Well, i spent four hours calculating...

WhistleBlower

I made five seperate spreadsheets and checked over every inch of my finances.

I actually owe around £3,000, (so i ned to update my sig, grr) and did some calculations.

Every month currently i'm paying out up to £250 in fees and cheque renewals at that payday-advance place. (Word of advice, never Ever borrow from them...in fact, run away, very quickly) Which i coudln;'t afford. and thanks to a screwup in my budgeting this month i actually have over £300 due that i simply do not have.

So, i did some more calculations and phoned around.

I now have a 3-year £3,000 loan, my repayments are £136.51 per month, so i'm better off, and i can clear *all* my outstanding problems with it. It's set to come out on my payday so i won't default on it.

Borrowing to pay off other debts is never a good idea but with the ammount i was shelling out each month in fees etc i would never have gotten out of it, i'd have gotten deeper.

Now i know, 3 years and i'm all done. (Less if i make extra payment occasionly) I'm cancelling my overdraft, paying my arrears and buying back my cheques.

And it feels damn good.

GettingThingsDone

Hi Whistleblower - it's good if it helps you get things under control and means you can manage your life.

Just remember not to start spending more because the pressure is off, and end up in the same boat. I think a few of us have been there...

gtd

WhistleBlower

Thank you.

I've set myself a firm budget every month now.

I have £100 for food a month, i'll go shopping with cash and not my plastic card, anything under that which i spend goes in my "loose change" tin.

Loose change goes in a tin.

I'm putting £50 per month on my gas/leccie meters, regardless of weather, the accumulated credit will see me at least partway through the winter.

Anything i under-spend on goes into my loose change tin.

the tin will get counted when full and all saved money will be banked and used to pay back extra on the loan.

I'm so determined to do this.

Oh, and i forgot, £50 per monthbis going to go into another bank account i'm going to open up at another bank. This will be my emergency fund for disasters etc.

All my £2 coins are going into an old sock under my bed (heh) and will be used to pay for my plane ticket christmas 2009 to go see my parents in spain.

Oh, and no more taxi's to work, no matter how lzy i feel. It's only a mile, i can hoof it easy.

Valley's_girl

Hi whistle just wanted to wish you good luck you sound very positve keep up the good work.
Best wishes
Ally x

hypno06

Taxis to work :eek:

Why not join in the "make £10 a day challenge " on this board - just think, if you made £10 a day in October, you would have £250 extra at the end of this month.......you could use that to overpay your loan or save up for emergencies, plane tickets etc.

If you did the challenge every month, you would be free of the loan completely by the summer.........worth a go

causey25

"Oh, and no more taxi's to work, no matter how lzy i feel. It's only a mile, i can hoof it easy."

:rotfl: That made me laugh so much - I too have been guilty of that one. Although for me the worst was having to walk past the taxi rank on the way home from work....

The "demotivator" tool on here somewhere (sure it comes up on a search) is jolly good for nipping that kind of frittering in the bud.

You sound really determined & sensible- well done on catching yourself before things get really out of hand. ( I know £3 k is a lot but it could be even worse) Just to echo what previous posters have said - don't do what I did & run up more debt - it's so easy to do if you haven't addressed the spending reasons you got in trouble in the first place.

But hey - I'm in no postition to give advice - Good luck!

WhistleBlower

I'm hoping my budget will fix my over-spending tendencies.

One bit that got me into trouble with the payday advance place was when my computer blew up in a ball of flame (literally) at the time i was working on my dissertation for Uni and i really genuinely needed the computer because i had so many samples to analyse the only way i could get it done was to run stuff at home.

Cue freak out, so i had to get some money quick and i borrowed £200 from that place, and got my new computer.

Next month there was a problem with my wages, and i coulnd't pay them back and i also had no money to renew it, so i borrowed another £100, next month i coulnd't afford to let them all cash so i had to renew them again...this carried on, then i needed emergency dental treatment (which i pay for) and i coudn't afford to renew so i borrowed some more....

And it just snowballed.

The Overdraft was caused by me just being flamin' useless at controling my urge to spend.

But now, i have a budget, something to look at and feel guilty about (the only thing that'll cut through my desire to spend is guilt) and i'm hoping that having set targets will sort me out.

The taxi to work thing...it costs me anywhere between £3.50 and £5 per trip....eek.

Like i said, it's only a mile. There's a great bus service here too. So, no more of that.

Andi like the sound of the "Make £10 per day" challenge. I'm off to investigate.

Update: I found the demotivator (It's on the bar at the top) and i'm working for six weeks a year to just cover my taxi fares! *faints* I'm spending over £1,000 per month!

I'm gonna put that to one side and use it towards my loan repayments.