Wishful thinking?

tinypawz

Hi....after reading a few of the diaries, I thoughtI would give this a shot...

I had some debt which I was well on my way to paying off until my then boyfriend convinced me to go on an African holiday(2006) to meet his family. Flights, hotels, car rental, new clothes etc were all put on to my newly cleared credit cards.

We married in Africa and he ended up staying out there for a few more months as his father was ill. I had to travel home on my own and set up house for us and our baby who was due only a few months later.....a loan of 5k to cover furniture, homewares, baby stuff (they are expensive wee people!) in my name.

When he returned to UK, he had lost his job as he had taken the extra time with his family. We only had my income and credit cards and loans for about 6 months, during which our baby girl was born.

He left when see was 4 months old!:mad: (Feb 2007) Leaving me with about 20k:eek: debt all in my name. (nice, eh?)

Since then I have managed to pay off about 2.5k:T . Thankfully recently I was able to consolidate everything into 2 payments.

SOA

My income : 1242
Benefits : 72
Tax Credits: 197

Total : 1511

Outgoings
Rent : 525
Oil : 50
Electric: 50
Tv licence: 11
Sky 26
Landline 25
Mobile 40
Childcare 120
Travel 90

Total 937

Loan 1 £15k @ 4% - 276mnthly
Loan 2 £3@7% - 70monthly

Leaves - 236approx for food, entertainment, clothes for the ever growing toddler( I swear she waits until I buy new stuff, then she has a growth spurt), xmas, birthdays and my 2 cats ( I have got them on a list to be rehoused....just can;t aford the £60pm to keep them)

I hope, wish that I am debt free by 2012.

Ally16

U'll do it!!! Im just new to all this but the challenges r good....they get u motivated!!! payment a day is fab! i have been doing it for 2 days and i get so excited about it lol!

good luck with ur debt....it wll disappear eventually! x

Cleosmum

Crikey, how do 2 cats cost £60pm?!

tinypawz

cat litter - large bag £4.54 x2
cat food - big bag £2.10 x2

=13.28 pw x52 weeks = 690.56 divide 12 = 57.54pm

tealady

Hi and welcome.
Try looking on line for cat litter and food, loads of places deliver as well. Is your ex paying anything towards your little one?
Have you anything she has grown out of or doesn't nee that you can ebay or car boot?
I would seriously consider getting rid of SKY andget a freeview box

hypno06

Cat litter - we use tesco value stuff - it is 88p for a big bag but is exactly the same as their expensive stuff! Give a bag a try! That alone would free up a good amount of money!

And yes, join in a challenge or two on the boards - "Make £10 a day" is one of the faves - loads of ideas for making extra money fitting in round "life" in general. Just think - if you make £10 a day, that is £300 a month which makes your SOA a whole lot more comfortable.

There are ebay challenges, NSD (no spend day) challenges, etc etc! Head over to the freebies board and pick up free cosmetics, baby stuff, magazines, all sorts.......do the competitions on the comps board and see if you can win stuff that you can either use, sell on ebay or give away as birthday, christmas presents etc.

Can you over pay either of your loans - if so, bung them in the snowball calculator at www.whatsthecost.com and see what difference paying a little extra off would make in bringing that DFD forward.

tallyhoh

Try freecycle for childs clothes. You can get them hardly worn as children grow so fast.

kymbogs

tinypawz wrote: »

cat litter - large bag £4.54 x2
cat food - big bag £2.10 x2

=13.28 pw x52 weeks = 690.56 divide 12 = 57.54pm

Hi there

I have 2 cats too, it must be heartbreaking to think you'll have to rehome them.

As previous poster has said I would also recommend the Tesco Value litter. We never used it till this month and it really is good stuff and I haven't noticed any nasty smells and the cats don't seem to mind either lol.

I picked up a bargain for catfood in Wilkinsons yesterday - it's a complete dry cat food like Purina, think it's called Ultima but I'll check when I go downstairs. It was £1.08 per bag and each bag has 20 servings in, so 5 days of food for 2 cats.

So 2 x large bags Value litter £0.88 x 2 = £1.76
2 x bags of Ultima (which will leave you some spare too) £1.08 x 2 = £2.16

£3.92 per week x 52 = £203.84 / 12 = £16.98 per month

lynzpower

also Iams seems to be in poundland A LOT at the moment.

tigerfeet2006

Also keep a spending diary for a while. I still keep one and it is a great motivator not to spend. Basically get a small notebook and everytime you buy something note it down under the day, even the odd bar of chocolate, it's amazing how they add up. I have become very proud of the days where there is nothing spent. But also you will be able to see spending patterns and will be able to alter and adjust them.

The Freecycle address is https://www.freecycle.org click on Browse groups and join your local one. We have a lot of childrens stuff come up on ours.

lynzpower

can you sell your kids clothes in bundles on ebay or at a carboot sale after they have grown out of them?