Rewinding back to the beginning...........

Jelly_Babies

I am back, now I think for the fourth time but this time I feel on a completely different level.

To cut a long story short, for the last two years I have worked hard at paying the debt off, slipped down a very very long slide and gone back to the beginning. Not sure when I last posted but since then a lot has happened, the debt has gone up and I have been completely stressed out.

Basically my OH has always let me manage the money, even when I told him the truth about the extent of our debts (and I'm afraid I left a few £s off that to soften the blow), he still let me deal with it. I have a complete inability to say no when it comes to money and therefore things seem to have spiralled again.The breakthrough came last week when we sat down at the table and he asked me exactly what we owed. Everything was on the table (excuse the pun) including interest rates, monthly repayments and between us for the first time ever we did a budget planner. I have spent the last week looking at everything we spend and me and OH are now having joint control of the money. For the first time ever he seems to have acknowledged his lack of involvement and concern in the money has definately contributed to the problem!

Amazingly if we can stick to a tight budget we could be debt free within 9 years and that includes the crippling mortgage that we have - whether this is achievable remains to be seen but I feel so much stronger knowing I have someone else to help me. I have also been referred to a counsellor, I have a terrible relationship with money, very little respect for it and it seems to be an emotional release for me to spend it to get rid of stresses. My best friend died recently, I have a very stressful job and our childcare issues are a complete nightmare. I accept every social invitation offered, use babysitters as if they are going out of fashion and never ever stop to think. The counsellor has really helped as I do think I was on the brink when I was referred and I have realised a lot of things about myself that relate to the money issues.

The best thing is my husband coming on board and us sorting this out together.We are fairly sure we will go into negative equity even though we had a 85% LTV originally, but we are fixed for 5 years and hope the market's recovered by then so have decided not to add that stress to the bucket too. I am just going off to type my plan of action for feedback.

I'm not ready to post SOA or the figures yet but in time I will, I promise............So this looks like this is it for the long haul, wish me luck!

beverleyhills

Welcome back. Congratulations to you both for sharing the burden of money management. It is hard work on your own.
Good luck in in sorting your life out.

CAFCGirl

Good on ya is all I can. I think you're making great steps to recover from the monetary situation, in all aspects, bith physically and emotionally and would like to wish you the best of luck xx

redsquirrel80

Hello you... we missed you! Really sorry to hear about your friend :grouphug:

Lots of luck with the debts this time round, glad to hear that OH is on board.
xxx

Jelly_Babies

Thank you Squizz Miss my friend so very very much it's unbearable at times but at least by dealing with this I have some part of my life back in control.

How are things with you xx

Lula-Hula

Hello & welcome back,

Well done for recognising the problems, that's a very positive step towards recovery.

Even if you're not ready to post your SOA just reading through others can show where cutbacks can be made, I fully recommend using www.spendingdiary.com for highlighting where all that money goes :rolleyes: .

Wishing you the best of luck & a few (((hugs))) too

Lula xx

GeorgeUK

Hi JB, welcome back.

Even though you aren't ready to post up your SOA, it's worth doing one for your own records. Have a look at the advice other people are getting on the areas they may be able to make savings on and see if you can apply that advice to your situation too. A spending diary may help you get into the swing of saving money and not spending so much on stuff you don't need.

Don't forget to have a look at the snowball calculator to see what the most economical method of making payments to your debts are and also possibly getting some 0% cards to transfer the larger APR debts. If you clear a card, don't close it as you may get an offer as an existing customer that you may be able to use - 0% for 6 months or low interest life of balance. It all helps to save if you are paying less interest and you may get to your DFD in less than 9 years.

redsquirrel80

Jelly_Babies wrote: »

Thank you Squizz Miss my friend so very very much it's unbearable at times but at least by dealing with this I have some part of my life back in control.

How are things with you xx

It must be really hard, is that the friend who you told us about before?

I'm a bit 'blah' at the moment, but plodding along.

Have you done any running lately?

Jelly_Babies

I'm thinking baby steps this time, my things for this week are to:-

- take lunch in every day and spend no money on food for work - DONE

- going to buy a plastic water bottle to fill up every day instead of buying water from the shop.

- going to look at changing phone/mobile/sky provider. We're not in a cable area so we can't do Virgin which is quite annoying :mad: Need some suggestions here.

- had a look at electricity/gas last night, no cheaper alternative at the moment so sticking with our current supplier, we are actually in credit with them by £400, I suppose there's a first time for everything?? We are going to cut back on electricity and gas. We have a fantastic log fire, a garage full of wood and that can see us through the winter.

- quidco as much as possible

- stop going out so much, we have restriced our social life to once a month if that and only when parents can babysit.

- I have a loft full of stuff that me and OH are going to sort out for ebay this weekend to make a lump sum to pay off the debt.

- we are going through the cupboards on Fri night and listing what is in them to use up the resources as much as possible and shop late at night when there might be some offers on.

What really helps is that my best friend is also on a major cutback so we will do it all together which will help with the social outings as we will just cook meals for each other etc.

We have kept some things:-
- we have kept golf and gym membership as if we cut back too much I think it will get too tough and we need some enjoyment

- we have a cleaner we are going to keep, we both work very hard, DH works away a lot, two young kids and I was told by the Dr I was mentally and physically exhausted. We are willing to sacrifice other stuff to get a cleaner, rightly or wrongly.

We are still going to try and put £300 a month away into savings as a buffer zone and to pay for the bigger things that come up in one lump such as insurance, swimming lessons, tax, MOT etc. Absolutely everything has been accounted for in our budget.

We, theoretically, should have £430 left after making £900 towards the debts (this is more than the min payment as well) - our current thinking is splitting that between the mortgage and CC debts so we are overpaying £215 on the mortgage and £215 on the CC. The mortgage is 6.19% and the cards are mostly 0% and others fixed for life, so may be a plan to tackle both at the same time - what do you think?

Phew............I'm all tired out now. Just going off to cancel a DD for £8 a month I have had for ages that I don't even need...........baby steps and all..........

Miss_Piggy_2

Hi Jellie Babies

Glad to hear your OH is on board. It makes it all so much easier. It can't be easy dealing with all this on top of the loss of a good friend.

It sounds like you have it all sorted though - best of luck with the journey

Miss P
xx

IWantToBeFree_2

Might be better to pay the minimum on the 0% cards for the time being as you are not incurring any interest and throw the money at the debts that are interest bearing. Personally, I wouldn't overpay on the mortgage until the cards are paid off but everyone is different and I think you should be comfortable with your plan of action re the repayments and do what suits you even if it isn't the most money saving way!

On the mortgage forum there is an amazing mortgage spreadsheet which will tell you how much capital you have paid once your fixed rate period ends, you may want to look at this, and then decide whether you want to overpay. My fixed rate comes to an end in just over 4 years and we will have paid less than £5k off the capital. Scares me because we are probably well over 100% LTV and will be when the fixed rate ends!

It also tells you how much you will save in interest by overpaying, I found that £100 a month into my offset account will cut my term by 10 years and save £60k in interest so its something I will definatly be doing once the credit cards are gone!