My diary... becoming debt free whilst still having a life!!!

savingholmes

40somethingmum wrote: »

Hi Ruby

I have just joined this forum today and have been reading some of you past postings - you are inspirational. I am massively in debt £67891 as of today and am desperate to start to get rid of this. The last few months have been very stressful with money worries and I have many sleepless nights. I have 3 little boys and feel I spend most of my time shouting at them as I am so stressed. I look forward to being a part of this community and dealing with my debt.

Keep up the good work

Hello and welcome. Well done for making your first post... Have you thought yet about starting your own thread and posting a statement of affairs (soa) using the website make sense of cards - you then reformat it for the MSE forum and post it on here. You need details of all your income, outgoings, debts including minimum payments, interest rates, assets etc. Then the motley crew on the board ie us give you some advice on where you can perhaps cut back, get a better deal, do things differently.

I did this but it probably took me at least a month after joining before I plucked up the courage to post all my details... Ruby was one of the people that gave me the most support on moving away from childcare for my oldest DS which has saved me a fortune.:T

Good luck anyway, hope you will post again in future.

rubydoiwannabee

Morning, it is a wet and grey day here today and the children are manic!!
The kettle blew up this morning, so DH has gone off to Tesco to try and get a new inexpensive one.

On the DFW side of things, money is tight. There just always seems to be something else that needs to be paid for..... I am finding it impossible to not use an overdraft at the moment although it is getting cleared regularly which is some consolation.

I have been using a piece of software called 'money matters' that a friend gave me and it is a great help. It allows me to plan ahead by entering all the known credits that are coming up and all the things I have to pay for (this is in the 'savings' account not the day to day direct debits etc.). The good thing about it is it lets me see the impact of todays spending on the future bills, e.g. we have to pay car tax again at end of Jan plus DH old banger needs to get through mot and service etc. so I need to ensure there is a lump sum available then. So if I spend a random £50 today it can impact on that amount.... This sort of planning is new for me and it feels really good, if a bit depressing at times because even though you can see a decent balance you know it has to stay there for the future!!

What do you all do?

LOL

1_step_closer

Panic! I am doing more paperwork for payplan and feel extremely sick, I am dong the background and feel like such a wimp and should be blamed for everything. That I am a complete failure - you know what? I cant even find one thing, one large expense to justify this debt. It has built up over years and I could happily cry my eyes out.

Of course DH is no help right now and I feel angry and part of me blames him immensely but there we go.

Not a great day.

1 step

rubydoiwannabee

1_step_closer wrote: »

Panic! I am doing more paperwork for payplan and feel extremely sick, I am dong the background and feel like such a wimp and should be blamed for everything. That I am a complete failure - you know what? I cant even find one thing, one large expense to justify this debt. It has built up over years and I could happily cry my eyes out.

Of course DH is no help right now and I feel angry and part of me blames him immensely but there we go.

Not a great day.

1 step

I'm sorry 1 step, no blaming what's done is done. I'm sure we would all turn back time if we could. YOU ARE NOT a complete failure, we all make mistakes and you now you have a plan to start turning things around. Please try not to be so hard on yourself, we ALL understand and have felt the same and no doubt will do again. But the feelings are destructive and not productive, so hang on in there, scream, laugh, cry and shout with us and remember you have done REALLY well do far, just take a look at your signature.

with love.
x

1_step_closer

Thank you Ruby. I have just had a major crying session with lots of cuddles from DH and 3 very confused dogs. He finished my background statement thing and said "lets not slash our wrists just yet shall we??" which actually made me smile a bit.

I am going to put this anger to good use and blitz the living room. I was fine last week and am all over the place this week! cant even blame pmt.........................

1 step

rubydoiwannabee

Just done some calculations on the 0% cc that runs out in Feb 09, we can't afford to clear it before the interest starts being charged again. We will still have about £170 balance, so will have to have a big effort to try and get that as low as possible before then.

DH has a virgin card that has 0% for about another year but we can't afford to do a balance transfer of the other BIG debts we are paying because we literally do not have the money to pay anything else. So although he has this it has a zero balance and we aren't using it which just feels a huge waste.

We have two BIG debts that we have left behind at FD bank and we literally cannot afford to pay more than we are paying now. One is an OD that comes up for review in Feb and I know they are going to get nasty because we haven't used the account since our LBM and have only paid a measly £70 a month to a 4K od!!!! I know it is bad but that is the best we can afford. Come Feb (when the small 0% was due to be paid off we were hoping to pay a chunk off with DH 0% card and start paying the money we have been paying to that to his.... if you see what I mean but that may not be the case now).

