I'm really ashamed......

Sue-UU

Hi Em and a warm welcome to MSE!

I agree with Cydney, it's far better to fess up and be honest about it all to your finance, if he finds out further down the line it will be awful for you both. You've got some good advice and ways of dealing with a lot of your debt, good wages too.

Why not sit down together and tell him you've had a problem with money BUT have solutions for most of your debt. Then show him this thread if you like or put it down on paper. Whatever you do don't present him with the shock and nothing more! He'll be far more respectful of you for being honest now than wondering where all your money's going later and THEN you have to fess up!

Apart from 1 credit card I'd cut up the rest or you'll have too much temptation there. All the very best of luck to you for your debt and for your wedding! Have a great debt-free life asap!

Sue

tealady

Hi Emelia. No I refuse to give you a slap on the wrist, I'm just going to say "Welcome" to both MSE and the grown up world (the one where we all make mistakes and try to solve them ourselves).
Cograts on your LBM and forthcoming wedding, I agree with Sue about fessing up, at least then you won't have to add lie to lie to hide the problem.
Now then go and cut up ALL your cards (or freeze one for emergencies) and try to live on what you have, it will help bring that debt free date nearer more quickly.
Good luck.

emilia_2

Thanks everyone.......!!!!!

I know I know I need to confess to everything but its like Cydney says about the disappointed feeling. When I told him it was £5000 he was shocked and I could tell disappointed. I could have coped with angry.....but DISAPPOINTED!!.....oh god it felt awful. I'm having visions of the wedding day when the vicar asks if there's any lawful reason why we shouldn't be married and someone will burst through the door and shout "don't do it - she's rubbish with money.....!

So I had a nearly NSD - loving the lingo by the way. Although I nearly choked at the checkout today buying a can of soup 84p and at Lidl supermarket too. I nearly left it but I was late for work and had to rush. I'm going to try my hardest to bring my own lunch every day from now on.

So SOA. I haven't copied and pasted an official one but you'll get the idea

Income after tax, pension student loan etc £1630
Outgoings

Mortgage £350
Council tax £45
Gas £23 (I'm sure I'm getting fleeced with this - atlantic elec and gas)
Electricity £19
Water £10
Tv license £36 (quarterly I think)
Car insurance £45 (tried to get it cheaper but failed as I was involved in an accident 2 years ago and have points for speeding.... naughty)
HSBC Loan pay off £160 per month balance of £5600
Gym £33 ( I know I know but I go to 3 classes a week and have friends there etc etc...I'm trying to justify it)
Hair £48 (again I know but I tried getting this done at a cheap salon and then a local college and I nearly ended up with no hair. I get it dyed a bright blonde colour you see)
Food £120 (yes just me ridiculous - it's all influence from my partner I will explain further)
Entertainment £80
Petrol £60 (need car for work)
Clothes £40
Wedding fund £200 ( I have to save this as partner is paying for nearly everything....)

Total spend £1229
Surplus £401

Based on these calculations I can see why I've been respending on my credit card. I've been paying off around £300 per month but then keep spending on them when I get a bit low on cash later on in the month. I can see I basically need to cut down on stuff like ridiculous food bills and entertainment

I'll explain why food is ridiculously high. My partner earns pretty good money and loves cooking eating out etc. So we share food bill but he always buys "Tesco the finest" or stuff from independent food stores or M&S (which is fine for him because he isn't £13,000 in debt!...) I'm not as flash as that but what I've been doing is going to the supermarket every other day like he does instead of planning meals......and I always end up spending over a tenner on nothing.

Oh crikey and I wonder why I'm in debt!!!!

Fire_Fox

So you are spending £1450 a year plus toiletries on personal grooming, and another £1000 a year on entertainment! Rather than justify continuing to spend as you are set a more reasonable budget, allocate it as you see fit and stick to it. This will mean you will have to give up something, it's your personal preference which. Have you ever tried dying your own hair? How far away from your natural do you go? Could you have streaks instead of a full colour, and go every eight weeks instead of monthly?

Your gas and electric are high, probably down to usage patterns as well as tariff costs. Do you really really need to drive - could you car share or cycle or use public transport? You haven't budgeted for road tax or MOT or repairs to your car, these must be allocated monthly or they will blow your budget. The food is not excessive, should be more like £100.

I find it helpful to think of all my spending as costing X% more than the basic price, the X being the interest rate of your most expensive borrowing. Equally savings are worth X% less. Is your fiancee expecting you to stump up for the wedding or is this your personal guilt trip? If the latter you are better off throwing all your spare cash at your debts, so you can start married life on an even keel financially.

emilia_2

Yes I know the hair is excessive. I haven't tried doing my own hair and wouldn't risk it as I go about 10 shades different than my normal hair colour. I've tried doing it cheaper at both a local college and a cheaper salon which resulted in snapped hair! I could go less often though - that's a good idea.

My car I need for my job as I drive around a lot to appointments so can't do a lot about this. I haven't budgeted for car repairs etc which is why a hefty bill was recently put on a credit card. Argghhh! My fiance has agreed that if I cut up the cards he will put any emergency repairs etc on his card if and when we need to in the future.

The wedding saving is my guilt trip and I feel I want to save this. If I do this the right way I can do both, save for the wedding as well as paying off quite a good chunk of the debt.

I've also decided to keep a spending diary

Today £20 on petrol
£15 wedding dress protective cover. I trawled the shops today looking for them and only managed to find 1 shop which sold them. £15 seemed too much in my opinion :mad:

I'm going to a party tomorrow night so I'm going to try and spend as little as possible. They aren't my friends and when I suggested to fiance "do we have to go" he got all huffy. I'm considering either not drinking or doing the sneaky bring your own drink trick. Which could result in me getting chucked out as it's in this posh bar.

Debt this month after payments go out [STRIKE]£6,600[/STRIKE] £6,300 on credit cards [STRIKE]£5600[/STRIKE] £5440
It feels really good to not have spent on any cards in 3 whole weeks. I don't think I've done that in years.

Heres' to a cheap but fun weekend xxxEm xxx

TurnaroundSue

emilia wrote: »

Yes I know the hair is excessive. I haven't tried doing my own hair and wouldn't risk it as I go about 10 shades different than my normal hair colour. I've tried doing it cheaper at both a local college and a cheaper salon which resulted in snapped hair! I could go less often though - that's a good idea.

My car I need for my job as I drive around a lot to appointments so can't do a lot about this. I haven't budgeted for car repairs etc which is why a hefty bill was recently put on a credit card. Argghhh! My fiance has agreed that if I cut up the cards he will put any emergency repairs etc on his card if and when we need to in the future.

The wedding saving is my guilt trip and I feel I want to save this. If I do this the right way I can do both, save for the wedding as well as paying off quite a good chunk of the debt.

I've also decided to keep a spending diary

Today £20 on petrol
£15 wedding dress protective cover. I trawled the shops today looking for them and only managed to find 1 shop which sold them. £15 seemed too much in my opinion :mad:

I'm going to a party tomorrow night so I'm going to try and spend as little as possible. They aren't my friends and when I suggested to fiance "do we have to go" he got all huffy. I'm considering either not drinking or doing the sneaky bring your own drink trick. Which could result in me getting chucked out as it's in this posh bar.

Debt this month after payments go out [strike]£6,600[/strike] £6,300 on credit cards [strike]£5600[/strike] £5440
It feels really good to not have spent on any cards in 3 whole weeks. I don't think I've done that in years.

Heres' to a cheap but fun weekend xxxEm xxx

Hi Em - surely your wedding dress would come with a protective cover anyway? Why would you need to buy one?

