What led to your lightbulb moment???

in*the*red_6

Hello everyone

January's been a very tough month for me financially (again!) with a huge car repair bill, mega gas bill and debit balance from BT it seems never ending! Sure many of you must have felt the same.....

On the plus side, although it's been tough, and I've wondered sometimes where to get the money even to buy milk, I haven't, and will not, use my credit card and increase our debt.

So, just thought I'd start a thread to remind us why we're working so hard to clear our debts and to find out what were the major wake-up calls that led up to your lightbulb moments:

Mine were:

- finding we were ending every month putting essentials such as shopping and petrol on the credit card
- Selling my car (£2.6k) to pay off some off the credit card and then finding that money crept straight back on again, and more, due to our overspending
- being turned down for a 0% card because we were 'overcommitted'
- getting a decent redundancy payout and not being able to spend or save it as it all had to go straight towards paying the bloody credit card :mad:

I never want to be in this position again!

ITR

Gillby1

Hmmm...I think mine was gradual.

I never really worried about my debt, as it started with buying a car, and was (still is) always at 0% APR. I was paying off £200 per month, but then spending it again when i ran out of money. My credit limits were gradually increased, and i suddenly realised that instead of paying off the £4500 for the car, i'd just added to the debt over time.

So about 14 months ago i stopped using the credit cards as much, and now i never use them at all - so all payments are staying put and the debt amount is reducing slowly!

Kevicho

My birthday initially got me thinking about the future, and i started trying to save from them, but finding this site turned me into a moneysaving monster!

grrr!

tattooed_lady

I'd already cleared my debt when I discovered mse, but this has turned things around for me big time as I have (I think) got better deals on everything eg utilities, insurance etc -so for the first time in YEARS I am putting money in savings. It's still a long road ahead as I have a few things to save for which will take a while, but at least I would have saved and not got a loan or anything!

taplady

i'm not sure what the actual reason was but after years of worry about debt and the fact that it was getting worse all the time I just decided one day enough is enough! :mad:

I decided to ring CCCS for some advice and our position was even worse than I'd thought :eek:

But thanks to some sound advice from them we eventually set up an IVA and now our finances are under control at last :j . it will take us another 4 and a half years to be debt free and when we are our credit record will be cr*p but who cares ? we're living within our means for the first time in years and its great!

I wish I'd found this site a few years ago and things would be different now but better late than never!

black-saturn

When I realised I was paying out treble the amount of my household bills and grocery every month in debts I realised it was stupid and decided to do my best to pay it all off. So I did :j

in*the*red_6

taplady wrote:

I wish I'd found this site a few years ago and things would be different now but better late than never!

Me too, forgot to mention finding this site was by far the biggest wake-up call in my OP oops!

:money:

dinkylou

It gradually crept up on me.

A friend sent me the moneytips email, then I started reading the site.

When I looked at my money, I realised how much I was overspending by every month.

I then realised a few months later that it wasnt enough just thinking 'ill pay it back next month, or when i get a payrise' I had to cut back on spending.

And now Im fighting back on my debt, rather than just living with it and carrying on as normal.

ozzyfan_2

like others no lightbulb moment but a slow gradual realisation that things could not carry on the way they were.

and doing a proper budget & finding out that over half my wages were going on debt repayments :eek:

then finding this site by accident gave me the push I needed to do something about it! thanks MSE :T

ffs

2000, when the market crashed, and I realised the share options that I had assumed would one day mature at a price enanling me to clear my debts, suddenly lost 70% of their value.

FrankieM

I've always been aware of our debt and felt the weight of it. My OH , though always thought that a certain amount of debt was normal until he realised that our total debt was more than his yearly salary :eek: