My SOA: the start of a long, long road......

gallygirl

I have to say I agree with LookingAhead on worldvision: I feel like we all 'know' the little boy we sponsor and would be abandoning him: something else will have to go instead.

- ok if that was the difference between keeping house, or child at private school would you give it up then? Why not compromise? World Vison will find another sponsor. Work out how much you would have paid them when you become debt free, then pay it back to them. That's what I did.

Your food bill is pretty average for someone of your income - but is ASTRONOMICAL for someone of your debt. Again, house/school or start cooking. No choice really, is there? Say hello to Aldi, Lidl & Netto, especially for fruit & veg - big bag of baking pots in Netto for price of 4 in Morrisons.

On the plus side, you have a v high income and there is therefore a lot of scope - IF you are committed to doing this.You are getting through 100's of pounds a month unaccounted for - you MUST identify this. When you keep a spending diary go through it each week with highlighters - green for necessity, best price. Orange for necessay but not cheapest place to buy, you know what red means!!!!!! Also keep a diary of all food you throw out - that was what really did it for me.

Forgot to say - after all that - welcome!!!!

lifebegins

The income is our joint income: I just have a part-time job at the moment, but I'm going to start looking for something better paid. We stopped paying into our repayment plan when things started getting tight. There is only around 12K in it but I thought we had to have it as part of the mortgage deal? Is it OK to cash it in?

wannabedebtfree_2

Having worked alongside a mortgage advisor for a few years (till I changed job last year) I must say your mortgage payment seems massive, especially for interest only, unless your mortgage is for about £250,000.

I would also say that there are plenty of other areas you could save money in on your budget, your household income is about 4 times mine, so I'm sure we can do it!! BUT I would think its a bad idea to stop paying into the repayment part of your mortgage long term, as you will eventually have to pay off the mortgage, and if you stop the savings for too long you will have a massive shortfall, which will put you back where you are now.

Its hard, and we are all in different circumstances, but with one thing in common, the debt around our necks.

Good Luck

xx

lifebegins

I like the green/ orange/ red spending diary idea, and keeping a note of food that gets thrown out. I know this must be my best chance of big savings so I'll be changing my cooking/ spending habits straight away.
In order of priority I'd sell the house before taking my son away from his school, simply because I honestly believe his future well-being depends upon it (whereas my other 2 would be normal happy children wherever they were). I'm determined to make sure I don't have to do either.

lifebegins

to wannabe debtfree:
I'm afraid our mortgage is even bigger than that: 290K !!! I know this must sound crazy, but everything ticked along fine until my OH was made redundant and was out of work for 8 months. As we had been fine for years with no big debts, it's just taken us much longer than we should have to see how bad things were getting. Have just arranged to stay in a family member's house (free!) nr. beach for Summer hol for the kids so that's one thing off the list.

bikerqueen

do you really have 800 a month unaccounted for? It's very doable i reckon if you could lob that at your debts

Sea78

HI,

Welcome to the board! I reckon it's very doable too - how much were you paying into the repayment part of your mortgage? I would be concerned that you might end up with a huge shortfall too.

As has been said, there are lots of areas where you can cut back and food is a biggie. I know things are stressfula nd busy, but putting a few hours in now will help it all run smoothly. Bringing in the whole family might help? Have you sat down with everyone (not sure of ages of kids...) and explaining what's happening may help - then perhaps the kids can do their bit too (saving elec, helping meal planning by working on a menu for the weeks ahead etc.)

Are you used to spending lots on clothes etc (the bit you've not worked out yet?)? If so, perhaps in order to make this as small as possible, are there things you can sell on ebay/amazon etc? Every little helps, something I didn't really believe until being ont he site for a while. The charity contributions are nice, as you say, but then you have a lot of other things to spend that money on and it could make difference to you and your kids NOW and then make a bigger donation once things have become a little more sorted?

What's normal for me in regards to extra spending is a lot less than it was! I now budget £20 a month for Christmas and £10 a month for birthdays. Will be a much different Christmas this year!! Do your kids get pocket money? Is this accounted for? Clothes I don't really budget for now as things are tight but I have started selling on Ebay and then allow this for the kids. Also started asking around for hand me downs, but this is only really for the baby as once they get to around 2 this tapers off as the clothes are more often ruined!

Good luck, and let us know how you get on. How does you OH feel about all this?

With regards to the debt, have you checked out https://www.whatsthecost.com? The snowballing section is very good. It will also give you a debt free date to work towards. I have bit less debt than you, but come September our income will be reducing to £2200 and our debt repayments will be £996 for a while, so we'll have to cut back more.

Remember that although you are making big cuts, these are not forever!

Sea xxx

lifebegins

The 800 is "everything else" which is Xmas/birthdays/ clothes/dinner money for 3 (will be doing packed luches from now on) / holidays /haircuts/window cleaner/ going out /piano tuner/vet bills/dentist etc. But I've not been keeping tabs on all these properly: today is my lightbulb day, the spending diary starts tomorrow and these will be reduced to a minimum or eliminated.

LookingAhead

That's the spirit! Good luck! I look forward to seeing your progress posts.

lifebegins

We were paying 650/ month into ?ISAs to repay the mortgage which was fine when my husband had his old job. We stopped when he was made redundant. My youngest is 4 (the others are 10 and 6) so I'm hoping that if we can clear the unsecured debt, I can work more as they get older and resume a "normal" plan/ pay down the mortgage. My OH thinks we should move if things don't start to improve pretty quickly but we are all happy where we live and we worked out that it would cost 30K to move after estate agents/ stamp duty/ solicitors. I'm going to add searching for stuff to sell on e-bay to my to-do list for tomorrow. Thanks again for all your good ideas, signing off now.xx.