My SOA - bitter reading......

bertman

So a bit of an update. We have spent the last few months now watching the pennies and paying off as much of our debts as possible. We know its going to be a long haul and we are ready for it. Doing a bit of a check and we are going to be clearing £10k every 12 months so it will take us about 5 years at this rate to get them over with. We are living on pretty much nothing. I get a very good wage but we live on £200 a month after the debts. Any clothes have to be bought from things we have sold off Ebay, thats how it is.... We always ask for day to day things for Birthdays and the same will happen at Christmas - we do get down but there isn't much else to do. There are no magical fairies ( at least we don't think so !).
We are pi**ed off today as we have just been charged £25 for going £9.00 overdrawn - good old Natwest with their customer charter. But its not all backwards steps now like it was 8/9 months ago. We do feel a bit more in charge now.

Just wanted to say thanks to the guys on this forum, we have picked up some really good tips and had support from people who will probably never realised they have given it..

traycee

Great to hear an update from a long hauler like yourself. It sounds as if you are doing really well.

Have you tried speaking with Natwest about the £25 fee. Most fees get added automatically however there can be some room for refunds, say for example if it is the 1st time that you have slipped over in the last 12 months. It might be worth a try. Would much rather see that £25 back in your pocket/account then in theirs!!!

Well done on your progress so far bertman.

Traycee

themull1

Good luck on your journey to becoming debt free.! don't take any notice of the occasional nasty poster. Keep focused, and you'll have loads of money to treat yourselves when your debt is eventually paid off.!

bertman

I tought it was about time to post an update, we still have good and bad days like every one else on this board..

The good is that I have been in touch with MBNA who run my Virgin CC, the interest rate on this was 34.9%, I got through to a department called "customer loyalty", they reduced my rate to 25.9%, not great but a good start. I will contact all the others to see what I can do, we have no missed payments for over 14 months now and the balances are starting to slowly go down. Its going to be a hard slog but we knew this last year when we started to re-organise our debts and get back on an even keel.

The bad is that I have lost out with the new national insurance contributions but OH has had her wages go up because of the same thing, its all swings and roundabouts....

We have a loan finishing in July which is good so those payments will get thrown against other debts.

All this mess because we wanted our own business..:) But I guess you live and learn eh?

BTW - thanks again to everyone on here you will never know how much help we are getting from this site!

CH27

Well done on getting things slowly in order & staying focused :T

Triggles

Well done for keeping on with it. It can be frustrating sometimes, but seeing that debt total slowly drop is always a motivator. And thinking about how nice it will be when you've paid everyone off and can keep all that lovely cash yourself in savings will be such a reward for all your hard work!

kdenty

I think your doing well. I'm new to your thread and from the outset it's clear to see you have a sensible and organised attitude to your debt which will really help.

I think it can be so hard at first when most of your cards are on high interest. It makes such a difference reorganising the cards like you have done. Getting lower interest where you can.

I look at my own credit situation and feel despondent as I've only reduced each card debt by such a small sum but then I remember (and can see on my spreadsheet) the months where all it did was go up and was out of control and I was paying £200pcm in interest.

You have control now which will get you there. Well done and thanks for sharing your journey.

vka1

Helo,

Looks like you're making great progress. As a newbie round here, it would be great to hear what's been the most important thing you've done/top tip you've learned over the past wee while? Does your SOA look very different from that first post?

It's inspiring to see people sticking at it,

V

snookey

Its always hard to take the first steps and you have so well done. I love the people on this forum as they dont judge unlike some.

bertman

vka1 wrote: »

Helo,

Looks like you're making great progress. As a newbie round here, it would be great to hear what's been the most important thing you've done/top tip you've learned over the past wee while? Does your SOA look very different from that first post?

It's inspiring to see people sticking at it,

V

Hey V,

Thanks for your post. Its difficult to say what has made a difference over the last year but I think really making sure that we know exactly what we are spending down to the last penny has helped. I don't have a new SOA but I have put a pretty nifty excel spreadsheet together that tracks all my payments and bills etc. This way I can see where I am going to end up each month. We also set up a seperate account for food shopping, this was so nothing goes out of our main bank account other than bills, we find it easier to track this way. We allocate ourselves a set amount each week - if we overspend one week then it leaves us short at the end of the month. We have had a few "skinny" weeks for our last weeks but there is always something in the freezer. We over cook meals and freeze them so we can quickly de-frost and warm them up for tea. We save a lot of money this way.
We don't go to the shops if we can help it, that way we aren't tempted to buy thgings, we do though have far better days out either walking, visiting, sight seeing etc. We find it more rewarding than trawling the stores..
We did find ourselves becoming a bit like hermits but we now either have friends round or go to friends rather than pay pub or restaurant prices. That said we have saved up money from selling items on Ebay for some fun over the summer - not a lot but it means we can have a pub meal or an ice cream by the sea - daft I know but we literally didn't have any spare cash at all early last year.
Best of luck in your own journey - I hope everything works out for you.

Bertman:beer: