That feeling again

Billy_two_speakers

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

I'm sorry but I think you're in denial if you think your debts are not your fault or were unavoidable. You chose to give up your higher paying job to seek out a new career. Nothing wrong in this, I'm aiming to do the same. The difference between you and I is that I'll use savings in order to make the transition whereas you used credit. You could have worked a year or so longer at the higher paid job, sorted out your finances so that they were uber efficient and salted away a large amount of money, alternatively you could have sold your house and used the equity to fund new career move. Instead you chose to use credit and you ended up in serious debt and put your family at financial risk.

You're doing the same again, you have convinced yourself that your only option was buying a house, and I accept the point from some posters about wanting a home, but you simply could not afford it - if you could then you wouldn't have needed a loan from your family.

You didn't have to spend so much on the furnishings, when I bought my home I bought a really cheap (new) bed and couch and got the rest of my furniture as a job lot from a second hand shop.

When you earn so much money it's easy to think "It's no prob, I'll put it on the card this month and pay if off next when my pay cheque comes in."

With that sort of income you should be building a foundation to make yourself financially independant, not frittering it away on debt repayment and fripparies that can wait until you save it up.

If you take hold of your finances and knuckle down you could get rid of the family debt, get rid of the unsecured debt and then start making in-roads into your mortgage. You should set yourself a budget (that includes some 'fun' money) and stick to it. Make debt repayment the priority. It's hard because you'll think "what's the point of earning all this cash when I can't enjoy it", but the enjoyment will come when you're completely debt free and you know that your family is secure.

By the way, if you think "well, that's easy for you to say, you're not the one doing it...". I actually earned over 100k last year and ran a family budget of £30k. I have paid (so far) £38k off my mortgage since April 07. I've also been investing heavily in my wife and my pensions plans, a savings plan for my kid's university education and I have an emergency fund consisting of 6 month's worth of outgoings.

mrcow mentioned that 'we're all in the same boat and no one's job is 100% safe' and he's right but you can make yourself safer by saving up an emergency pot and by paying down debt. With my finances if I lost my job I could probably survive 6 to 9 months perhaps longer if I could get some bar work etc. which is plenty of time to find another job. With your finances, I think you'd survive about 15 days beyond your missed paycheque before you went under.

I hope you don't dismiss this 'tough love'. It's meant as a wake up call because I was in a bit of debt when I first joined MSE and realised I had to change my ways. You need to sit down and ask yourself what is more important, having "things" or making your family financially secure.

I won't get many "thanks" for my straight talking, especially on the DFW 'huggy' board but that doesn't mean that I'm wrong in what I say.

Good luck anyway

I agree with you, but like my post he has ignored it

hope all goes well for him but it could end in tears
blinds and holidays should not be in his thoughts even if its ten years since the last holiday
bet some here have never had a holiday ?

andys15

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

I'm sorry but I think you're in denial if you think your debts are not your fault or were unavoidable. You chose to give up your higher paying job to seek out a new career. Nothing wrong in this, I'm aiming to do the same. The difference between you and I is that I'll use savings in order to make the transition whereas you used credit. You could have worked a year or so longer at the higher paid job, sorted out your finances so that they were uber efficient and salted away a large amount of money, alternatively you could have sold your house and used the equity to fund new career move. Instead you chose to use credit and you ended up in serious debt and put your family at financial risk.

You're doing the same again, you have convinced yourself that your only option was buying a house, and I accept the point from some posters about wanting a home, but you simply could not afford it - if you could then you wouldn't have needed a loan from your family.

You didn't have to spend so much on the furnishings, when I bought my home I bought a really cheap (new) bed and couch and got the rest of my furniture as a job lot from a second hand shop.

When you earn so much money it's easy to think "It's no prob, I'll put it on the card this month and pay if off next when my pay cheque comes in."

With that sort of income you should be building a foundation to make yourself financially independant, not frittering it away on debt repayment and fripparies that can wait until you save it up.

If you take hold of your finances and knuckle down you could get rid of the family debt, get rid of the unsecured debt and then start making in-roads into your mortgage. You should set yourself a budget (that includes some 'fun' money) and stick to it. Make debt repayment the priority. It's hard because you'll think "what's the point of earning all this cash when I can't enjoy it", but the enjoyment will come when you're completely debt free and you know that your family is secure.

By the way, if you think "well, that's easy for you to say, you're not the one doing it...". I actually earned over 100k last year and ran a family budget of £30k. I have paid (so far) £38k off my mortgage since April 07. I've also been investing heavily in my wife and my pensions plans, a savings plan for my kid's university education and I have an emergency fund consisting of 6 month's worth of outgoings.

mrcow mentioned that 'we're all in the same boat and no one's job is 100% safe' and he's right but you can make yourself safer by saving up an emergency pot and by paying down debt. With my finances if I lost my job I could probably survive 6 to 9 months perhaps longer if I could get some bar work etc. which is plenty of time to find another job. With your finances, I think you'd survive about 15 days beyond your missed paycheque before you went under.

I hope you don't dismiss this 'tough love'. It's meant as a wake up call because I was in a bit of debt when I first joined MSE and realised I had to change my ways. You need to sit down and ask yourself what is more important, having "things" or making your family financially secure.

I won't get many "thanks" for my straight talking, especially on the DFW 'huggy' board but that doesn't mean that I'm wrong in what I say.

Good luck anyway

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you say. I am not looking for any sympathy. I am a believer of "i got myself into this mess and by jove I will be getting myself out of it". I make no excuses, but sometimes life cannot be as calculated as you have put it. I couldn't delay my new job, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, which has meant the last 4 years of my life were put on hold. Every hour I was doing work towards its, doing a full day, revising after work till 10, up at 5 to do a little more before work. All my colleagues were in the main single without kids. I had 2 kids who were neglected by me.
When we had a moments I promised i would make it up to them. Going to disney is the promise. Yes the money(my money no credit for this) could have been used to pay a few debts, i am not denying the kids this trip.
I have all the right aptitudes to get out of debt, I have the resources, i have never ever missed a payment to anyone, no matter what the consequences. The repayment comes first, and in the past if that meant we eat beans for a week that is what we did.

emmy05

:T
you sound genuine andy in changing things, from hereonin, make sure you stick to it too, and its gd to see youve not run away but taken things on the chin of what ppl have had to say to you.

Dithering_Dad

andys15 wrote: »

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you say. I am not looking for any sympathy. I am a believer of "i got myself into this mess and by jove I will be getting myself out of it". I make no excuses, but sometimes life cannot be as calculated as you have put it. I couldn't delay my new job, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, which has meant the last 4 years of my life were put on hold. Every hour I was doing work towards its, doing a full day, revising after work till 10, up at 5 to do a little more before work. All my colleagues were in the main single without kids. I had 2 kids who were neglected by me.
When we had a moments I promised i would make it up to them. Going to disney is the promise. Yes the money(my money no credit for this) could have been used to pay a few debts, i am not denying the kids this trip.
I have all the right aptitudes to get out of debt, I have the resources, i have never ever missed a payment to anyone, no matter what the consequences. The repayment comes first, and in the past if that meant we eat beans for a week that is what we did.

It sounds like you're determined, but I'd do it sooner rather than later. I work as a consultant which means I move around the country a lot from one client company to the next. I have made a lot of contacts and friends by doing this, and I have to tell you that the news I'm getting back from them is not good. Lots of people are being laid off, having bonuses and overtime cut and a lot of companies are going under. This is the reason I may have been a bit harder on your case than I would have been perhaps even just 6 months ago. I think we're in for a long and hard recession and I think a lot of us will lose our jobs.

If I lose my job it'd be a real setback and a worry. If you lost your job it'd be a catastrophy. Start acting as though you've been put on redundancy alert at work and salt that money away like mad. My advice would be to work out how much it costs you just to survive each month (including minimum debt repayments but not luxuries) and start by building up savings that would cover you for three months. After that you should really blitz those debts, especially the ones to your family. There is a financial storm coming and they'll need that money.

Good luck with everything. I do hope that I didn't go OTT with my advice, it's just that I believe the next 18 months are goign to be pretty hellish and I think everyone who can prepare for it, should prepare.

andys15

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

It sounds like you're determined, but I'd do it sooner rather than later. I work as a consultant which means I move around the country a lot from one client company to the next. I have made a lot of contacts and friends by doing this, and I have to tell you that the news I'm getting back from them is not good. Lots of people are being laid off, having bonuses and overtime cut and a lot of companies are going under. This is the reason I may have been a bit harder on your case than I would have been perhaps even just 6 months ago. I think we're in for a long and hard recession and I think a lot of us will lose our jobs.

If I lose my job it'd be a real setback and a worry. If you lost your job it'd be a catastrophy. Start acting as though you've been put on redundancy alert at work and salt that money away like mad. My advice would be to work out how much it costs you just to survive each month (including minimum debt repayments but not luxuries) and start by building up savings that would cover you for three months. After that you should really blitz those debts, especially the ones to your family. There is a financial storm coming and they'll need that money.