When I go out with my friends, one of us wear a happy birthday badge and then put the bottles in a gift bag. We buy the first drink and then take to the loos and top up there. Hope nobody is watching who works/owns a night club/bar:eek:

Primula

Hi Em
Good luck on your journey. I don’t have debt to pay off but over the past 6 or 9 months, I have saved loads of money just by using tips from here, e.g changing insurance etc when renewals come up. I also signed up to Quidco.:T
I noticed you have £40 per month down for clothing – in a year that’s £480 which you could put towards your debt. I also spent a lot of money on clothes, which I didn’t really need, sometimes I never even wore them or wore them once, but I just couldn’t resist the bargain! I signed up for the Crazy £100 clothes challenge and I cannot believe it, but I am actually enjoying it, and believe me I just love shopping and buying clothes. Have a wee look at it. I put £2 per week away in a jar and that’s all I plan to spend on clothing for 2009, of my own money – gifts do not count.
Re your hair, I also get mine done once a month and know where you coming from there. Do you always go to the same hairdresser? If so, and if you know them well, an idea would be to mention you are struggling financially getting it done once a month (with the recession – no need to go into detail) and will have to cut down, unless they fancy doing a wee homer for you? They might be quite happy to come to your house and do it say for £30 cash in hand – you should ask and see – if you don’t ask you don’t get!
Re your food, why not speak to your partner about taking turns cooking and you could each pay for what you make. You could get over to the oldstyle board and make some lovely cheap meals which he would never even know were not from Tesco finest range? He know about some of your debt so would probably be proud you trying to cut down anyway.
And turnaroundsue, I love your idea re the birthday badge/bottles. Great idea! :rotfl:
Good luck Em. I’m going to subscribe and keep up to date with your progress.
P
x

Head-Out-Of-Sand

Hi Emilia, welcome to the board!!! Well done on your LBM - always a bit of a _pale_ moment, but that's done now and you're dealing with your debts head on!! :T

I definitely agree with cutting down on new clothes/toiletries - do an audit of what you've got and see what you can ressurect/finish up before buying new stuff. Set yourself a strict, smaller limit and stick to it. Every time you're tempted to buy something, put it down & think whether you want it more than you want to be debt free. I understand not wanting to give up on the hair stuff or gym, especially if you use it (my gym is a strange place I give money to once a month that I can only assume still actually exists...) but you could do with cutting down on some stuff on your SOA and this one could be one of the easier ones.

Also, your food budget is a really easy one to reduce - my food bill was horrendous, far, far worse than yours!! And most of it was down to lack of planning and brand hypnotism. I'm now a total convert to Aldi, Smartprice and most importantly, cooking from scratch. It makes such a different, my food bill is now around 15% of what it was before!! And I'm eating much nicer, healthier food!! This board really is great, & definitely get yourself over to the Old Style board for some thrifty and tasty recipes!!

Lastly, have a look at where you can make a bit more money to throw at the debts. Join Quidco (I've made £130 from pretty much nothing in two months!), think about doing some mystery shopping, and have a rummage through your stuff to see if there's anything you don't need that you can ebay. It really adds up and it's all money you can use to chip away at the debts.

Best of luck, and congratulations on your wedding! Stay determined and you WILL do this, although your debts seem overwhelming, if you're paying off at least £300 they'll come down nicely. Make sure you congratulate yourself for every little bit you pay off, because every payment you make is a big deal - you're committing yourself to getting rid of your reliance on credit and changing your life for the better. Set a first milestone for your payments, e.g . first £1000 paid off. Then do a little dance when you make it!! :j (I have been doing some debt-free wannabe dancing. Not graceful, but fun!)

TurnaroundSue wrote: »

When I go out with my friends, one of us wear a happy birthday badge and then put the bottles in a gift bag. We buy the first drink and then take to the loos and top up there. Hope nobody is watching who works/owns a night club/bar:eek:

LOVE THIS!!! Genius!!! :rotfl:

ragstoricheswannabe

hiya, if i go out to somewhere and i dont know many people, i drink something like vodka, blackcurrant and lemonade or white wine and lemonade as no one actaully knows if the vodka/wine is missing!!!!!!! and saves me doing the drink really fast as not chatting and getting blinding drunk......

Head-Out-Of-Sand

ragstoricheswannabe wrote: »

and saves me doing the drink really fast as not chatting and getting blinding drunk......

Hmmm...for some reason that sentence seems to be disturbingly relevant to me...;)

Good tip