Just found this site!

mgta24

Hi all,

I found this site this morning and would like to tell you a little bit of my story. Back in June I got married and it cost us a lot of money and half of it was saved but the rest had to go on a loan. I didn't think that would be a problem until I came back from honeymoon to find out most of my direct debits had not been paid and to make matters worst I had been charge £30 for each one by the bank and also was charge around £20 from each of the companies that I owed money to. One of them was only a £23 payment and I had to pay £50 in charges!!!!!!!

Anyway this morning I have finally got myself back on track by paying all the late payments and am up to date, it has been hard going as we have a baby due in November and have had to buy things for that as well. I still have all the debt to pay off but I feel the hardest part is out of the way.

The amount that I owed in back payments was about £1500, I had to change my outlook as I always used to go out every weekend and always buy lunch. Now I'll stay in with my wife on a friday and saturday and make my lunch saving a small fortune. I also do some extra work which I'm going to continue to do so I can pay the debt off sooner. I have found some great ideas on this site, a couple which I had already done was to use a different bank account for direct debits where I don't even have a cash card and record everything that I spend on a daily basis.

I've worked out that if I continue to pay what I am without the extra work then I would be debt free in 2011, a long way off. But I'm going to carry on doing the extra work and put all that money towards my debt which means I looking to be debt in Dec 2008.

Just wish I had found this site a little while ago

ms_london

Hello. Welcome to MSE..

The most helpful thing for you to do (for yourself and also so that we can give you as much advice as we can) is to post a Statement of Affairs (SOA), this will include your Incomings, Outgoings & then the debt you have (who with, the balance, minimum monthly repayment & APR %).. You might be able to slash your current outgoings without having to do anything and without realising it.

What was the reason that your DD's didnt come out whilst on Honeymoon? Would it be too late to call the bank and ask them to retract the charges and explain that it was a one off and wont happen again? Its definately worth a try!

You have a baby due in November (congratulations!!). Will your wife be returning to work after maternity leave (presuming she was working before)? This is also something that you need to think about, can you live off your wage if your wife decides to be a SAHM (stay at home mum).

Well done on changing your spending habits. This board has so many Money Saving Ways - check out the OldStyle board for ways on how to cut your shopping budget, also the online/offline discount section for discount codes on shopping, also freebies and a lot of other cool moneysaving things.

Good luck & let us know how you get on.

Ms_London

Robert_Sterling_3

mgta24 wrote:

Hi all,
Back in June I got married and it cost us a lot of money and half of it was saved but the rest had to go on a loan.

With hindsight would you encourage other people to spend more than they can reasonably afford on their wedding or would you recommend to them that they only spend what they can reasonably afford.

mgta24

With hindsight I would of gone for a smaller wedding, but I don't think my wife would have. Its a tricky situation, both me and her parents thought we should wait another year so we could save almost all of it but she really wanted to get married this year.

As for my wife going back to work, she is quite lucky as she works for her dad's company and will be working from home in the evenings after I get home from work. So altho she will be a SAHM, she will still be getting a wage.

As for my debts, there really isn't anything I can do. I've been over then with one of my best mates who deals with this sort of thing and we have rearranged a couple of the debts with the banks that we owed money to. The thing is I was paying them all fine untill I went away, spoke to the bank when I got back but they refused to help. Wouldn't even give me advice on what I could do.

I just really wanted to let people know that if you really want to change your habits then you can. Both me and my wife thought we had to go out to have a good time, but we have more fun now staying in. We have family and friends over, talking and playing board games till early hours.

ceegee

Please be careful.........babies can cost a fortune if you buy everything that is available. They don't even need most of it! All they need is food, somewhere comfy and safe to sleep, some changes of clothes, nappies, basic baby toiletries and lots and lots of love! Congratulations, BTW.!

I only mention this because your wife wanted a big wedding and I was a little concerned that she might also want everything and anything that is available for the baby when it comes.No offence intended and I wish you both every happiness with your bundle of joy! :cool:

mgta24

I was also thinking she would want everything, but she has really got into finding ways of saving money on baby things. She signed up with boots for a parenting club or something, costs nothing and she gets vouchers for lots of different things. Some are for the baby and others are for yourself. We used 3 vouchers the other day and the cost came down from £57 to £19!!!!!!!!!

We have been lucky as both our parents have put money towards the nursery furniture so we don't need to pay for any of that. Mainly as it will be their 1st grandchild for both of them.

ceegee

Be sure to look on the Marriage, Relationships & Families MoneySaving forum for lots of help regarding babies and families!