Hypno's recession busting debt diary.....

hypno06

So.....here it is....the 4th Chapter in the long and winding road to becoming debt free.

It seems the right time to start this new diary - OH starts a new job next week so I have had to re-do the dreaded new SOA. Today he received his final pay from his old job, and due to holiday pay being given to him, we had enough to start the next month on an even keel, with just (and I mean just) enough in the bank to pay everything we are expecting for August.

For those that don't know - we attribute the majority of our debt to the fact that our house fell down, and needed rebuilding several years ago. Because we had no equity in the house at the time, having only moved in a few weeks earlier, we could not increase the mortgage to pay for the building work, so had to borrow the money on loans and credit cards.....in turn this then meant that we had no money after making the minimum payments on the cards etc to actually "live" so started on the "robbing Peter to pay Paul" spiral, eventually ending up with over £100,000 of unsecured debt, on top of the mortgage.

This debt is now at about £53,000.....not all of it paid off the "normal" way because sadly I lost my Dad 3 years ago. I inherited a small amount that was paid towards the debt.

It has been my dream ever since I was a small girl, to live in a particular part of town.........I have always maintained I will be there by the time I am 40. The truth is that I am now 37 so although I am determined to be debt free by 40, I know that I won't have saved up enough to put down the deposit needed for that part of town.....so maybe 42 is a more realistic time scale.....I can cope with that.....:D This is my driving force really behind getting debt free. There is nothing "wrong" with the house we are in.....but it is an "it'll do for now" house in my eyes........:o

I am going to put up an SOA.....just so you can all see that I am not fibbing when I say things are tight!!!

I have come a long way since discovering this site in December 2006 and would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped me along the way.......the support has been amazing and for anyone "new" to the site - don't under-estimate the difference it makes!

So, welcome to the next chapter.....all help gratefully received. Constructive criticism welcome......Jaffa Cakes and coffee especially welcome:D

InkyCats20

Oooo happy new diary Hypno :j

bountiful

Great idea to start a new diary - I've spent the afternoon looking at recession articles on the internet and thoroughly depressed myself. My son hasn't paid me the rent this month - so I've just been paid and am already into my overdraft! Will follow your new diary with interest - all the best.

taxi73

Great new diary Hypno...and brave of you to post the SOA...xxx

spud30

Happy new diary Hyp :beer:

The_Dragon

Oooh nice fresh new diary for the Hypno household!

Happy debt busting Hypno!

OliveOyl_2

Oooh shiney new diary
Hope you're bringing the usual motley crew, and chocolate along too?

doodledo_2

Happy new diary Hypno I will of course me subscribing and [STRIKE]stalking[/STRIKE] supporting you on your debt free journey :T

mizmir

Yeah - a new diary! Looking forward to the usual high quality debate and analysis.... :D

Surfbabe

HI Hypno - shiny new web diary and proper one - looking forward to the usual banter - can;t offer jaffa cakes and coffee but would dark chocolate and green tea do ???????????????????

hypno06

SOA........

My wages £1933.27
OH wages £1185.77
£3119.04

Gas and Electric 106.00
Life Assurance 36.29
TV licence 11.29
Water bill 17.00
Overdraft protection 3.20
Bank account fee 14.50
Landline 21.00
Car costs - MOT, tax, ins 50.00
Mortgage 742.02 (int only fixed for another 5 years)
Broadband 9.99
buildings & contents ins 42.54
my mobile 15.00
OH mobile 15.00
Council Tax 173.00
Debt repayments 1490.43

2747.53

Leaving £371.51 to cover.....food, petrol, bus tickets, skiing, holidays (what's that!) entertainment, birthdays, xmas, emergencies, blah blah blah.

The bank account fee is purely because we need breakdown cover in Europe and this covers everything we need at a lower cost than RAC or similar.

We do get child benefit but that goes in a separate account to go towards the kids skiing and karate.....

We don't qualify for tax credits.

So, on our basic wage it is very tight - if we get a bank charge of £30 it throws us right out because there is not the money in the kitty to clear it and it then spirals into charges of over £100 a month. For those that remember that far back, we have a court case in for over £4000 of charges, but of course it is on hold.....

So, we do whatever "extra" we can - OH works in a second job, we ebay, we rent our spare room out to a student and have done for 4 years now, I do as many of the challenges and schemes to make money on MSE as I can.....and that is how we get by and make the overpayments we do!!

But of course when we have months where there are no "extras".....for example in August OH has only 6 hours in his second job, and we have no student income at all.....things are incredibly tight.

I work in an industry where people assume I get a whopper of a salary......but the sad truth is that I don't drive a Porsche, I don't have a second home in the Dordogne, and my children don't go to public school. I don't earn a six figure salary and the biggest bonus I had in the past was £5000.....hardly enough to be life changing!

Over to you guys for "high quality debate and analysis" :rolleyes: