18 Year old in a bit of debt please help

jadetaylor1990

I pay
£25 - Internet
£100 - Rent
£50 - Mobile Phone - They will not bring ti down or cancell it i have tried
£50 travel
£100 - Going out, buying food etc
I have completely cut out my love of buying clothes now so that isnt an issue#

xx

worried80

Is that a week or month? sorry if i'm being thick!

jadetaylor1990

that is per month x

Gemmzie

£230 a week is nearly £1k a month, your outgoings before cards are £325 so you should have £675 a month to clear your cards.

jadetaylor1990

its harder when its all new and per week!

Gemmzie

How do you get paid? Cash or into an account?

jadetaylor1990

cheque! but my overdraft limit is £500
and its now saying that i cant have any money out
when i am only £ 390 overdrawn :S

paybacktime2008

When you get paid put £60 in a seperate account.....get internet banking....ever so easy. That will cover your bills. Then take out £25 a week cash....thats for travel/going out. The rest in the account that your wages get paid into is for debts.

I suspect, that £25 will disappear faster than ice in the sahara! Don't be disheartened, it will be a bummer but you will see EXACTLY where your money is going. Then you can make choices accordingly. The good news is, you do have enough money to clear your debts quickly if you put your mind to it and have a few frugal months. Good luck

Gemmzie

You might have a cheque which isn't cleared yet? Or something you've bought going out of your account?

My brother is very similar to you, what I did for him was set up a savings account linked to his current account and that takes out enough to cover his bills so he doesn't spend that money.
For yours, it could take £150 a week, so you'd have £130 left to spend and the rest put aside for bills. Then pay rent one week, phone and internet the next, then the debts for two weeks. Then the cycle starts again.

LittleCharlie

Bit of tough love here. I was in your situation at 18/19, now I'm only just clearing the debts of the same size because they just kept mounting up, and I'm 23.

You CAN live on £10 a week food (I did it for quite a while), and you can not go out for a few weeks. Enjoy a quiet bottle of wine in with your mates with a DVD. As someone else said, you've got £600 odd quid there that you're spending on rubbish.

Plus £25 on internet? Jesus! I only pay £15 for my mobile wireless broadband, and you can get home broadband for under a tenner easily.

Get yourself an e-saver account or something with your current bank account provider. When you get paid, deposit 50% or more into your e-saver, and use THAT to pay your cards before they're due every month. Once you've paid your cards off, you'll be into the habit of saving that money every week, so you won't spend it straight off.