Lady with a plan coming through!

Rattykat

Hi guys and gals. Soooo, my story in brief: aged 18 with one shiny new credit card, another card, some balance transfers... a consolidation loan... running up debt again and a £14k bail out from family when I was 22 (due to downsizing house etc). Now a sane person would say "phew, I dodged a bullet there.... no more credit for me", I'm obviously not a sane person!
I moved out of my parents house and within 6 months had maxed out 2 cards and my overdraft. That was 18 months ago, I have !!!!!!ed up my credit rating with missed payments and been refused for credit left right and centre. I've been on a payment plan with one card and the other has also now been blocked, obviously that has been detrimental to my credit rating too. I now have £6650 debt having put every spare penny into my cards and still only just clearing the interest. My OH knows about my situation but my family don't and I can't take it anymore!

That's why I have a plan! I haven't missed a payment in 10 months and now my OH is working he has moved in so I have a little spare cash. I've moved my current account to a completely different bank (Natwest) they haven't offered me an overdraft (thank God!) but at least gave me a Debit Card, something Nationwide thought I wasn't worthy of!
Anyway, I've used the budget planner on this site (over estimating of course) and it's not looking so bad now. My plan is:

• Pay at least enough to clear £50 + interest on overdraft pcm
• Put 80% of my disposable income every month on my cards
• Keep the 20% remaining in an "emergancy account" until I've saved up a reasonable figure and then use 95% of my disposable income on my cards.
• Attend a lending review in 6 months time where I MAY be able to get a consolidation loan.

I'm hoping to use this forum to connect with people in a simillar situation and to keep me sane because it all sounds fine in theory, but reality can be very very different!

Shoe_Gal

Hello and welcome

Don't know enough to comment on your plan - as you can see from my signature money is not my stong point but wanted to wish you luck

My only advice, from experience, is leave yourself enough 'fun' money to still have a life - if your plan is too strict you run the risk of getting fed up and going off the rails big style :rolleyes:

Jacks_xxx

Welcome to DFW my lovely! :wave:

Have you had a play with the Snowballer?

You punch all the info about your debts into it and it tells you the fastest and cheapest way to pay them off. (You need to do it in interest rate order.)

After you've done it the first time have a quick look and see if you can free any more money up for debt repayment then add that amount to the amount available for debt repayment box on the Snowball. Then sit down quick cos the amount of difference it makes will astound you - even if it's quite a small amount. (If you don't think you can just add £50 and see what happens! )

Snowballing is faster, cheaper and easier than consolidating. We consolidated loads of times - but we only became debt free after we stopped.

If you'd like more advice post up your SOA using this link:

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

and we can help you refine the plan.

Good luck sweetie pie - you are in the right place!

Love Jacks xxx

LeeSouthEast

Rattykat wrote: »

• Keep the 20% remaining in an "emergancy account" until I've saved up a reasonable figure and then use 95% of my disposable income on my cards.

Now there's sense right there. Good luck !!

Rattykat

Thnaks guys. I've done the snowballer and it will ake me around 21 months. Going to do it again for January as that's when my plan fully kicks in!

Jacks_xxx

Rattykat wrote: »

Thnaks guys. I've done the snowballer and it will ake me around 21 months. Going to do it again for January as that's when my plan fully kicks in!

As you make changes and get better at debtbusting that date may well get nearer my lovely. When we first did the Snowballer it said we would be paying until 2028, but I redid it every month or so just to watch that get nearer!

Love Jacks xxx

DVardysShadow

Rattykat wrote: »

Thnaks guys. I've done the snowballer and it will ake me around 21 months. Going to do it again for January as that's when my plan fully kicks in!

Start now, not after Christmas. Else you never will. And update your signature.

Rattykat

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Start now, not after Christmas. Else you never will. And update your signature.

Sig updated. I can't start till after xmas as most of my free money is tied up in presents that still need to be purchased!
I am going to do it after xmas, I've taken the action of changing banks and now I have renewed enthusiam for sorthing myself out! Plus I'm hoping to buy a house with my OH eventually and it's gonna take so long to sort out my credit rating I HAVE TO ACT ASAP!