A wedding & 15k worth of debt - Aiming for a Debt Free Married life!

spykey_uk

Forgive me DRWers for I have sinned, it has been seven days since my last confession... :rotfl:

Sorry its been a while since I updated, my OH is organising his best friend's stag do for this weekend and its been a manic week doing everything that he left to the last minute!

I am ashamed to say that things have gone a little quite on the debt-reduction front (which is another reason for the delay in replying - its a bit embarrassing to say "still done nothing"). I've not had too much luck on the ebay sales, and haven't really had time to hunt around for anything else. I've also calculated that I only have a few pounds to last me until pay day (28th) so there's no chance of me making a PAD for a while.

Soooo...instead I will have to think about hunting around the house tonight and see if there's anything else I could sell. I was considering selling my camera actually, as OH has one which we use most of the time, but if there's ever a day when we need two for any reason then I'd regret it.

I'm about halfway through knitting my blanket and its looking really good. I'm so proud of myself. OH is so impressed he now wants a scarf for winter as well! Hopefully we can try and reduce the gas bill this winter, as last year we were a bit quick to flick the heating on! :rotfl:

We're off to the cinema for free tonight with our seefilmfirst tickets, and I'm quite excited about that. Talk about moneysaving! Now I will have to resist the popcorn, but I shall do my best!

Will try and update again tomorrow! x

yukkibear

My debt busting has been quiet too, we can't keep it up all the time. Enjoy the cinema tonight.

spykey_uk

The cinema was great last night, I just walked up and showed them my seefilmfirst print out, and they let us in - 2 adults for one film completely free! :j The film was pretty good as well, so that was a bonus!

I also telephoned Natwest today to discuss the recent charge they have made and to "ask them nicely" to refund it. I have had a lot of problems with their branches lately and have had to complain several times, so thought that it might be a nice good will gesture! :rolleyes:

Apparently they don't do goodwill gestures though, and are refusing to refund the charge. I got quite annoyed after I hung up, because I have been with them for 13 years, and have had endless problems after problems with them. So I logged onto my online banking, and noticed that they now have a facility for downloading your past 7 years bank statements...so I did. And I totted up £786.01 of bank charges over the past six years. I ummed and ahhhed, and then decided that sod it, I am going to write to them and issue a claim for them. A lot of other people are doing it at the moment, and worst case scenario I don't get the charges back. Think it might be worth a try anyway.

Other than that, things are a wee bit quiet. Listed a few more things on ebay last night, and am going to do another hunt around tonight for some more bits. Must increase my debt-paying! :rotfl: x

Flower08

spykey_uk wrote: »

Apparently they don't do goodwill gestures though,

A load of rubbish, they just make their rules up as they go along!!! They gave me a [STRIKE]gesture of goodwill[/STRIKE] bribary to try and get me to stay with them after we had repeated problems with them. I would definatly try and claim back your charges, i think sometimes these banks need to know just how annoyed you are with them before they will take you seriously or admit any fault.
I hope you do get your charges back! I have found with natwest is that they tend to ignore my complaints, which just makes me even angrier so i keep writing til they reply - i think they get fed up of me and just refund things to shut me up.
Although thankfully i havent had to contact them for over a year - touch wood!

Lemon_Tree

hi i've never had a good experience with snot west, even had an argument with them as a student when they wouldnt' give me £5 over the counter (only had about £7 or so in the account with no overdraft) but they wanted me to withdraw £10 via the cash point! i stormed to another bank that day. why don't i have the courage to do stuff like that these days?

spykey_uk

They are a complete nightmare, I've never had proper customer service from them in my 13 years of being with them. I sent them a complaint letter about the service I had received at the branch, and the two charges I was given, and got a standard letter bank saying "thank you for your feedback, we do try to always provide our customers with the highest level of service...blah blah blah...and no we won't refund the charges, we hope this sufficiently deals with your complaint"! :mad:

Basically it didn't deal with the complaint at all, so I wrote back and said that it didn't deal with my complaint but there is little point pursuing it as I am sick of the service (or lack of) that I receive at Natwest and am moving banks. They then wrote to me asking me to ring them yesterday, so I did at lunchtime (an 0845 number - should have looked up the local number on saynoto0870 but I was at work) and they thanked me for my letter and said that they wouldn't be refunding the charges. So I said to her that they have written to me asking them to pay to ring them, just for them to tell me what I already know?! She seemed a bit flustered when I said that.

My OH has had the same problems with them, we always laugh at their adverts, "there is another way" - yes, another bank!:rotfl:

Anyway, not much else going on in my debt-free challenge, listed a few more bits on ebay last night. I'm mainly getting ready for a weekend at my mum and dad's (as OH is at the stag do from Friday to Sunday). They've got a tiny puppy so I can't wait to play with it all weekend, plus I'm puppy sitting on Saturday. Also it will be a nice cheap weekend for me, being fed and looked after by mum and dad! xxx

spykey_uk

I've also re-done my SOA:-

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1278
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0 OH does work but have left him off this as I'm trying to concentrate on my own debts for now (I have asked him to give me figures for his debt so that we can combine but he's one of those "I'll do it later" type blokes!) :rotfl:
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1278
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 500 (I pay this into the joint account which covers all bills, rent, sky tv, phone, internet, council tax etc - OH puts a bit more in than me but he earns more)
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0
Electricity............................. 0 Inc in above figure but think is 28
Gas..................................... 0 Inc in above figure but is 38
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0 Inc in above figure but we pay around £80 every 3 mths
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 35 (tied in unfortunately, but does given me unlimited minutes and unlimited texts and free internet access from phone)
TV Licence.............................. 0 OH pays
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0 Inc in above figure but around £45 a month (a lot I know, OH is cancelling sports - we rarely go out though and can't get terrestrial/virgin/freeview where we live so we're tied to sky really)
Internet Services....................... 0 Inc in Sky figure
Groceries etc. ......................... 50 Half our bill per month
Clothing................................ 0 I really don't buy any new clothes - I'm still wearing the same stuff I was three years ago, it sucks!
Petrol/diesel........................... 0 OH uses my car most of the time so he pays
Road tax................................ 0 As above
Car Insurance........................... 35
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0 As above
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 11 Pre-paid prescriptions
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 0 Paid as a one-off in November
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 10
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 50 Estimate
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Wedding Fund............................ 150 (Need to pay this in every month in order to meet our liabilities for the wedding this time next year)
Lovefilm Subscription................... 11
Total monthly expenses.................. 862

Assets
Cash.................................... 6000
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 8000

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Natwest Overdraft..............500.......0.........26.8
Halifax CC.....................700.......5.........0
Abbey CC.......................2800......5.........0
Natwest Loan...................3100......160.......8
Total unsecured debts..........7100......170.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,278
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 862
Available for debt repayments........... 416 I literally don't have a scooby doo where this goes, I normally have around £100 left after payday. I think some is gobbled up by my overdraft from where I overspent the previous month :rotfl:Think my loan payment also comes out of this so that's minus £160 as well
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 170
Amount left after debt repayments....... 246
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 8,000 I appreciate this looks like I'm loaded but this is the wedding fund and I CANNOT spend this on debts. It also includes my car which we need as we live far away from our family (we walk to work so petrol is minimal)).
Total HP & Secured debt................. -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -7,100
Net Assets.............................. 900
Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.

Lemon_Tree

hi sounds to me like you need to start a spending diary to find out where your 'excess' is going to. It always makes you stop and think before you buy anything but it's a real eye opener and may give you guidence where to start the attack

robin_banks

Use your cash to pay off your debts. You may have to dela getting married.

Sounds harsh but you have to be realisitic.

spykey_uk

robin_banks wrote: »

Use your cash to pay off your debts. You may have to dela getting married.

Sounds harsh but you have to be realisitic.

I'm afraid we can't, its all booked up so we'd have to pay out a lot of money anyway if we cancelled. Besides, some of that money (approx £3k) was given to us by my parents for the wedding.

I will keep a spending diary though, see if I can track down where those extra pounds are going every month! x