Time for positive action

Canda_2

Hi

I have finally taken the plunge and after years (literally) of lurking decided I need a little help.

My debt is as follows:

Loan £3,489 (4 payments to go @ £872 pm)
Parents £3,000 (to be repaid when we can afford it)
DFS sofa £1,942 (6 monthly payments starting March 2010)
Overdraft £ 440 (as today but will increase before pay day)

Total £8,871

I have never owned a credit card or used credit until very recently. Last year, my now husband and I decided to get married mid way through planning OH lost his job. We struggled on and even moved into his parents living room to make ends meet but I had to take out a loan to cover the remainder of the wedding. (OH has a default and until recently couldn't even get a debit card in his name) Some may say it was a stupid decision but we had the best weekend of our lives and I have never once regretted our wedding. The loan was for £10,000 to be repaid in 12 months.
Shortly after the wedding we decided we couldn't stay in the living room (with our 2 cats and dog) and have moved into rented accomodation with a lodger.
I'm happy that the loan is ticking over nicely, due to finish in December although the repayments are crippling at £872 pm. My parents lent us £3,000 to pay off my overdraft (also wedding related debt) but as you can see it is slowly creeping back up again. Even with cutting back all extras we are struggling to pay all bills whilst paying back the loan. From January life will be so much easier, I can pay back the other debts with relative ease.

I've decided to create this diary to motivate myself to keep a tight control on the overdraft and to 'earn' additional income to keep it down and pay off the other debts.

As with a lot of others on these forums my OH is not as focussed as I am, his latest wish is for a new £1,500 TV!!! I am of course refusing this but if it's not this it's his wish for babies. I too desperately want children but I also want to be debt free and ideally buying a house first!

Sorry for the huge waffle, I've been saving this up for such a long time. I just had to tell someone!

Canda

Sun_Addict

Hi Canda

Well done for taking the plunge! I used to be a lurker until I started my own diary and I can honestly say it's the best thing I've ever done as it really motivates me to get my debt down. I don't care if no-one reads my diary as I am doing it as motivation for myself (but it's nice when they do!). My OH isn't as focused as I am - just like your OH he keeps coming up with things we really need to buy (in his opinion). You are doing the best thing getting debt free before starting a family, as a mother of two adult (in age if nothing else!) children I can confirm that you'll never have any money once children come onto the scene!

All the best with your debt free journey.

Lemon_Tree

hi and well done for having the courage to post on the boards.
Have you done an SOA? there's stickies at the top of the boards so that you get the proform (i'm useless with links otherwise i'd post it). Posibly you need to start to keep a spending diary as this will not only tell you exactly what you are spending but will also make you stop and think before you actually buy things, which may help you keep the OD a bit lower.
good luck, getting debt free is achievable, it just takes some changes an a bit of effort.

Canda_2

Thank you both for your messages.

I've spent the afternoon reading forums! I have signed up to a bingo site through quidco to do daily scratchcards - every little helps!

Will look at doing SOA tonight (I keep my own spreadsheet but it's not great).

Canda

Knitty78

I've also started a diary here in the past few days and just wanted to wish you luck. My OH is also not fully on board and likes to think he can keep up with his family who have a much larger disposable income :rolleyes:

Canda_2

Right, I've just played around with the SOA and should have money left at the end of the month which is not the case. I definitely need a spending diary! Tried the SOA with all the savings for birthdays etc that I'd like to be doing and we're short by £20, not a lot but still not great.
Am too scared to post SOA here yet but have copied it into my budget spreadsheet to play around with.
Feel like I need OH more on board before I can cut some of the expenses, we've already had an argument about Sky!

C

POSITIVE_AND_FOCUSED

Canda wrote: »

Right, I've just played around with the SOA and should have money left at the end of the month which is not the case. I definitely need a spending diary! Tried the SOA with all the savings for birthdays etc that I'd like to be doing and we're short by £20, not a lot but still not great.
Am too scared to post SOA here yet but have copied it into my budget spreadsheet to play around with.
Feel like I need OH more on board before I can cut some of the expenses, we've already had an argument about Sky!

C

Hi Canda

I know exactly how you feel re being scared to detail things on here. I have only today detailed my grand total of debts to the world and it's taken a few weeks to summon up the courage. So, the thing Im trying to say is that you know which direction you want to go in which is half the battle, you may feel more confident to detail the figures in due course, but no one is going to force you to. One day at a time and you will be ok.

I wish you well with your debt free journey and congratulations on your wedding!

PandF

Canda_2

Thank you PandF, those were kind words.
I have done my daily scratchcard 10p
Spoke to OH last night and he seems more on board than I expected. He is going to put some bits on ebay.
Feeling quite down this morning because I'm so impatient and want this sorted now! I'm not sure what I can do, I'm looking at the extra income but know cutting back spending is the key. OH drew £10 out of our bank yesterday for lunches and it's made me really angry.
I think I need to remind myself this isn't an overnight process and it's going to take time to change our (his!) ways. I almost always take my own lunch to work and never buy for myself so why am I in this situation?
Grrr sorry bad day....

Canda_2

Feeling much more positive after spending a lot of the day soul searching. Have been playing around with my budget and once the loan has gone we could afford to live a reasonable life and still save money for birthdays / Christmas / Holidays / emergency fund and anything else I could think of with no problem. So it's remotivated me (I know I'm up and down every hour!) I know that I'm not saving for a lot of bills at the moment (namely car insurance due in October) so if I can scrape together the money for all of these and get out of the overdraft then I can start the new year afresh with all my savings pots (minus the emergency and holiday fund money which will pay mum and dad and sofa in 6 months).
I know compared to a lot of people on here my debt is quite small but it really worries me. (Hence spending the last 2 days of my holiday cooped up thinking about it)
Just had to write all this down to stop it playing round in my head all night!

Fire_Fox

Sounds like you could do with some meal planning for those lunches! If your OH knew that on Tuesday he is taking leftover sausage casserole to work and on Wednesday cheese sarnies, would he be OK with that? I actually find buying drinks is the biggest waste of money - I take a bottle of squash now and leave it at work then I am a happy bunny!

Canda_2

Wow can't believe it's been so long since I posted.
On the debt free front I've been doing daily scratchcards (a whole 70p up!), £872 paid off loan and have finally managed to get OH on board. He is currently at work doing overtime and has accepted that he can't have his big TV yet and that we need to get a control of things.
We've both taken packed lunch every day for the last week or so and life is looking more positive.
Thanks for your comments Fire Fox I have tried meal planning in the past but because we share evening meals with our inflexible lodger these things never go to plan. OH does take squash to work though which works well.
Baby steps...