Buddiebabe's SOA / Debt Diary

Snaggles

Sainsburys have popcorn on 2 for 1.....problem solved!

buddiebabe

Hi

Well its been ages since i've last updated and things aren't looking too good. Its been a real struggle this month to find just the minimum monthly payments let alone try and meet my £800 target... its just not been possible. Its the 1st July 2moro and as im working all day and seeing the boyfriend 2moro nite im not going to be able to update so here is the worst of it:

OVERDRAFTS:

ALLIANCE & LEICESTER £-244.85 now £-235.33 (paid £9.52)
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND £-950.00 now £-950.00

TOTAL OVERDRAFTS OUTSTANDING: £-1194.85 now £-1185.33 :j (total paid £9.52) :j

CREDIT CARDS:

BARCLAYCARD £4962.09 now £4924.50
DEBENHAMS £1810.00 now £2262.19 (increased as had to use to withdraw money to pay minimum payments and also to pay for new exhaust for car :mad: )
DOROTHY PERKINS £55.00
MBNA £4546.41 now £4546.66
MORGAN STANLEY £1960.00 now £1947.79
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND £9708.00 now £9647.39
SKY £1920.26 now £1904.60
TESCO £2280.00 now £2245.18

TOTAL CREDIT CARDS OUTSTANDING: £27186.76 now £27533.31 (increased by £346.55 :mad: )

TOTAL AMOUNT OUTSTANDING £28381.61 now £28718.64 (increased by £337.03 :mad: ) all because of my stupid car and not having enough to pay my minimum payments on my cards

SAVINGS:

DUNFERMLINE £141.00 now £161.00 (this is for my house, tv licence, insurance etc)
HALIFAX £40.00 now £61.02 (this is for my car, road tax, insurance, service, MOT etc)
WORK ACCOUNT £125.57 now £100.57 (savings for xmas £25 comes out of wages every month for this. It will pay for food, xmas nite out, an outfit and birthday / xmas presents)
Other works account £60.15 now £20.65 (this is used for postage for ebay)

TOTAL SAVINGS £366.72 now £343.24 used £23.48

Thats the worst of it. My exhaust fell off my car so i had to use my Debenhams card to pay for it and i also had to use this for taking money out to pay my minimum payments on two of my cards :mad: it just feels like an uphill struggle and im slowly falling down the hill.

I didn't manage to meet my £800 target only managed £690.02 and that was paying the minimum payments and no more and i had to use my debenhams card to get the money to pay two of them.

I haven't managed to put away the £20 for my car account or the £10 for my house account for the last 2 weeks so am going to need to try and start that again from this week (my road tax is due on the 31st and i'd rather pay for a full year but am not going to have enough to cover this in my car account) should i use some of my house account money to cover it or just pay for 6 months????

I've arranged an appointment with debt advice through my work to see if there is anything they can do to help me or give me any better advice on how to manage my debt. Not sure if they will be able to do anything but will just need to wait and see. The appointment is on Tuesday so i will try and update afterwards to get all your advice on what they suggest.

Things are going well with the boyfriend its been just over a month and its good to have someone to spend some time with and just do normal things like watching tv.

Anyway im going to try and get some house work done i've not been keeping up to date with that either

Will set a target for July at £800 and see how i get on

:rolleyes: JULY TARGET £800.00 money put aside £308.66 still to find £491.34 :rolleyes:

Will try and update again soon (hopefully it may motivate me to get back on track)

Buddiebabe x

Seaxwyn

Hi buddiebabe

Good to see your post, I've missed you.

Bad news about the debt though, and good idea to see the work's debt adviser. Do tell us what they say. I think if anyone was a candidate for freezing interest it must be you - you have struggled heroically to pay off these debts, working two jobs etc etc. The total is not going down very fast so it would be good to look at another strategy.

Glad things are going well with the bf and have something positive to think about as well as bl**ming debts.

buddiebabe

Hey Seaxwyn

I know its ages since i've been on and i've missed out on so much but have been spending time doing other things apart from worrying about money.

I know the debts not going down as quickly as it should be but to be honest im not as worried about it as i used to be. Its not the be all and end all of everything. I am going to seriously look into the debt management plan idea as it would give me some money to spend on myself each month which would give me a bit of a life again even if it does take me 10 or 20 years to pay it off. I could start enjoying life.

Will wait and see what debt advice suggest and then let you know so you can give me some advice on it.... the part about freezing the interest would really help cause my MBNA account the minimum payment on that last month was less than the interest charged so my payment wasn't even enough to cover the interest :mad:

Hope things are going well with you. Sorry i've not had time to catch up on your thread lately... i am going to make some time at some point soon honest!!!

Buddiebabe x

Seaxwyn

You're so right, money is not the be all and end all, sometimes we need reminding of that.

