Another Newbie!

Hobble_2

Hi everyone :wave:

I have been lurking now for some time and thought it was about time I said hello and thank you to Martin and all of you guys as you have made such a difference to my attitude and every day life. I have become totally addicted to this board and have been raving to anyone who will listen about how fabulous it is. (My poor OH doesn't know what has happened as I have become a DFW bore!).

My situation is that I am £4150 in debt - £1650 on credit cards and the rest on my student loan.
Thanks to this site I've transferred the cc debt to two 0% cards - £650 on Amazon and £1000 on my Lloyds mastercard (my balance was £0 for 2 months on Lloyds as I had started to use my Egg card instead and they sent me an offer for 0% on BTs for 6 months (v. nice of them until I discovered it was with a 2% fee (£20) which will be charged interest at 15.9% :rolleyes: ).

I have also managed to get my O2 contract free for one year by phoning up and saying I was thinking of cancelling:j 25 minutes per month and 200 text messages per month for free - I'm still in shock about this!

I can afford to pay off about £300 per mth by cutting back on normal spending. In fact I have already managed to save about £60 per week (yes, really :embarasse ) off the weekly budget for myself and OH. (It astonished me to see we could save this amount and had therefore been wasting it before). Since discovering this site, I now always ask myself 'do we really need this?', create a weekly food shopping list and stick to it, make lunches (most days) to take to the office and shop in cheaper supermarkets.

I actually feel a bit of a fraud posting on here as I know my situation is not that bad, but I wanted to post as this board is the most supportive I have ever seen in an online community and I would like to be part of it:beer: . And also to make sure that I don't get lost again and begin to think that having debt is ok and to provide any support/motivation I can to other DFWs.:T

looneyleo

Well done Hobble! Nice to see that you have made a great start. Debt is debt at the end of the day and it's a worry no matter how big or small. Keep up the good work. Maybe you'll be brave enough to post an SOA (Statement of Affairs -incomings outgoings etc) and we could all help you more???

Take care: looneyleo

bargainbetty

Hi Hobble

Welcome to the boards! You're not a fraud at all - debt is debt and all things are relative.... you just had your lightbulb moment that bit earlier than others is all

Am so glad that you have used the hints here to make your savings - it really is amazing how much we waste day-to-day, isn't it??

Well, was just stopping to say hello, and to say never feel shy to post on the boards. Everyone has something that someone else could find useful.

Have a good one!