Good luck with everything. I do hope that I didn't go OTT with my advice, it's just that I believe the next 18 months are goign to be pretty hellish and I think everyone who can prepare for it, should prepare.

OTT not at all. I am paying £1000 + towards debt. Also my whole debt is interest free. I would hope that the job I do is recession proof, although lehman brothers probably thought they could never go bust. As long as I remain employed, I will be debt free by the time my mortgage fix rate runs out. I am fully expecting to have to go on the SVR, and what that will be is anyones guess. I will then god willing start to run my affairs like a small business. I always knew when I left the security of my past life that things would be a struggle. I saw it at the time as an investment in our future. My debt is the investment, it is what it has cost me to achieve 90 per cent of our life in true happiness both in my job and home life. Some might say that is priceless, well I can now say it costs 40 odd grand (minus soft furnishing)

mrcow

Hi Andy,

Just wondered if you'd had any luck with looking at how you could reduce your grocery shop yet? Also, the mobile phone boards can help with ways to reduce your spend.

Also, you are paying £85 per month for telephone, Sky and broadband.

In comparison, just for example, I pay £37.50 for my package including Virgin Media XL package (so eg. we don't get Sky Sports but do get Setanta for free), my telephone including line rental, caller display and ALL calls (except mobiles which you can use a caller override number for to cut the cost to pennies for) and my broadband. You need to look at what packages are out there as you could save £50 off your bottom line with just a simple switch.

With Virgin, I'm pretty sure you can pay an extra tenner per month for your mobile phone too, but as I'm on PAYG I've never looked into it.

andys15

mrcow wrote: »

Hi Andy,

Just wondered if you'd had any luck with looking at how you could reduce your grocery shop yet? Also, the mobile phone boards can help with ways to reduce your spend.

Also, you are paying £85 per month for telephone, Sky and broadband.

In comparison, just for example, I pay £37.50 for my package including Virgin Media XL package (so eg. we don't get Sky Sports but do get Setanta for free), my telephone including line rental, caller display and ALL calls (except mobiles which you can use a caller override number for to cut the cost to pennies for) and my broadband. You need to look at what packages are out there as you could save £50 off your bottom line with just a simple switch.

With Virgin, I'm pretty sure you can pay an extra tenner per month for your mobile phone too, but as I'm on PAYG I've never looked into it.

i am with virgin, and i have just looked at what i am paying
we have the xl package 3 (tv,broadband,phone) for £30(includes setanta)
we also have unlimited phone calls for 400 minuttes which includes mobile calls which is £17 and sky sports £19 so I think my£85 was a little over.
Sky sports will be cancelled every time the footy seasons ends, and i see the £19 as saving money as if a game i want to watch is on, i would go to the pub if i dint have sky.

My wife is now on board, we had an argument last night about it, but today over lunch we agreed to start being more careful.
We have decided to run our affairs how we did it in the past. On payday we get the cash out of the bank we need for the month and put it in different envolopes(we will lose out on interest, and tesco club card points) but this way we can see where our money goes, we can also see how much we physically have left at any particular time. We are going to try and live on £400 for groceries, £80 on petrol etc etc. Tesco are on my doorstep, so if needs be we could buy our tea from there on a daily basis. Tomorrow we go through the freezer and cupboards and get rid of it all(eating it) before we buy anymore. I am going to go to the bank and withdraw £600 and make it last the month. This £600 will include child car costs which are about £40 this month. I will hopefully book the accomadation for my hols over the weekend, which i can cover out of the wage.
This will not pay of my debts any quicker, I am lucky as I am not paying interest. What this will do is set us up for the future.

andys15

Just gone through my bank statements. My original figure of £35000 owed to my dad will in fact be £32000 when the standing agreement comes out on monday. Debt free in 32 months.

andys15

andys15 wrote: »

Debt free in 32 months.

Actually this isn't technically true. There were 2 conditions when he borrowed me the money.
his condition was I have to have a repayment mortgage as opposed to interest only.
my condition was that he let me give him back at least 6% but he said we would work that out closer to the time it was paid off.

mrcow

Just wondered also if you've looked into getting Childcare vouchers from your employer? If your childcare costs are only £40 per month, then it wouldn't be worth doing, but if it ever increases then could be worth looking into. They are tax and NI free so you can save around 40% off your costs no matter which tax band you are in (as you essentially pay lower rate NI once you hit the 40% tax bracket).