Pleased to meet you!

RiffRaff

Hi everyone,

Firstly I want to say that I've been lurking for a while and like a lot of new posters I'm incredibly impressed with how supportive everyone is! This post is going to be really rambling, so feel free to ignore - just going to be good to get it off my chest!

Anyway, I've been trying to deal with various debts for a while, like many people I took out a personal loan (Nationwide) to pull together various credit card debts - only to realise that I was still getting into debt and couldn't work out why. It took a post-Christmas panic to give me my lightbulb moment - I sat down and worked out my approximate outgoings against my income and realised I was overspending quite severely.

This came as a shock as I don't live that extravagantly - most of my money was going on transport, mortgage, bills, council tax etc. I worked out that I had about £50 per week to live on.

So for January and Feb I tried to cut back my outgoings, and then found the Money Diet book in my local bookshop. Read it from cover to cover in about two days and carried out the budget plan, which is much more thorough than my previous attempt at budgeting - and realised I'm still spending more than I'm earning!

I think the really scary moment came when I totalled up my debts - they were an awful lot more than I thought they were!

£8500 Nationwide Personal Loan (6.1% I think)
£5400 Family loan to buy a house (interest free forever!)
£2000 Egg Green Card (£1000 at 15.9%, £1000 at 0% til June)
£950 Overdraft (14.8%)
£750 HSBC Online Card (14.9% - which is a rip off as it started at 9% a year ago!)
£400 Nationwide Credit Card (0% until June 2006)
£100 HSBC Standard Credit Card (14.9%)

Grand total: £18,100 :eek:

Plus Student loan £10k approx (but I'm currently concentrating on debt that comes off the salary paid into my bank - will worry about this later!)

Oh yes, and the mortgage - standing at £125000 or so between me and OH.

I'm trying to be good... now have an Egg Money card and my spending money is going to that, to avoid temptation to dip into other money. Recently opened a Nationwide Current Account, but not decided yet whether to transfer my overdraft over or not.

So anyway, that's me. Think my first step will be to transfer as much debt as poss to my new Nationwide Credit Card... and then stop spending.

Just wanted to say hello as I'll be around from now on. If anyone has any advice on what to do with all of the above then let me know!

in*the*red_6

Hi RiffRaff, welcome and nice to meet you too!

charlotte46

Hi

I'm sure that after reading the book you will be trying to get more 0% deals. However my advice to you is to keep checking these boards as all the advice is great.

You've listed all of your debt but if you list all your outgoings people will be able to tell where you are spending too much.

Keep on with it and I'm sure you will get there just like all the others on here.

RiffRaff

Thanks both,

Will post details of incomings and outgoings on here after work this evening.

southernscouser

Hi RR and welcome to MSE!

If you want to post a SOA have a look at this thread for a guide!

James240

hiya RR :hello:

D&DD

Hi Riffraff welcome to the DFW board there are some really great posters on here who will be able to help you and take a look at moozie's thread 'too scared to work out what I owe' too as its got some fantastic hints on there to work your way through

Bestthingsinlifearefree

HI RR !!

Welcome to MSE, don't be shy, bring on that SOA (statement of Affairs) and I am sure every one will give you their best advice.