can't use them... needs to be done asap so I don't do anything stupid.

There is so much I want to write and say, but I feel it's probably pointless and I'll keep it for tomorrow. I'm planning on doing daily updates as I think it will help me concentrate.

Until tomorrow, please don't be as stupid as me.

HW17

Hillwalker17 · 17 March 2017 at 12:00AM

Day 1 of recovery….

I plucked up the courage to phone Zopa and I cancelled the application for the larger £15.5k loan. I didn’t need this as the smaller £6k was on its way. I suppose this was a sensible decision as I don’t want to be paying loans at all after the next 2 years.

The £6k (other loan) arrived in the bank. I overpaid Loan 1 by another £500, bringing its balance down to £500 or thereabouts.

I tried to pay off loan 2 via internet banking, but I wasn’t sure if I put in the correct details for the sort code and account number, so instead of paying off the full amount and later realising it was the wrong details, I paid £500 towards it. I will check the balance of the loan on Monday and if it’s decreased by around £500, I know I’ve done it right and can pay the rest off :cool:

The credit card has been cut up and paid off in full – all £1236.00!!!

I think I’ll get charged a little interest on it so I will wait until the next statement before closing it. I cant use it at all unless I order another card which I WONT be doing.

With paying £1k (£500 x 2) and the credit card off, I have about £3.8k left in my account.

Financial status at the moment:

Loan 1 - £3.6k (Paid off £2.6k - balance now 1k) (Balance now £500)
Loan 2 - £3.4k (Paid off £500, Balance around £2.8k).
[STRIKE]Loan 3 - £1.2k - (FULLY PAID OFF)
Credit Card £1.4k (FULLY PAID OFF)[/STRIKE]

Not forgetting my two new best friends who I will be sharing the next 24 months with..:mad:

Santander Loan - £10k – 24 months left at £450 a month
Hitachi Loan £6k – 24 months left at £285 a month

Feeling more positive today although a little sad. It’s all suddenly dawned on me that I’m going to be financially strapped for the next 24 months, instead of the 12 months which I had only last week.

My aim yesterday was

"Step 1 into my recovery - Get rid off my 2 debit cards and the credit card so I can't use them... needs to be done asap so I don't do anything stupid".

The credit card has been cut up but I can’t cut up the debit cards until everything is paid off. Hopefully this should be done soon. Some progress is good though?

Moving onto the gambling front - I resent it at the moment as I know my addiction has caused this mess. I'm trying to concentrate on all the nice things I could have purchased with the money I wasted and it makes me sick. Maybe I need this sick feeling, I don't know.

I think keeping busy is the key and I am working the weekend so that should help.

Day 1 complete. Aim's for tomorrow is to withdraw £250 in cash from the bank and add this to my emergency fund. I also wan't to read a few chapters of my book as this will get me less stressed

Onwards and upwards they say

HW17

moneyfacts · 17 March 2017 at 7:45AM

Please get professional help with your gambling.

Getting loans to clear other loans and credit cards isn't "paying off anything" you're just increasing your debts. If you have loan money in your account, at least use it all to pay your highest interest debt.

Good luck with the journey.

Compulsive borrower to compulsive saver?

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