Attention newbies with debt! What is your 2006 New Year debt resolution?

frugglewump

- to stop buying on eBay as it wastes the money i earn from selling
- to reduce the food & cleaning shopping down to 100/month for 2 adults

Bunnyhop

To make a list of what I need to buy at the supermarket before I go there and to stick to it!

I must have wasted so much money up until now by not planning meals and then throwing out food that was past its sell by date. :rolleyes:

Glitterari

I have around....not more than £25 k of debt.

Around £16.5-17k is student loan. Aggh.

I have around £1,100 k on credit card.

I have £2,100 on a managed loan (my credit card and overdraft put into managed loan from my student days...just wasn't going to clear it unless I was made to)

Paying off car on finance at £130 pm over 3 years. (includes APR)

Had my wake up call/light-bulb moment some time ago. Actually decided to pull my finger out and do something about it in Sept/Oct 05. Have already started I am pleased to say...

I am going back to uni in September 2006 to take a masters.

My car will be paid off in full as of Oct 06.

I am now making repayments on my credit card and managed loan so that they are also cleared by September.

After all the above repayments, and bills are paid for (inc petrol) I have very little money to play around with. This does mean that for this year I will have to forgo life's little luxuries, eg clothes, make-up, having a social life! etc. But I do not actually *need* any of that stuff at the moment...it is also more important for me to not have the added stress whilst I am doing my MA, of worrying about how I am going to make the minimum repayments.

I will need to get a part-time job as it is when I'm doing my MA - i need to make sure that money can go on rent and food...not meeting repayments. If I need to, I will sell my car. I need it at the moment for work purposes (not just the commute!)

The way I am looking at it - my student loan is huge. The amount of cash I have left over at the end of the month, is just not going to make a difference. I am currently paying back less than £25 pm through my wages...I think the interest is in the region of £45 pm! Even if I paid what little I have left over after bills, petrol & debt repayments, I would probably only manage to pay the interest and then that would more than likely have to stop when I get to uni.

So I have decided to concentrate on these other areas and clear them. I personally don't think I can look at tackling my student loan until I complete my MA.

So - that's it - tackling my debts which are costing me more than my student loan. I'm not good with figures but even I can tell that although I may be getting charged £45 pm in interest alone on my student loan, that is actually small compared to what I would get charged on a regular loan!

C xx

Marisan

Happy New Year everyone.

This year hubby and I are going to make a HUGE effort to clear our debts.I don't expect to be debt-free by the end of 2006,but hopefully a good way towards that happy state.

How are we going to do this? By economising eg. I've stopped buying magazines (some of the monthlys are so expensive),I've persuaded hubby that we don't need to buy three Sunday papers! I'm buying more own-brand products,especially toiletries as I really can't tell the difference with many,and I'm not buying junk food like crisps,biscuits,cakes etc (double benefits there,slimmer grocery bill and slimmer waistline.)Neither of us smoke,but we do like a drink at home,so when our local outlet of Bargain Booze has offers on wine boxes,we buy a couple to last us.( I still think you need the odd treat even when you are dealing with debt worries.) Save and use coupons and look out for BOGOFFS but only on products you would buy anyway.Log onto EBay and sell unwanted stuff and use the money earned to throw at the debt mountain.Be first up for any overtime at work (you might not be keen but you need the money!) We'll still have our summer hol,but it will be in the UK,self-catering in Cornwall,lots of cheap fresh air and gorgeous scenery.

Good Luck,everyone.

kopicbloodaxe

Happy New Year!

I'm not a newbie either, but in a way the past few months have seen brighter lightbulb moments than in the past. Especially watching "Make Me Rich" over the past few weeks and finally getting around to doing Martin's budget spreadsheet yesterday.

My debt at it's highest was around £33k (plus £166k mortgage) but around £10k of that was from misguided attempts at tarting up the old house before selling it. Obviously, there's no proof either way that I saw a return on the money spent but it probably helped enormously in selling it. Anyway, that was last year and I start this year with around £18k of debt (thanks to profits of house sale, going into rented house and not having a mortgage) which I aim to at least half this year by being an even more savvy moneysaver!

So, resolution for this year is to cut back on trips to coffee shop, less eating out, more eating cheaply, play the DVD rental tart game, keep tarting my credit card debt, find a cheaper rate for my loan and haggle with Sky to give me a better deal!

<rant>
Speaking of Sky, I think their pricing policy is a rip-off. You have to select 2, 4 or 6 'mixes' from the entertainment pack - but there's only 3 of them that have channels that we watch so I am in effect paying for channels I never intend watching with a superfluous 4th 'mix'! I'm sure the technology is there for something more like "Pay As You View" where you would only pay a set fee per pay-channel per day that you actually watch, e.g. if you watch LivingTV on a particular day then you pay 25p for that day. Hey! Whaddaya know? I've just invented a business model! :-)
</rant>

sproggi

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Well I have finally sat down and worked out all of our debts and the total is (Gulp!) £57726.38!!

So here are my resolutions for 2006:

Cancel Sky (done but to late for Jan payment)
Cut up ALL store cards (done)
Cut up 3 credit cards leaving 2 cheapest apr (done)
Cut up flexible loan ATM card (done)
Throw out EVERY catalogue that comes through the door without being tempted to have a quick look through (All catalogues in house now thrown)
Keep a record of EVERY penny that is spent
Cook more
Spend no more than £355 pm on groceries (family of 6)
Use every spare penny towards debt

If I stick to minimum payments and I keep my groceries to no more than £355 pm, Our outgoings are £2176.13 and our income is £2178.18, this leaves £2.05 to use towards clearing debts.

My target for January is to spend no more than £300 on groceries so that I can use the extra £55 towards the debts.
Total spend so far= £44.19

New Year, New Start, New Life
Ostrich Free Zone

Lottiepots

For 2006 I would like to get rid of debt at the rate I have been doing for the last three months:-

I will pay off bank of Scotland loan in full next month.

I will make overpayments every month to my egg loan.

I will aim to keep my credit cards debt at 0%.

To be able to do this I will continue to work part time in the pub. Limit my spending on socialising. Go on no holidays until the debt is paid. limit food budget. Will be difficult but this site gives me so much motivation.

Thanks to all and good luck for the new year

skintchick

This year I will:

NOT use my overdraft at all

NOT use credit cards for things I should have budgeted for eg car insurance

overpay my mortgage every month by as much as I can afford

save for my big bills in advance

Look forward to my DFD in 13 months' time!

bank_of_slate

Gonna_Do_It wrote:

Carry on working on clearing debts. Want to give up alcohol cos I hate wasting money on it and it makes me feel rubbish and want to stop spending money on stupid magazines that I am addicted to all just for the latest celebrity gossip, sill hey!

Gonna be a good one : )

If you want all the gossip, register for free on Handbag.com or Glamour.com
They send emails with all the gossip on and free competitions that you can enter. It has stopped me from buying all the mags!

My resolution is to clear the overdraft that I have come to rely on each month, clear the old credit card (I cut it up last year!) and start saving more! This forum is fantastic,
we CAN do it, get that money back into OUR pockets instead of the corporate fat cat's!!
...Linda xx

andrewzx13

How to find out what I owe and where as I do know I have bad credit with some old credit cards and things like that and I would love to find out who, where, how much I owe and the best way to pay them off , some one did tell me that there is a list somewhere and I can get it but they did not know where , so if anyone can shine some light on this for me I would love to know . Thanks

andy

p.s. I only just found this site after seing Martin Lewis on the 5 O'Clock Show on ITV lol if this works you have know idea how happy I will be to be free some time in 2006