I'm taking the DFW plunge-but boy do I feel SicK!

newleafer

So here we are (hubby and I) we just had our light bulbmoment:eek: . 7/07/06
After spening 24 hrs reading threads and following martins suggestions I realised our debt is quite bad £52641.25 :mad: so here we are feeling sick, embarrassed, desperate and very stupid. And there are no reasons just the excuses, the usual spending what we dont have, consildating and spending again.

I snowballed yesterday and its a good feeling knowing how and when, but I have a problem in that I am 31 and have been desperate for a baby for years now, but never would while we had all this debt, so as much as the snowball is great, i could be 37 before its possible to not need my salary !

So yesterday I was looking at secured loans, but having taken martin's advice i know that would be stupid. So I do want to be DF so I'm willing to make changes, so here follows or SOA's and the imediate plans I have for reduction any other suggestions would be great. An incite in to us is that I am a born worrier but hubby is quite calm and collected but he got really low 2 days ago, not like him at all so thats my inspiration.

SOA:

mortgage - 794.92
Home maintence - 6.50
Home ins - 29
Council tax - 121
Water - 33
Gas - 30
Electric - 25
BT - 22
Broadband - 22
Mobile - 85 (joint)
Life assurance - 84.84
Food shopping - 200
pet food - 15.90
Car maintence - 37.50
Car tax - 26.25
car ins - 35.90
Petrol/diesel - 200 ( I work 40 miles from home, hubby works 100 miles away and stays away 4/5 days a week ( looking for a new job now)
sky - 18
tv lic - 10.99
newspaper -10.39
union - 22

Debts-

Egg loan - 13775 now 13152.83 (apr 6.9%) ends mar 11 pyt 271
Natwest loan - 25000 now 21900.33 (apr 6.5%) ends sept 11 pyt 457.67
Barclaycard CC OH - 1475.50 limit 2000 (apr 19.9%) min pyt 36
Barcalycard CC me - 462.74 limit 1200 (apr 19.9%) min pyt 25
Egg CC OH - 4063.76 limit 4500 (apr 15.9) min pyt 82.63
virgin CC me - 4409.04 limit 6500 (apr 22.4) min pyt 110
Virgin CC Oh - 3491.53 limit 4000 (apr 15.9) min pyt 72
Natwest CC me - 3685.51 limit 3800 (apr 17.4) min pyt 82
Overdraft - 2700 interest charges 20 a month as well as 12 charge for advantage gold acct.

Outgoing £3001.12
Incoming £2949.00
Deficit £ 52.12
One of the ways we've getting round the deficit is by not putting the car tax/maintence money.


I've included every thing, i plan to get rid of sky and tv lic, we dont watch much tv mainly DVD's. So we can forego it for a while, Mobile contract due to expire, will look for a better deal and lower th cost.

Any suggestions welcome.

Stil feel sick , but facing the demons. I've read some of ccc's website, do you thing we should approach them or carry on with the cost cutting and snowballing?

thank you

Newleafer x :rotfl:

James240

welcome to DFW board :hello:

Looking through ur SOA the first things that need to go are SKY and newspapers.

Plus Phone bills are quite high as well, are u able to change the plan ur on or are u pay as u go? If your both on pay as u go it might be worth switching to a monthly contract that gives u free minutes. If your on a monthly contract already you need to be on a better tarriff that gives u more free min.

Broadband you can get much cheaper as well or are you locked in to a 12 month contract?

Must admit im not to clued up on ~Life Assurance do you actually need this or is this to do with the mortgage?

Hope this is of some help, but there will be other people along to help out as well who are much more knowledgable in these areas

Mrs_Arkwright

Hello

Just a couple of little things that pop out to me:

Firstly the life insurance seems pretty high, I've just transferred ours to Virgin Money, for a joint policy with Mr A we are paying £22 per month.

And you could ditch the newspapers - watch the news on the TV you're paying for

Could you get a 0% credit card to transfer some of the higher interest balances?

Good luck, you will get some great support and advice here, just like I did

myrnahaz

I'm sure you'll soon get fantastic support and advice from the regular DFWs about how to cope with the debt, and please don't think you're stupid, you've been very brave facing up to it. In the meantime, your life assurance is high - could you look for cheaper options or maybe you could cash it in or just stop paying it for a while(provided it's not to do with your mortgage). Also, have a look at the 'old style' board - there are lots of ideas about how to reduce food bills. I wouldn't stop the tv licence unless you can prove absolutely that you've stopped watching tv - or you could find yourself facing a huge fine. Good luck.

catriona79

HI Newleafer,
I am a newbie here myself, but am pretty sure, that even if you only watch dvds you still need a tv licence. Even if you didn't have a telly, but were able to watch it on your computer/laptop.

Best of luck and well done for facing up to the debt!

C

James240

Also have alook at the Moneysaving Old Style board as theres lots of useful tips in there in how to get ur shopping bill down as well

Shortie

HI NewLeafer

For the mobile phone, check out online the service providers as they often have online special deals. I'm not specifically recomending them as others may have bad things to say about them but back at Christams I signed up online with '3'. They have Online Only packages and mine is £35 per month (meme only) and I get 5 hours any time and network free time per month and 1000 free any ntework text messages too. There are other Online Tarriffs which are lower. They delivered within a couple of days (between Chrimbo and New Year - very impressed) and I've found their customer service fab. Other members may have something else to say about them though, this is just my experience.


Life insurance - we pay £90 per month too. Sounds like you're not the basic cover. I keep wondering about changing it to the real basic one you need for the mortgage. I've checked it out before and we can get joint cover for £30, a massive saving of £60 for us, but I'm not sure I should - what if I was to go on longer term sick - I wouldn't be covered.... I'd be really interested to see other people's opionions on mortgage life cover?

thorpe1

you could pair orange broadband and your mobile together you get the broadband free that way, you need a tv licence if you only use the tv to watch dvd's, ring sky and tell them your struggling they will maybe half the costs as they don't like losing custom.

Shortie

OMG

Cheers Mrs A.... :beer: :T

Just checked Virgin Money and they will cover us for just under £17, really basic cover. That's a saving of £73 a month!!!!! Just got to decide if I'm jumping off the higher cover insurance now

myrnahaz

Cancel the Advantage Gold part of your current account immediately - it's a total rip-off. Think hard about what benefits it's brought you (I bet it's none). There are NO advantages to having this account.

Glitterari

Take a trip over to the Old Style board for tips on cutting that grocery bill, you could probably live on £30 a week, maybe less (I have a friend, she and her bf are spending just £20 per week on food!!!!)

Mobile bill - way too high. Get on PAYG. If you get O2, pay only £10 per month and you get free texts and minutes. This is what I'm on and I hardly ever actually use the credit.

TV - licence - agree with myrnahaz point and it is 'only' £11 per month. You can make bigger cuts elsewhere - eg mobile bill!

BT - up get basic line rental for £11 per month - I can't remember the site but it's like https://www.call1189.com (someone will tell you the proper site)which if you sign up to you can get free landline calls anytime, and cheapish mobile and foreign calls.

Pet food - what pets do you have? Have you shopped around for cheaper feeding? Wilkinsons sometimes have special offers. Do you have pet insurance?

Papers - you can look at the news on the net if you do decide to stop watching tv! Huge waste of money unless there is some special offer or 'freebie'

Love C