Proper Skint!!!

spartan59

Thanks linda,

Car insurance is because both me and wife have just had to claim on our car insurrance for our separate cars.

Never rains !!! One wife sells her car it will be down to £68 a month

Uncertain

Just to echo what has been said above, you really do need to find out exactly where the other £1400 goes! Even £400 of this would clear almost £5K of debt per year.

You will presumably have to deduct child care costs from your wife's £2.2K per month when she goes back.

£360 pm on groceries seems quite high for two and a tiny baby.

Not many years ago we all managed without £35 pm for a mobile phone. Unless you can claim a fair bit back from work how about a pay as you go for total emergencies only?

spartan59

I forgot to account for my payments to ex wife!! £450 a month for 2 kids, i am going to lower this to £350 next month.

Also I have 2 kids with new wife.

HH62

Uncertain wrote: »

Just to echo what has been said above, you really do need to find out exactly where the other £1400 goes! Even £400 of this would clear almost £5K of debt per year.

Absolutely agree. Some of us (many of us!) here at MSE are trying to live (all our living expenses) on a monthly budget of less than half of that £1400! So you definitely need to find out where this is disappearing to. I can't get my head round how such a large amount can sink without trace, so I would say you both need to keep a spending diary, as suggested earlier, and log every single penny that you both spend in a month. You may find you can make some major cutbacks.
Facing up to the current reality of the situation is a great step - it takes guts, so well done. :T

spartan59

so drops my surplus to around £950

but still enough to hit the debts with

spartan59

Also I have some good news!!! £30 in my sealed pot!!!!!!!! I am going to roll it over for next year!

But to allow for interest payments I will be putting it in my ISA but leaving there.

bathgatebuyer

After I've paid my bills. I'm left with about £190 each month to pay for petrol - about £90 a month - and groceries so it is definitely possible to get by on much less than you are at the moment. I can't promise it to be comfortable, really it isn't and it requires a real change of attitude. The biggest change I had to make was the attitude change. Instead of thinking, "I want that", I now have to ask myself, "Do I need it?" I now actually find spending money quite distateful - I really can't stomach spending anymore!!!

It is possible - I've paid off about £30K of debt in just over 3 years and I've lived off that small amount of money for 3 years. Just remember why you're doing it, and accept that things have to change particularly the way you spend money, otherwise it will not get any better.

bank_of_slate

As well as a spending diary - keep a progress diary! (write it all down in the same diary/book)

This is good for 3 things,
1, If you have a set back or are feeling down it's great to look back and see how far you've come.
2, Log any correspondence, phone calls, payments to creditors etc so you can be specific if they question things!
3, Once you see the benefits of things being cleared it'll spur you on and encourage you to continue!

Start saving £2 coins too, they very quickly mount up! we've only been saving ours since we returned from Center Parcs on 13 Oct and we're already up to £72 which will be the spending money for our next Center Parcs trip booked in May '09
...Linda xx

spartan59

It felt good working out my SOA as now I know there is money available to put towards our debt.

I know it will take alot of hard work but things are settled now and I have no more traveling to do so hopefully we can start to make inroads into some of this debt. At the moment it will be 2013 when our loans all finish.

The main problem is it is very boring staying in all the time and I have my kids every fortnight so it is hard entertaining 4 kids, when it is cold and wet outside. Both myself and my wife don't smoke or drink, so we must be able to sort out this debt problem.

spartan59

We have ebayed everything that we can and we are selling our second car so need to find other ways of making money or saving money.

My wife isn't the most moneywise of people and won't entertain shopping in cheap supermarkets as she feels you can't do a full shop in those and to a certain extent I agree although I have tried. I know many on here will disagree with that I think you have to admit that if you do your complete shop for the family in aldi etc it is through money saving rather than choice.