Huge credit card debt

Poosmate

Way to go Kingston! And way to go Kingston's mom! - she's a gem! Can she be my mom too? lol!

Well done on the mystery shopping thing!

Now I've heard on here (I think it's on theUp Your Income board) that you can earn £3 per day doing "clicks" which (when practiced) will take about half an hour per day. I know it's not a lot, but if you get into the habbit of doing it, that's £90 per month! Yay! I keep meaning to look into it myself but never get round to it! I'm not very good at leading by example!

Hypno, what a fantastic family you have! Congratulations!

Anyway, must fly,

Bye for now and keep it up

Poo

hypno06

Just checking in, Kingston, to see how things are!

ramblingtree

Hi Kingston,
Hope you don't mind me stopping by. OH and I had around £90k of debt at the start of this year, its come down a bit, although we've had a lot of extra expenses this year that have meant its slow going. But it is doable, and our snowball currently has us being debt free in Oct 2014. I want it to be sooner, but we shall see. Just wanted to write as you can see I have a huge debt, am not going down the DMP route, also do not want to lose my home. Its tough going, my contract is up in March and I am currently job hunting which makes it more scary at the moment, but with some good budgetting and a lot of determination I'm sure you'll do just fine.
Good luck with your journey,
x

InaPickle

:wave:Kingston!

I've been VERY busy this past few days so I haven't had too much of a chance to catch up with things in your neck of the woods, but I'm back now. How goeth things?!

I've just read your the new messages in your thread and I see that you haven't yet posted your SOA. From what I read you are a busy parent, but it seems like the point where general advice can be of any use to you is coming to the end. I know you feel really bad about your situation, and being a parent you are probably really, really busy just getting all the things that have to be done on a day-to-day basis, but we really, really want to help you and seeing your SOA is the next step to being able to offer concrete advice based on your actual situation, not just general advice that could be given to anyone. Don't worry that we will judge you cos we won't: we are ALL here as we haven't lived within out means and made the best of what we had to a certain extent, and so we are in no place to judge you at all. And feeling embarrased or ashamed is just par of the course at the start, but in posting up here for the first time you've already done what is truly the hardest things: admitting that there is a problem. Everything else is just part of the recovery. Think of it like alcoholism: you've just said 'My name's Kingston and I'm a spendaholic' and now your SOA is one of your next biggest steps in getting you on the financial wagon. (That's a bit simplistic I know, but bear with me! )

So c'mon, jump in at the deep end with us and see just how many hands can help make light work. You'll be glad you did - honest! :T :kisses3:

hypno06

^^^^^ So good, she said it twice :rotfl:

kingston_2730

Thanks guys. You're all a lovely bunch. I am down with some virus at the mo...I really think its my body reacting to the stress. I really appreciate all the support and posts. I have pretty much been sleeping the past day and a half. I just have to make a few more minor adjustments to my SOA and will post. I think that the general consensus will be that we need to increase our income which is what I have been thinking about. I could probably get work with an agency. I am a full time Community Occupational Therapist but could register for weekend work with an agency for care assistant type work which would be very flexible on a week to week basis. Only thing is that I myself have a medical condition which I do suffer fatigue from side effects of medication and so on , so on mentioning this to my hubbie and mum etc...they feel it could be a bit unrealistic that I could manage this as well as my full time job on a long term basis. They are probably right but it is something I could do occasionally, if not regularly, for a bit of extra cash for the kids activities ect...I am very keen to consider other types of work which would be a bit less physically demanding than the extra care assistant work. I am intrigued about the matched betting but perhaps this should wait til after xmas until I am in a better frame of mind and body. One thing, though, my hubbie is an engineer and is quite mathematically inclined so I wonder is it something he should look at. Here I am discussing matched betting and I haven't a clue what it is :question: :rotfl:Poosmate mentioned clicks which sounds a bit strange but easy . I will have to read up on the uping your income board. Ramblingtree, thanks so much for you kind post. I really really need to hear more stories like yours so if anyone else who has conquered bigtime debt or is in the process of doing so, please post. Hypno, thanks so much for your posts and comments. I totally get what you're saying and have been doing a lot of pondering about our new lifestyle whilst I lie here sick. I know what you're saying about the kids' activities and it was one of the first things that I looked at when trying to do SOA. I have cut out horse riding for both kids and also daughter's piano lessons which were very expensive and had talked to her about cutting out ballet (shes only 6 but was very good about it) however my mum actually got very angry when I discussed this with her and has now decided that she is going to pay for the ballet and pick her up and bring her home from it also. My mum says she doesn't want kids to suffer due to my foolishness. Thankfully my son's only other activity is rugby which only costs £20 for the year. Unfortunately though even after cutting all of this down to the bone we are barely able to make minimum payments on ccs. In a years time we will be coming out of a great mortgage deal and our mortgage payment has potential to increase by 100s of pounds monthly plus some of our ccs will no longer be on zero percent, so in a years time we could be up the creek big style. Anyway, there is no point me going on and on until I get the damned SOA posted. Hang in there, it is coming soon. Thanks all! xx

dancingfairy

Hi - you can make quite a bit of money from matched betting if you are good at it. Basically it requires you to be on something ie Manchester United winning their next football match and placing a second bet on them not winning. You also get given free money for signing up to alot of the betting sites which helps make the money. It is a little more complex than that and there are a few rules 1) don't do it if you don't understand it and have read and re-read the instructions as done wrong it is just gambling and you don't want to loose money and
2) if you have any problems with gambling or addictions or anything like that then again you don't want to lead yourself into trouble.
Some people have made quite a bit of money I believe from it though.
Martins got an article on it somewhere I believe.
df

dancingfairy

Oh and the way out of your predicament will be in a nutshell down to paring your outgoings down to the bone, or increasing your income or possibly doing a dmp (debt management plan) with one of the charities or a combination of all of the above.
Best of Luck
df

kingston_2730

Thanks Dancingfairy, like the name! Even more intrigued by the matched betting. Will have to study it to come to grips with it. Anyone do the clicks that Poosmate mentioned?? I am assuming these are some type of surverys?

Spirit_2

Hi

Another poster with a history of large debts - £62000 two years ago, now we are on the home straight and God willing, will clear them in 2010.
When I first posted I got a lot of support, and an equal amount of direction to get us out of the mess we were in. Some of the advice I did not think I could act on at the time - definiteley 'too difficult' 'too important' 'for my daughter' 'for a relative that needed help'.

Guess what we did do many of them in the end.

We cashed in endowments
Sold the horse trailer
Sold the landrover that towed the trailer
Cut spending on presents
Cut spending on holidays - we still have them but fewer and budget concious
Went 'green' (at least that is what I told Mr Spirit/DD) and reduced our electricity and oil consumption and spending
Reduced our shopping bill from £600 per month to £300 and went to Old Style to learn about thrift


We have had some big expenses over the last two years - it was our silver wedding anniversary and we planned for and bought a "dream" - but paid for it from cutting back further and saving, a zero CC paid off from Mr Spirits annual bonus . A couple of windows had to be replaced as they are dangerous, saved up (being done next week:T)

Mr Spirit was not really into it at first - but he is now. I would be doing frugal things and he would 'blow' £100 on something - this did upset me.
There was no way I wanted him to give up his interests as they are important for his well being - but he still frittered money from the cash machine so we set a monthly 'cash allowance' for each of us so we felt we had money to spend, but not unlimited money. This really helped to change his attitude. He now gets real pleasure out of our reduced debt balance and is looking forward to us being debt free.

I have a monthly income and expenditure spreadsheet and use it to keep an eye on how we are doing regularly. The snowball on whatsthecost is really motivating when you start debt busting, and when you flag a bit.

We were told at the outset by DFW posters that we would start off enthusiastically, but it would wane.......they were right....but the debt free 'vision' reinforced by coming on here helps me to get back on the wagon when I fall off.

Good luck, it can be done, don't worry about keeping up appearances - live a higher quality lower cost life.

Where you are thinking of a second job - could you suggest operating a six or seven day service for your OT team - when you work (5 shifts over 7 days) if you are in the NHS at weekends you would earn a premium, would not increase your hours overall and it may be an enhancement to the service available to your patients that your employer wants.

Best wishes

Spirit