Don't worry about reading my thread but have a quick look at my signature - I managed to pay off a big chunk this month and am really chuffed. My OH is working regularly now and paying for the groceries and the odd other thing so life is much easier I'm glad to say. Still got a mahoosive amount to pay though so hope I don't sound complacent!

Make sure to pop in now and then to update us and fingers crossed you can get a DMP sorted out so you can live a little while continuing to pay off your debts.

EagerLearner

Hi BB - just dropping in to read the latest - so great to see you having a but more fun and yet still managing to pay debts and stay on track. New boyfriend sounds great and glad you're spending quality time together and able to enjoy eachothers company rather than focus on the debt all the time. I am sure the debt advice will help some, maybe a tidbit of info you didn't know before and maybe some useful numbers for you to call etc. I hope it doesn't take you 20 years to pay off the debt, hopefully less time but that you are still able to enjoy life. Are you doing any of the cashback clicks? That could bring in a little more every month. Plus you are doing ebay and being very good about saving for Xmas etc. I am sure the debt advice people will be very impressed with your efforts and point you in the right direction. Will check in later this week for an update!

cj2005

Hi, I have had similar situations in the past. And I too thought only indulgance was TV, I gradually changed from Sky to Cable and then a cheaper version ie less channels and have now changed to freeview digibox, I dont really miss the extra channels, I guess it does depend what you watch but, I would sooner now have the extra money and occasionally get a cheap dvd or would suggest one of those post DVD things like amazon or tescos, will help you save a lot more.

Good luck
CJ

buddiebabe

Hi

Well I know i've not updated in a while....

The last time i updated i was going to see a debt adviser at my work. Anyway i didn't want to update anything until i knew for definate what i could do.... The meeting went really well and she advised that i would be an ideal candidate for a trust deed as i had so much debt and not enough equity in the house... the way she spoke about it there would not be a problem with me keeping the house or the car... everything seemed fine. She advised me to stop making payments to everything except the mortgage and the utilities as u would need to find £500 to make a token payment to an insolvency practitioner. She said there was a few things to look into as my mortgage was 125% 100% mortgage and 25% unsecured loan with Northern Rock so she wanted to check that it wouldn't be a problem so that i could keep the hosue. So i had the meeting on the Tuesday and she didn't get back to me until the Monday to say she still didn't know if there would be any problems but wanted me to go ahead and meet the insolvency person.

I told her i didn't want to do that until she had the correct information for me. I received a phone call from her on the Wednesday to inform me that while she didn't think it would be a problem and her advice was to go see the
insolvency person when i asked about the northern rock issue i was then told it would be a problem and what would happen is that if a third of my creditors did not agree to the trust deed then they would force bankcruptcy on me which means that losing the house may be a possibility which is the main thing i said i didn't want to happen... I wanted some advice on how to manange my debt and the options available, however, all she talked about was a trust deed or bankcruptcy...there was no mention of a debt management plan or any other advice...

I was so annoyed with the time that i wasted going to see her and the waiting about to find out what was going to happen. I had come away from the first meeting so positive but then felt really quite angry that she didn't give me a clearer picture of what could happen.

So once i finally realised they can't help me i decided that i do need to start again....

*zippy*

Sorry it didn't work out for you buddiebabe, could you contact payplan or CCCS instead to look into a DMP?

buddiebabe

Hi

Well i sat down on the 17th July and worked out everything that i owe and its not pretty.... its the worst its ever been but its the worst its ever gonna get... im determined to get it sorted this time once and for all. Here goes

OVERDRAFTS:

ALLIANCE & LEICESTER £-231.74
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND £-950.00

TOTAL OVERDRAFTS OUTSTANDING: £-1181.74

CREDIT CARDS:

BARCLAYCARD £4924.50
DEBENHAMS £2469.20
DOROTHY PERKINS £72.07
MBNA £4541.58
MORGAN STANLEY £1975.37
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND £9581.88
SKY £1977.39
TESCO £2277.72

TOTAL CREDIT CARDS OUTSTANDING: £27819.71

TOTAL AMOUNT OUTSTANDING £29001.45

SAVINGS:

DUNFERMLINE £161.00 (this is for my house, tv licence, insurance etc)
HALIFAX £61.02 (this is for my car, road tax, insurance, service, MOT etc)
WORK ACCOUNT £60.57 (savings for xmas £25 comes out of wages every month for this. It will pay for food, xmas nite out, an outfit and birthday / xmas presents)
Other works account £20.65 (this is used for postage for ebay)

TOTAL SAVINGS £303.24

Well thats the worst of it. I did a new snowball calculation which if i pay £700 a month towards my credit cards (which works out at just under my minimum payments) it will take me 68 months to pay everything off and i'll be debt free by March 2013. Now im going to struggle to find £700 every month... but im just gonna have to.

Im going to sign off for tonight cause i cant really keep my eyes open. I will try and update at least once a week cause i feel that if i don't there is no way im going to do this.

Nite nite

Buddiebabe x