what gave you your lightbulb moment

vintagegirl
vintagegirl Posts: 769
First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Post
Forumite
edited 18 December 2015 at 11:30AM in Debt-free wannabe
just wondered, whats happened to make you think, enough is enough, i need to get out of this situation.

mine was when i had arrears on scottish power and didnt know what to do. i came home one day and they had yellow tape over the door as they had forced their way in while i was work and i came home with my son to find they had changed my locks.
spent 3 hours wandering round asda in tears as it was pouring, bought my son a 79p sandwich while we sat there waiting for them to come back down to give us the new keys

absolutely horrific, i swear i will never be in that stupid situation again.



[purplesignup][/purplesignup]
«134567

Comments

  • BigCraigJohn
    BigCraigJohn Posts: 1,082
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker First Post
    Forumite
    edited 8 October 2010 at 11:54PM
    It was being 29 living with my mum and dad due to not being able to afford to move out, running my own business and making a good profit, getting to a point where I sold my treasured vinyl collection and was having to sell business stock at less than cost so I could afford to pay creditors. I was paying £700+ a month towards debts with no move in balance. I realised something had to be done.

    For the record this was Jan of this year and ive just moved into my own rented flat. Nice of my creditors on 50% of my debts to have an unenforceable agreement and another 30% of them to have no agreement whatsoever and the rest i'm dealing with.
    Best thing I ever did was stumbling across Nids thread on here, life is great and i'm looking forward.
    Some dont agree with unenforceability but thats there choice, ive got no issues.

    :)
  • newmum1
    newmum1 Posts: 1,341
    Combo Breaker First Post First Anniversary
    Forumite
    Hi guys for me it was simply a case of i had a overdraft of about £2000 from my student days i had taken out a graduate loan to pay it off along with other smaller debts and then just ran up debt again it really was like a viscious circle i did this about 2 or 3 times and eventually i knew i had to do something.And that was when martin came into my life..:) and I found this site and since 2005 ive cleared a loan and 2 store cards I still have a way to go but i'm on the right path now and hopefully all been well within a year I should be debt free. And the one promise I have made myself is when my debt free day comes i will never ever get into debt again as ive now learnt that if i aint got the hard cash then i cant have it as I cant afford it. As you can see from my sig my largest loan was over £11500 and I have no idea what it was spent on cos I sure dont have anything to show for it.
  • isy1011
    isy1011 Posts: 513 Forumite
    I was meeting my friends. We were going to meet at someones house and have a drink and few snacks.

    I coudnt afford the bottle of wine to take round!

    My bank OD was maxed out. I didnt know what my cc balances were because I had stopped opening the letters!

    I felt ashamed.:(
    Egg April 10 £6600 Jan £4678 now £0
    Santander Jan £3414 April £3338
    Virgin April£2643 Aug £3155 April £7109
    Barclaycard Oct £1476 April £1287
    So far paid off 17% of c.c. debt:T
  • Not sure really about my LB moment as it happened several years ago and although I was trying to pay it off, I wasn't being serious about it as I was still running up the balance on my ccs. My grandmother died beginning of last year & the £5000 I received I paid off the majority of my debt in March 2009, but again still continued to spend on my ccs, racked up 2 ods. Then on Dec 17th 09 I wrote my car off and needed another one FQ as I work 20 miles away and both my house & my work are far too far from the train station to use public transport, so in haste I brought a car (much to my regret now!) and put an additional £2100 on my cc on 23rd Dec. New year's day myself, oh, a friend & her oh were sitting in my lounge making our New Year's resolutions & I realised I was as much in debt as I was in March 09 (£6500, and my oh £4500) - depressing my inheritance was for nothing! Right them & there I made the decision to sort it out once & for all this year. Yesterday my oh paid his last debt payment :j and I'm 1 payday away from freedom :T
    DF as at 30/12/16
    Womblng 2020:
    NSD Jan 2/18 YTD: 2
  • La_escocesa
    La_escocesa Posts: 3,096
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post
    Forumite
    Last year (Sept 09) I thought I had about £2k on a credit card and my car insurance was due. At first I thought to put it on the credit card and pay it off later (as with everything else). Then I realised that the £2k credit card was actually my 'household spending' credit card, which I'd used to buy all my household appliances etc and was paying off only min payments cos it was 0% so surely that was ok :o , and that I had another 'spending' credit card, which I paid off in full every month, and another credit card with a balance transfer paying off at £200pm so thought I was doing well!! Then I added it all up, added on my £1k overdraft and realised that my £2k credit card was actually a big fat debt of over £5k.