Some days it alls feels like too much to think about.... I'm off to do some sums!!!
:eek:

rubydoiwannabee

1_step_closer wrote: »

Thank you Ruby. I have just had a major crying session with lots of cuddles from DH and 3 very confused dogs. He finished my background statement thing and said "lets not slash our wrists just yet shall we??" which actually made me smile a bit.

I am going to put this anger to good use and blitz the living room. I was fine last week and am all over the place this week! cant even blame pmt.........................

1 step

Men do seem to have a far less emotional response to all of this than we do don't they? Glad you are able to smile. ((((((big hugs))))) from me.

As you can see from my post below I am in SUMS mood.... not good for a rainy day. We have had to spend money unexpectedly on DH car and new kettle today (not loads only about £45) but that is our cash for the week gone!!

Is it too early for wine or chocolate....???!!!

:rotfl: :rotfl: (trying to stay cheerful and not become obsessed)
xx

sistercas

Hi everyone
welcome 40somethingmum:beer: this is a great diary, very friendly and supportive
SH thankyou for the offer of pm,ing you. I just havent had time which has been a good thing as i havent thought about the incident at work, I have decided to put it behind me but as they say forewarned is forearmed and I shall be on my guard.
Ruby I like the sound of the software you have for budgeting. I have used martins budget planner and I have a notebook with everything written down and tick off when it has gone out of the account. I tend to look at my account everyday and OH's every few days. As you say though that way doesnt take into account extra things coming up in the future like car servicing.
btw I am sleeping ok now thanks
1step I understand how you feel , my debt was accrued gradually (or not so gradually!) with absolutely nothing to show for it. kids shoes here ,clothes there, school hoiday trip not even sure now how it happened. the important thing is you have found this website and with it the support and expert advice which is second to none.
please dont feel a failure look at every pound you reduce your debt back as a step forward. it wont be easy or quick but you will get there. x

Ruby I didnt take a picture of the movie hamper but I have taken a pic on my phone of the fairtrade choccy hamper for my mum. but as yet as yet have no clue how to upload it. It is beyond my comprehension, I will ask OH to help me, if i can draw him away from his computer:rotfl:
YB how did the 'conversation' go?

edited to say: Ruby never to early for chocolate or wine!! or sweets or cake or chips........

savingholmes

1_step_closer wrote: »

Panic! I am doing more paperwork for payplan and feel extremely sick, I am dong the background and feel like such a wimp and should be blamed for everything. That I am a complete failure - you know what? I cant even find one thing, one large expense to justify this debt. It has built up over years and I could happily cry my eyes out.

Of course DH is no help right now and I feel angry and part of me blames him immensely but there we go.

Not a great day.

1 step

Hi 1 step - we have been in debt to £30K+ several times and got out of it only to go back in again (before this site of course). We don't have lavish holidays, fancy cars or clothes to point to either. For us it was consistently overspending by about £1K a month:o Now I'm paying off about £1K a month (less than a third of our net income) instead so you can see in our house there has been a major shift. This is in top of an interest only mortgage.

There's no point in obsessing about where it went - you can only change the future. So good luck on your journey and keep putting one step in front of the other...

savingholmes

rubydoiwannabee wrote: »

I have been using a piece of software called 'money matters' that a friend gave me and it is a great help. It allows me to plan ahead by entering all the known credits that are coming up and all the things I have to pay for (this is in the 'savings' account not the day to day direct debits etc.). The good thing about it is it lets me see the impact of todays spending on the future bills, e.g. we have to pay car tax again at end of Jan plus DH old banger needs to get through mot and service etc. so I need to ensure there is a lump sum available then. So if I spend a random £50 today it can impact on that amount.... This sort of planning is new for me and it feels really good, if a bit depressing at times because even though you can see a decent balance you know it has to stay there for the future!!

What do you all do?

LOL

We use the soa, snowball calculator, demotivator - all links from here. Then on top I now have on-line banking and can download my spending into an excel spreadsheet - I then can check the impact of spending on my balances and DFD. I also use the budget planner from here - I like that probably the best as I can tweak things several times and look at the impact. I'm probably on version 6 or more of that now...:rotfl: