(deep breath) here goes.

Ohhohoho

OK i have been a subscriber to Martins email, and have occasionally glanced at these boards and then ran away again! Now i'm going to take the plunge and admit to my debts to see if it helps me.

Basically me and my partner have a 100k mortgage together and a 3 year old daughter!! Due to his redundancy and difficulty getting a job coinciding with my pregnancy and obvious lower (or non existent) income we began the spiral into debt in 2003, to the point we were paying some mortgage payments on our credit cards.

In November i couldn't cope any longer with the enormous credit card debts we had so took out an extra 20k mortgage to pay them off (taking mortgage from 80k - 100k). Since then i cannot believe that we have managed to get into even more debt and it really has to stop.

We keep our money seperate, just paying fairly proportioned amounts into a joint account to cover household bills. So i will leave my partners debts and income out of this for now.

I work partime and bring home about £810. I pay £400 into our joint account. £15 on mobile. £150 savings (to cover car maintenance).

I have a Mint credit card coming to the end of its 0% interest, balance is £1700. And another credit card at £1340. with first direct and as i write this i have realised its not 0% so already there something i can change!

I do have £1000 in savings which i am keeping to spend on a holiday in May - please don't tell me not to go as i've been saving since 2003 for it!!

So basically after paying the bills mentioned above from my current account i am left with £245, another £80 normally goes on my two credit card payments. Leaving me with £165 for petrol (average £50 p/mth), and bits and bobs as i need them, clothes etc Each month i try and plan what i will need and then put leftover onto my credit card. But to be honest, this may often only be an extra £20 or so.

I want to make it clear at this point that my partner, earns a fair bit more, and subsequently pays a lot more to the household bills, and he too has debts a bit higher than mine. So asking for his help is not an option and of course whichever one of us pays there debts of first will start helping the other one pay theirs off so ultimately - one day - we can enjoy a debt free life!

I just am at the end of my tether as i don't see how we will ever be debt free, we would like to have more children, we are only half way through redoing our house which we bought as a complete dump. Thankfully the most expensive jobs are done e.g heating, electrics and kitchen. But we still have bathroom and flooring to do!

I made a bit of money selling our old rubbish on ebay, but have exhausted my supplies. I would happily take on an evening or weekend job, but with my partner working shifts we don't have the childcare.

Oh please someone wave a magic wand!

By the way - i am sorry for the length of this post, and realise i'll be lucky if anyone gets as far as to be reading this, but it certainly has made me feel slightly better confessing all on the www!!

mrcow

Hi (and welcome!)


You know what...I think that it would be much easier for you to hatch a plan over this if you were to deal with the entire picture. ie,. Get your husbands debts and earnings into the frame too, and look at where your money is working for you (and where it's not!).

It certainly would help to know where the £400 per month on bills is going to look at where maybe money would be better directed.

Just an idea?

cheets99

This site is the first step to getting rid of your debt or atleast keeping an eye on it.

I have worked out all my incoming (income + ebaying) and outgoings, I created my own Execel spreadsheet. I work out everything i spend each month in excel and i know where all my money is going and it feels great to have control of your finances.

Also i think you need to work out you and your husbands out/income.

Ohhohoho

Thanks for the speedy reply!

I do know all his figures also, as i do all the organising. I just didn't want to bore people here with so much!

I'll start with the outgoings of our joint account. I pay in £400 he pays £900.

So we have £1300.

Mortgage payments - £692. (£30 of which is overpayment in an attempt to shorten it over 25 yrs, and in case we ever need payment break).
Water rates - £26
Gas and elec - £80 (had just moved to powergen before prices went up, so yet to know whether we could decrease that payment)
NTL, phone, tv and broadband - £75 need broadband for work, tv is a luxury. Frequently i try to shop around to get all 3 cheaper, but get so baffled each time i give up!
Food - £250
Tv licence - 10.54
House insurance - £35.34
Life assurance - £14 (covers mortgage if one of us dies).
Lottery - £5 - i just can't help that think that one day we will win!!

These are all monthly amounts, leaves £100 extra which has only been the case for four months since i reshuffled all our bills. So currently £400 is sitting there for a rainy day. I guess i should start by paying that off on debts?

After my partner has paid 900 into our joint account, his leftovers go on his travel to work, clothes and debts and he is often a couple hundred in his overdraft. He has two credit cards both on 0% interest.

Ohhohoho

D'you know? i just cannot get on with spreadsheets. I try and fail each time. I like my good old fashioned pencil and paper! Each month i sit down total all outgoings, try and estimate extra expenditure and then pay any additional off on debts, as i said though, this often isn't a lot!

Do you think i should give up on additional £30 mortgage payment? does that seem really pointless when we have such big debts?

Jarlawuk

Think the easiest thing to cut back on is the food and ntl/broadband package, £250 + £75 p/m is far too much. Also could you not consider going somewhere cheaper on holiday and then using any spare cash to pay off some debts?

Ohhohoho

I forget to say that the £250 feeds three of us for a month, and a cat, and buys all the nappies and houshold stuff. Does that make it seem any better?

I have been working hard towards this holiday, its not particularly expensive, will just be cheap package holiday abroad - the only and last one until the debts are all gone!

Can anyone recommend good phone and internet packages?

homersimpson_3

first of you have no need to apologise for length and i am honestly not having a go.
1) if you have to go on holiday why can't you go on a cheap one in uk- e.g. one for £10 etc in the sun newspaper? if you have to go abroad there is a hotel chain in uk and abroad called formule 1. i recently went to liverpool for a meeting and virtually all hotels were booked because england were playing uruguay. the hotel charged £29.95 per room and 3 people could sleep in it - it had a double bed and over the double bed there was a single bed with a ladder to get to it. it had a wash hand basin, a tv (no sky), an alarm clock, hand towels, a desk, a chair, a bin and no toiletries (soap, shampoo etc). you had to share toilets and showers. reception provided bath towels on request. breakfast cost £2.50 and consisted of toast, cereal, orange juice, coffee, tea & hot chocolate etc. you could have as much as you wanted.
this place was very cheap and cheerful- it claimed to be spotlessly clean- the towels are bedding were fine but the carpet in the room i stayed had marks on it and the reception floor needed a good mop. when you walk into the shower the door closes behind you. agreement says if not spotlessly clean you can have your money back!. the sink in room was spotless. the room itself was like a student digs at a halls of residence at unversity- does that make sense????
2) gas and electricity bills are way too high

3)

I forget to say that the £250 feeds three of us for a month, and a cat, and buys all the nappies and houshold stuff. Does that make it seem any better?

in a word no- way too high.

4) get rid of sky and get freeview.

Ohhohoho

Hi thanks for that. I know gas and elec are too high, but i signed up recently online with powergen and that was the minimum dd they would take until they had readings to make my monthly payment accurate. I think i will submit a meter reading to them now to see if it can be lowered.

Holiday - you talk so much sense, and i know things can be done an awful lot cheaper, but i am unable to see the sense we have had three terrible years and its our treat to ourselves and our daughter.

Food - i am going to keep a daily of all my expenditures to work out where my money goes, and then i shall fight to keep this down. I thought i was doing a good job already, shopping in cheap supermarkets and making two meals out of one iykwim! But if you wise people tell me its too much i jolly well intend to get it down!

Yes i know tv should go, i just have to win the ongoing debate with my partner about it!

Thanks ever so much. I feel so much more positive talking about this with people who understand!

magentadreamer

Regarding good phone/net packages ring NTL up if you're out of the 12 month contract period and see what deals they have for existing customers -if nothing ask to be disconnected and you'll find they do have some offers. Make sure you know where you can get a cheaper package from to quote at them. I got half price broadband and free calls using this method -others have done better. Also ditch any frills with the package. That will save you as well.

£250 - Food/household - how much of this is for nappies? Look at the bit you spend on food and see if you can cut back on that by shopping at discount stores like Aldi and Lidl. I do an online Tesco shop to buy the tinned non perishables then top up at Lidl for veg/fruit/dairy stuff -saved myself loads.

Overpaying the mortgage - I'd suggest over paying a credit card -the one with the biggest apr once that's done put that money to the next biggest apr and so on.

£150 car maintaince - I'd stop this or at least reduce it and throw that at debts again using the snowball principle.How much have you got saved so far as if it's a fair bit you could just stop it.

The rainy day money - is it in a current account that pays a decent interest rate? If not get it shifted some where it can. I like the idea of having a little bit of rainy day money and I'd say save it but perhaps add it into the car maintaince fund.

Your bits and bob's - I loved bits and bobs money - I used to justify loads of stuff with my bits and bob's money. Start a little diary and see what you do actually spend it on -you'll be amazed. I'm not say you can't spend money - I still have a splurge - but it's one splurge a month now.

Holiday - have a wonderful time! I found this site by accident after I booked a holiday for me and DD and wanted to find a 0% card. My holiday actually saved me money in a way as I started to read and read and then went on an econonmy drive by changing utilities etc and looking at what I spent my money on now the extra goes into my savings account for my spending money and I won't come off hoilday thinging how do I repay that!

magentadreamer

Forgot to add this is the link to the snowball calculator: http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx