finally decided to confront my debt

Markyboy212

posted wrote: »

Find out the apr's of the overdraft and credit card from website/statement, so you know the order to deal with them. Paying a pound off them will save you interest, so saving to pay them off in one go, will cost you more money.

ah rite so in theory paying less is more kinda thing ? or am i just barking up the tottally wrong tree

Markyboy212

Penny2myName wrote: »

Sounds like that could be a good start, and a good exercise in learning what your essentials are, and not being cluttered up with 'stuff'. Once you are fully organised in that area, you may feel better about becoming organised in other areas such as finances.

Definately see what your meaning see what my main problem is detailing and valeting are two different area's for me i have a lot of valeting stuff but that all comes in bulk but my detailing stuff alone total's up to more than a grand alone atleast that but ive never sat and worked it out as it scared me to find out how much is theyre

kimdegsidash

Firstly congrats on baby due Marky. It will change your life more than the debts, believe me!!!!!

It sounds like you have the love of a good woman behind you - what a great feeling eh? Also, I second what Turnaroundsue says, you have loadsa time to make things right and have totally done the right thing.

Wishing you well on your journey to debtfreedom. Glad you are looking at ways to up your income and decrease your outgoings. It's like losing weight - everyone knows the only real way to lose weight is to eat less and exercise more. Losing the debt is exactly the same - spend less and pay off more.

Right, just bored myself with the rhetoric. So, wishing you well, and please please please do join Freecycle (swallow your pride) as you will get loads of good (hardly used) baby stuff on there - believe me I know.

LydiaJ

Markyboy212 wrote: »

ah rite so in theory paying less is more kinda thing ? or am i just barking up the tottally wrong tree

It's not about paying LESS, it's about paying SOON. Every day of delay increases your debt, as interest gets added to it.

As soon as you have some money that you can put towards your debts, immediately put it towards the debt with the highest interest rate. Only make the minimum payments to the other debts. Then when you have cleared the highest interest debt, start on the next highest interest debt, and so on until they are are all cleared.

mum2one

Congratulations on the baby, and well done for faceing up to your debst, what ever you are (trust me i'm 37), its a lot easier to bury your head in the sand then face up to reality, I've done that more times than I care to count, b ut in all honestly without this site I woulsnt be faceing my debts.

I know you most proberly want to get married, but the way I see it, why rush into the wedding on a budget, and not have what you want, and spend money on other things.

the 1st thing you need to do is a proper soa, income, outgoings, there is a link on the site "houseofcards", or something similar, but someone will know better than me, also look at ur overdraft, credit cards etc, and get the apr rates, be on your statement. Another link snowball - you put in the amount you can afford to pay, then the amount owed, the aprs, and whether u want the highest apr paid 1st (quicker) or the smallest debt (longer).

Re the baby, a lot of people will give you things, buy gifts, babies dont need much. I would look at ebay, freecycle, see what family etc offer to buy. You dont need the £500 top of range Mothercare pram, (although it may be very nice), when you can get a new travel system from Argos for £130 or so.

Sign up to every baby club you can, pampers, huggies, toyrus, tesco, boots, sainsburys ?, they send out free samples, money off coupons, also when ur gf sees the midwife, think they give u the Bounty voucher, (from memory dd 6), and this has things that are useful.

I know that the goverment are changeing the baby vouchers, think all pregnant women get a grant from April this yr, but have a look on DirectGov website, that will have more info.

Re ur valeting business, look at what items you need, dont need, and the ones you dont try and sell now.

Once youve got ur finances sorted out with figures your feel a lot better, also get a notepad and keep a spending diary for a couple of weeks, then ur soon see where the money goes, whether its 60p on bar of choc while at petrol station, £3 on a magazine, look at cutting back what you can now then it will feel like 2nd nature.

xx

Markyboy212

LydiaJ wrote: »

It's not about paying LESS, it's about paying SOON. Every day of delay increases your debt, as interest gets added to it.

As soon as you have some money that you can put towards your debts, put it towards the highest interest debt straight away. Only make the minimum payments to the other debts. Then when you have cleared the highest interest debt, start on the next highest interest debt, and so on until they are are all cleared.

Ah ok thanks for clearing that up i have money coming this friday so that will be paid to the credit card as i know for start's thats the highest apr rating as according to capital one site my card has a 34 % apr :S

posted_2

Every day you owe money on the overdraft or credit card, you accrue interest, so if you have £100 in your pocket, it would save you money by putting that in the bank account, or paying a bit off the credit card, and then drawing it out when you need it.

To work out which order to pay them off in, you need the apr's. You also need to make sure you pay off at least the min payment on the credit card, and don't exceed the overdraft, but after that, throw every penny at the highest apr first.

mum2one

Long shot but have you got / had any bank charges, I know all claiming is on hold, but may be worth getting in the queue.

Also look at increasing ur money, try Quidco, Mutualpoints etc x

posted_2

Similarly, baby clothes. prams etc, buy at the last minute, not 8 months in advance.

TurnaroundSue

Markyboy212 wrote: »

as it stands i have a lot of stock in van i have very rarely touched for month's as ive now found products i like to use and work for me so i think it could be a clearout in the van get rid of some stuff that i dont need no more! as theyres a damn lot in theyre :rotfl:

Is it possible that you could use that stuff up rather than selling it. I am only asking this as obviously you will not get what you paid for it in the first place and in the meantime you will be spending monies on more supplies. I know it might not be ideal and it might not be as good as other stuff you have found in the meantime, but if you could just use it up and persevere with using this stuff up then in the long run it would save you a stack of money.

To snowball go to www.whatsthecost.com and put in all your debts - it will show you the correct order in which to pay them off and give you a debt free date. With this date (DFD) this will help focus you to try and bring the date forward and put every spare penny you have into reducing your debt quicker.

Re the two businesses - do you keep them separate or are they all bulked in together? If so, I think it would be easier to budget and see what is the most profitable if you kept each one completely separate from the other, i.e., 2 separate bank accounts, 2 separate lots of books etc. This will help you see the bigger picture and it might also show that actually one is costing you money (maybe even making a loss) to the detriment of the other. If that is the case,then maybe it might be good to focus on the more profitable business and forego the other. Just a thought, but hopefully will help you see your businesses in a different light.

You are doing really well, so keep posting and ask any questions you want - no matter how trivial you may think they are - there is such a wealth of knowledge on this site that there will always be someone who has the answer to any question you have - no matter how small/silly you may think it is.