When money speaks, the truth keeps silent.

ezmai

Happy New Year all.
I am a newbie here and thoroughly enthusiastic about getting to grips with my finances.

What an excellent web site and chat forum, found accidentally by the way.

Please allow me to shed some light on my mess:-
Debts to date include:
1st credit card – 6,000
2nd credit card – 3,000
Overdraft – 3,000
1st Loan – 29,000
2nd Loan – 9,000
1st Mortgage – 150,000
2nd Mortgage – 250,000

Total debt = £450,000

Wow! I have never written this down before. Nonetheless, I am utterly determined and looking forward to eradiating them all.

But where do I start?

Thus far, I manage all my debts well and have never fallen behind, but surely there’s a better way!

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Warm regards, and happy January 2006.

frugglewump

ezmai wrote:

But where do I start?

Thus far, I manage all my debts well and have never fallen behind, but surely there’s a better way!

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Well the APR and providers for your debts would be helpful. Also if you want to make cuts in your other outgoings then try Martin's budget planner (link is at the top in the blue bit).

moonbeam682

Hi ezmai & welcome :wave:

If you feel able to post your total incomings & outgoings (SOA) I'm sure you will get a lot of help from everyone.

you have made a good start by writing down all your debts scary though it may seem!

well done & good luck you have come to the right place!

Thefunkygibbons

Welcome

Have a look at some of the other posts, you will see we are not judgemental, but try to squuze evry penny out

Whilst you are doing the SOA can you work out where your income goes, perhaps by looking at previous bank statements

In addition, have you had a lightbulb moment of where the debt came from, because you need to deal with the causes as well as the effects

mrcow

Hi and welcome,

A good exercise is to do a monthly budget planner for yourself (as stated above) and then work out exactly how much is left over per month to service your debt.

Then, put all the information on this debt, including terms and APRs into this spreadsheet:

whatsthecost.com

....and it will tell you how much you should be throwing at each debt to have maximum effect. It also works out a debt free date for you. This is assuming that your loans allow early repayment and overpayments.

You should also look at what APRs you are paying on your cards and loans, as this may be improved?

Another must do is to look at your budget and cut back on all areas where you are paying unnessary money out.....that money would be working much harder to repay your debt!

Wecome to the boards.

skintchick

Hi - we need you to post all your incomings and outgoings, plus APRs on the debts, and perhaps a little background on how you got to be in this position.

THen we will help

moonbeam682

as there are 2 of ezmai's threads the same maybe they could be merged together?

ty



BG Note

I have now merged the 2 threads:xmassmile

ezmai

Hi moonbeam682, yes not sure how this happended! How can I merge the two threads? Thx ezmai
Hi Skintchick, can you please provide me with a little example of such a posting.
As far as background goes, to be honest perhaps just a property wannebe, in that I have fully furbished two properties that I am renting out and secondly as far as the credit cards go – just a terrible spend maniac who has seen the light and wants to stop.
Thank you.

moonbeam682

its ok ezmai I don't you can merge them yourself - I think someone might be along to do it for you as soon as its noticed! Or maybe we need to send a message to someone to do it? I'm not sure myself!

ezmai

Thanks all, I really do appreciate all the help I can muster!
Thx moonbeam, what’s SOA?
Thx thefunckgibbons, as I declare in a previous postings “I was a spend thrift”, was being the operative word but I plan to really stop this.
Thx mrcow, what great advice and tool. I shall be looking forward to using this tool this evening. Quick question though, can this tool be used for existing loans as well as credit cards? How would I stipulate an existing premium?

Dear All
For some reason I have created two postings on the same topic; how can this be merged so we can all see what superb advise is being given?

From a very grateful ezmai

moonbeam682

a SOA (statement of affairs) is basically a list of all your incomings (wages,benefits etc) & then a list of all your monthly outgoings (mortgage, council tax, electricity, food etc) also include once a year purchases ie Xmas, car bills etc divided by 12) in as much detail as possible. As a previous poster mentioned Martins budget planner is great for doing thisand its free! It is also really useful for people to know who your debts are with and most importantly the APR you are paying.

If you go through most of the other posts on this board you will see other peoples SOAs & it will give you a much better idea of what to do.