    Getting rid of my car after that was really the first big thing I did and the start of it all. Phew! Just as well it didn't take me any longer to realise!
  • d3mon4ngel
    d3mon4ngel Posts: 366 Forumite
    edited 9 October 2010 at 8:27AM
    I'm not in a lot of debt compared to some on here, and I wasn't doing bad until Feb this year when I was made redundant. I was out of work for 2 months, on only JSA and no help with paying my mortgage as I'm not over 60 and don't have a kid :angry:

    I started my new job at the end of April, but still had to wait until the end of May to be paid. I had to have a credit check done as part of my induction, and was shocked to find that I had a CCJ from 2007 that I knew nothing about! This, along with hitting my OD limit that month, was my Light Bulb Moment. I decided I needed to get a handle on my finances and once I am out of my OD this time, I'm never planning on visiting there again :D

    PS: Since May, I've done some complaining, and the CCJ is currently in the process of being set aside as an error :cool:
    ::: Total Paid Since LBM (27/05/10): £4639.85 Official Debt Gone!! :T :::
    :A
    That money talks, I don't deny, I heard it once, it said "Goodbye"
    ~ VSP2011: #104 ~
  • Mine is like a few of you have said above - I had a sort of LB moment a couple of years ago, but lost my way a bit! Debt started from when I was a student and continued to snowball. This year was a huge year - 3 weddings of close friends and 2 hen weekends in April - both away from where I live. And boy, do hen weekends cost a bomb!! Then there are the outfits and presents to consider. Of course, to be a "good friend", you "have to" go to their hen weekend and do everything else that goes along with wedding preparations. I couldn't afford bills or council tax and for the past few months, couldn't afford to do anything at all with my friends like go to the pub for a few birthday drinks with one! Getting halfway through the month and having no money for bus fares or food, then having to ask family to bail me out - that made me feel pretty low too. There were several weeks of it all getting me really down. I knew I couldn't go on like that, felt really rubbish about it all. I always had decent places to rent and decided this was an area I could sort out. Moved into a TINY room and cut some rent and council tax. But I now realise how much stress being in debt causes you and how down it makes you feel and I don't want that anymore. This time I'm going to do it!
  • niccatw
    niccatw Posts: 3,096
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    I've had a few!

    The first was just after I bought my house and I realised that, despite having thought I'd done my sums, it only takes a few things going up in price for things to become scarily tight.

    The second was not having enough money to put diesel in the car even though I work in the community and need to the car for work.

    The third was a date error in money going into the bank that set me into a charges loop.

    The fourth was being off work with depression for 6 months. And realising that the stress of the money side of things was definitely (though ne on it's own) impcating on my life.

    I expect I'll have periods of falling of the wagon in the future, but now I know to pick myself up and jump back to it. And I know there's lots of people here to support me through those periods too! :)
    Jan10: 28,315.81 Jan11: 18,015.32 Jan12: 7,682.58 Jan13: 2,987.73 Current debt: 1,225.55
    HFC [STRIKE]1896.10. [/STRIKE] 225.55 SLC2 [STRIKE]5123.34[/STRIKE] 0 Others [STRIKE]2085[/STRIKE] 1000 Bcard [STRIKE]1172.60[/STRIKE] 0

    Mike's Mob
  • Just after our wedding (May this year) I realised that I was spending more on my debts than I would probably spend on junk if the money was sitting in my account. Then my work moved and I had to walk past the estate agent's every day. I thought that it would be nice if instead of forking out about £350 a month to cc's, wouldn't it be nice to save for a house!!
    LBM 11/06/2010: DFD 30/04/2013
    Total repaid: £10,490.31
    Student loan repaid: 01/07/2019
    SAVINGS: £20,000
    Car final lump sum: £6113/£6113
  • My light bulb moment was January this year when I asked my parents for £9,000 to consolidate my debt or take a loan from the bank.
    I felt horrible asking... but we sat down worked out what I had spent it on etc and the fact i had nothing to show for it and that it was time for change.
    Although my parents were happy for me just to pay them bit by bit and not make any changes to my lifestyle I sold my nice car and paid off £4000 i have an amazing girlfriend who drives and ive also noticed the difference in my own fitness as I walk nearly everywhere else i need to go. I work as a tempory worker in the city and paid by the hour so any extra hours available I took them.
    I have currently saved another £2,700 which is in an ISA so only £1,300 to go and my plan is that I will be utterly debt free by Christmas :D
This discussion has been closed.
Meet your Ambassadors

Categories

  • All Categories
  • 342.2K Banking & Borrowing
  • 249.8K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
  • 449.3K Spending & Discounts
  • 234.4K Work, Benefits & Business
  • 606.7K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
  • 172.7K Life & Family
  • 247.2K Travel & Transport
  • 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
  • 15.8K Discuss & Feedback
  • 15.1K Coronavirus Support Boards