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

bonnie_2

i'm lucky in the fact that i have a disabled daughter so get my holiday for free through the family fund. so i wouldn't know. it's worth joining the national trust as well for about £70 a year and going to the beach.
also what i do, crafty it is send of for freebies, so i end up with free pressies and toiletries hardly bought any since i joined here.
kids, mums and dads and hubby only get £20 each b'day and xmas they soon got used to it.
clothes i try to get hand me downs mum buys eldest daughter and they go down , plus she buys them each a few items a year, i only buy uniform and shoes and underwear. i get mine and hubbys clothes as presents from families.
see you can live cheaply, it's just a matter of changing the way you think, i enjoy it now.

lynzpower

Re holidays

We got a cheapie one, staying in a beach house in dorset that the family owns and we are getting the megabus there. So thats abut £6. We will spend £25 on food that we would be spending anyway. I think a few bottles of wine will be what we spend over and above the normal living costs. IYSWIM

If it werent for that, we wouldnt go. A holiday is a want not a need, and no one died ( I dont think) from not going away But Im well on board with DFW, and have been here for a long while, just want to get to the end of it now, then me & OH are off to the Carribbean with our SAVINGS :T

gallygirl

Glad to hear you're making good progress. Like you, I would do anything to stay in a house I loved.

Quick tip on eaby - download their turbolister. You can set up templates for things you ahve lots of (e.g. girls dress age 6) then just change colour, make, picture tec. The good thing about it is you can enter things on there when you have a spare moment, then upload when you want to list (normally for 7 days, weekends/evenings generally best). At the moment though, prob due to hols & weather, prices are poo, so upload & store till autumn.
I'm not an experienced seller, but a few tips
* I'm guessing clothes are not from Primark - so mention brand in the title, this can make a BIG difference.
* don't put on similar things at the same time - e.g. 1 6 yr old dress & 1 10yr old trousers rather than 2 dresses which end up competing with one another.
* start collecting large envelopes! e.g. from all the freebies you'll be sending for!
* weigh everything - don't estimate postage as you can get badly stung this way.
* get the kids involved in the weighing and enveloping.
* as you weigh and list on turbo leave the item in the envelope, put what it is on flap and store standing up in a box. Easy to find when you sell!

Personally, I think you're right to still have a holiday - but follow the tips on here & do it as cheaply as possible.

Good luck!!!!

lifebegins

Thanks for the tips on e-bay, I'll have a go this evening when the kids are in bed!

realwildone

i realise all your posts are supportive. However I live near a private school and drive my kids straight past to the local state school. I earn more than you and am not in debt.

If you cannot afford to send your kids to private school then they have to go to state school. You really need a reality check. You are playing at being wealthy without the income to support it.

I am sorry but I have no symapthy if you cannot bring yourself to ditch the private schooling.

Your OH seems the sensible one here. You need to sell the house, downsize, stop sponsoring charities, go to private schools and get real.

It seems to me the charity should be sponsoring you.

Sorry to sound so harsh, but saying it as you see it will help, whereas saving 20p of your shopping bills is not whats needed here.

overbudget

That's a little harsh realwildone IMO. The OP has explained about the private school - for one child (of three I think) who was having real problems in the state system. This isn't about "playing at being wealthy" - it is about wanting to keep helping their child. So if that is their priority and they can work through the debt problems by cutting costs elsewhere then that is a reasonable choice for them.

happyformonths

I honestly wish you all the best, lifebegins, and I think your intentions are absolutely right, and well done for beginning to get to grips with it.

However I am just getting a feeling that that lightbulb needs to be burning a bit brighter, considering the level of your debt. (I don't want to come across as a hypocrite - you can see by my signature that I cannot lecture you about being in debt.)

Just reading through the thread, it seems to me you are putting across very good reasons why you can't (or rather, won't) make a change to particular aspects of your situation - the house, your 3rd child's schooling, your charity payment. Don't think for a minute that I don't understand what you say about each of those, but the hard fact is that something serious has to happen here, and as realwildone says, it's going to take more than reducing your shopping bill a bit.

Well, that said, maybe you CAN make changes such as that, and pay off the debts, but it will take you an extraordinarily long time, which means you'll pay more in the end. This is your choice.

I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to say (I got distracted halfway through writing this post!) but maybe you understand what I'm saying... and I wanted to point out that all the reasons you give for not wanting to move house (the area, and so on) are still not specific to *that house* - surely you could move somewhere cheaper in the same area or nearby? Yes you might lose a bedroom but that's not the end of the world. Your debt problem would be solved. And I worry a LOT about your mortgage situation - over a grand a month for interest-only? Makes me have palpitations...

Anyway I hope I've got something across to you, and I hope you take it the right way. I do wish you the best, but I think it might have to hurt more than you're willing to let it, just at the moment.

HFM

missk_ensington

I often get slated on here for being a bit too brutally honest....so if you don't wish to hear something that you may take offence at, stop reading this now.....


...My initial impression here is 'all fur coats and no knickers'. Your living a life you can;t pay for, but you like the life and I get the impression perhaps want to 'keep up with the Jones' You drive a car you don't own, live in a house clearly mortgaged to the hilt, pay school fee's you can't afford.... I may be very wrong in saying this, but I'm sensing snobbery and having to be seen in a certain way.

If I am wrong, perhaps you could sell your car and get one for £1500? Put the rest off your debts. You're in dangerous water with your house, is your mortgage fixed? You're paying a lot on interest only and I think you've bitten off more than you can chew, and if rates increase you're going to be one of the thousands of people who get into hot water and lose their home. I'd move downmarket now whilst you've still got some control.

Charity starts at home, stop sending the money. It's great to give to those less fortunate when you're full and plenty, but no one will blame you for stopping for a bit whilst you sort YOUR OWN family out. Sod the kids in Africa or whoever you send money to YOURE AT RISK OF LOSING YOUR HOME!

I do think you need to sell the house, unless you're prepared to really nail the debts and save hard, but for fear of rates going up and you're already living beyond your emans, I think staying in the house is too risky.

overbudget

Looking again at the SOA there is £800 unaccounted for - that is before tackling a huge food bill and other possible savings. Working out where this is going and plugging that would make a huge difference to the debts - without selling the house, moving the child from the school that has helped him etc.
The OP has more income than expenditure which is surely a good starting point. Work out where that money goes - and divert as much as possible to repaying the debts. Maybe I am missing something here but why sell the house before exhausting other possibilities?

realwildone

I often get slated on here for being a bit too brutally honest....so if you don't wish to hear something that you may take offence at, stop reading this now.....

No THAT IS sad to hear.

Far too often on this site people with all good intentions, suggest selling on ebay, buying your fruit from market etc etc.

The fact is when you are in a situation like this brutal honesty is your best friend.

I agree....you are in deep dodo and need to do something NOW before someone does it for you. Because if someone does it for you, the school fees will be gone....PERIOD.

I cannot live like king tut, you clearly cannot afford to either.