A brave step

ANewBeginning

Hi

Ive been lurking round this site for years. Never posted. Just read articals/posts, found discount codes, looked for advice etc.

Finally I feel a deep sense of relief as after reading all your posts and suggestions and support for others, I have faced my financial fears. I have calculated that we owe £25,679 on various credit cards and agreements. Always managing to meet the minimum payments (sometimes a few days late) plus a little bit. But then using the cards so it never goes down. I'm sure you know what i mean???!!

I have now done a budget - using the excel template from this site. And we are making ends meet and we manage to save a little bit too. We earn decent money. We are basically just reckless.

I have also done a snowball spreadsheet, another recommended link from here and have worked out we can be debt free in December 2013!!!!!! If we had carried on as we are, it would have taken 81 years to pay them off. In reality they would never be paid off - as we keep on using the damned things!!

So I have had the card cutting up ceremony. My cards are in bits in the bin. Never to return.

I am sure that late payments have damaged our credit rating, so I will leave it a few months, before see if I can get a 0% balance transfer card, to at least transfer some of the debt. If this is possible, there is a chance we can be debt free sooner!! It is not vital - it just feels so good to have a tangible endpoint.

I feel liberated and I'd like to thank you all for giving me the courage to face my fears....

Thank you so much for all your support.

If anyone has any more good tips to help us further on our debt free quest, I'm all ears!!

xxx

velocity.girl_2

well done you, i have no advice just encouragement...good luck and we are all here to support you every step of the way if you need us

savingmummy

Well done on cutting the cards :j
It sounds like your doing really well and really hitting these debts on the head!

2013 will fly around and what a time to celebrate

Your income is good which is fab!!
It may help you to do the MSE SOA http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html - we can advise on how to reduce outgoings so you can pay off debt.

Reduce your outgoings to a minimum, ensure your getting cheapest deal on car/home insurance.
Pay council tax over 12 months instead of 10mths.
Reduce grocerie spend by sticking to a strict shopping list, dropping a brand, meal planning, buying enough to last until the next food shop.
Stop/reduce overspending ie, take outs, beer/wine, magazines, papers.
Sell old stuff on ebay if you have anything you no longer need or use!
Only buy clothes when you really need them, some spend far too much each month on new clothes.
Cancel sky/mobile/gym/charity donations etc only for now! Once your DF you can go back to it!

All these things really add up each month when reduced!

Goodluck x

yummymommy

Welcome. :T The only thing I can add to that is to look at the "up your income thread"

Cashback Sites are good and also the oldstyle money saving board.

I also keep a spending/to do/ balances/notes diary.

Keep posting as it will give you motivation.

Little baby steps though - information overload is not good :eek:

Good luck on your dfw journey :beer:

pania

Hi there!! sounds like you have a fantastic grip on things now and realise the mistakes you have made in the past. stick with us. post lots, have fun and enjoy. some extremely strong and enduring non virtual friendships have been forged on this site and the support at any hour of the day or night is plenty!! Sticking around really is the best tip i can give you for picking up more moneysaving ideas. role on 2013!!

foxgloves

Just hold in your mind when you're tempted to buy something you don't need that there is NOTHING you can buy that will make you feel as good as getting rid of the debt. Also, just a small thing, but worth doing, go round the house, drawers, bathroom, etc, and look out every bit of stuff in the toiletries/cosmetics line you can find and make a pledge that you'll use up what you've got before buying more. I did that a year ago and I'm STILL using it! Prior to my new frugal lifestyle, my old bank statements show I was easily spending about £50 a month in Boots.

ANewBeginning

Thank you everyone for your support. We currently pay over £700 a month on credit cards and agreements etc. We also have a car loan of £235 per month. We pay it all every month without too much grief. Albeit sometimes a few days late - band management on my part, not necessarily lack of money. (will this have damaged our credit rating???) I have also cancelled a couple of dormant credit cards and store cards with zero balances. One however, has a better interest rate (16%) than one of our current debts (27%), so am going to try and get a balance transfer to save us money in the long term.

The fact is we can become debt free simply by targetting our payments correctly. Simple as that. Oh how I wish I'd known this earlier - we have had a consolidation loan a few years ago and learned that it does not change your spending habits....we have more unsecured debt now than ever before!!

I have a looked again at our budget and have set about sdhifting our gas and electricity as we currently pay £164 amonth to Scottish Power which after looking at these boards seems high. I'm also looking at moving our telephone and broadband from BT over to Sky - we currently pay BT £40 per month and we nca have just about the same from Sky for £15!!

Grocery and household shopping - I have set myself a challenge to shop ONCE A WEEK instead of nipping to Tesco on way home from work to buy milk and bread and spending about £40 in the process. My husband has agreed to get milk and bread midweek, as he is more disciplined than me lol I'm also going to try Aldi this week - and see how much i can save us.

I have looked at our holiday - we have been to Florida for last 2 years - savings and topped up with good old credit cards, which all told prob sost us £6500 a year. This year we were planning on doing the same. Not now. I am looking at cheapie all inclusive deals - at a quarter of the cost!!

So - things are a-changing!!!!!!!!

I love my snowball - and can't keep off it. Tweaking here and there to make sure everything is covered. In December 1013, we will be totally debt free and have a MONTHLY pay rise of over £1000 - without even trying!!!

Thanks for all your support - our debt free journey has begun.

One last question - how do I put a signature at bottom of my posts - I want to document my debt free journey in glorious technicolour - fo my benenfit more than anything else!!

Thanks again xxx

ald65

Hi Anewbeginning

Just wanted to say well done for taking such positive action to deal with your debts and good luck with your debt free journey

honey

ald65 wrote: »

Hi Anewbeginning

Just wanted to say well done for taking such positive action to deal with your debts and good luck with your debt free journey

Just want to echo what ald65 said xxx

Percy1983

You sound like you are in the same place i was a few years ago, not over your head not not making much headway in clearing it.

I firstly got selling things i didn't need on ebay and got a good £2500 from that.

Secondly like you I started paying the worse debts first and letting the others just take minimum payments.

I do have one tip which takes a lot of self control. Basically as I am paying the lower interest cards with minimum payments after a few months there will be £50 spare. Now when I get to this point I will usually fill my car up on the card, now this is where the control comes in as you then have to pay the amount you just spent off the highest rate card in addition to anything you would be paying anyway. In basic terms you are moving a balance from the most expensive card to the cheapest card without a balance transfer fee. Yes it may only be small amounts but it all makes a difference.

ANewBeginning

Interesting idea. I have no access to any of our cards now - so can't spend on them anyway. But could do balance transfers online.....Only thing is - I really like seeing the green payments on my snowball and don't want any reds in sight! lol I have become completely obsessed with this on 3 days! I'm on a mission.

Thanks for your support and good tip