Wishing my life away :(

Percy1983

I suppose it helps if you have a goal for the end when you are debt free, with me the ultimate goal is to buy a house, get married and have 2.2 kids (in that order). Basically I spend more time thinking how great it will be rather than starring at how it is now.

I also do charity work which is a great distraction and I really enjoy it.

Its great to have the buzz of updating those figures, but try and find other things to do in the meantime, Ic an honestly say my spreadsheet only get opened a couple of times in any one month.

Basically if you want time to pass quicker try having some fun, the saying time flys when your having fun is very true. Staring at a spreadsheet isn't very much fun in reality.

milliemonster

I am soooooooooo glad that there are more of you out there feeling just like me!, when I started on our debt free journey a couple of years ago, I worke dout by being completely frugal, we could be debt free by July this year, well, that aint happening! I soon discovered that it was such a massive change to our lifestyles cutting out absolutely everything non essential that I just got completely depressed and bored.

Now I realise that if we were out of work then things would be very different and we would have no choice, but fortunately we are in good jobs and so I have decided to take the scenic route to debt freedom, as long as the total comes down each month then I'm happy.

I guess, I am of the opinion that I don't want to spend the next 2 years being so tight that we can't have a break away, or be extravagant at all in any way, the last couple of months have been a bit of a nightmare as we have had to use the cc's for car repairs, but hey ho, that's life unfortunately, I try not to let it get me down.

I know we still have a heck of a lot to pay off and at the moment it just doesn't feel like we're getting anywhere, I tend to have a few months of paying off huge sums, then get really down about having no life so start spending a bit again and then have to rein myself back in again, I have to get the balance right somehow.

But I know it will get paid off someday, I'd like it to be by the end of next year but if we can get to around 10k by then I'll be happy.

Percy1983

I think what it comes down to is none of us should feel quilty about spending when we are in debt. You need to be sensible and make sure at the very least you break even in a month without getting into more debt. But this only works if you have them under control and have some 'spare' cash, yes logic says throw all spare cash at your debts, but logic also says you may need to spend a little to stop yourself going crazy.

Its not a crime to still have a life just because you have debts.

System

Percy1983 wrote: »

Its interesting how some people have basically completely cut there social lives yes its is the quickest way but not always the best. Yes I have made a lot of cutbacks but not right down to the bone and I still have some money for socialising etc.

Just remember its not a race its a journey, there isn't a right or wrong way as long as the figures are reducing.

I suppose for me, the problem is that I am only paying the minimum off every month and am still only just scraping by, so whilst I would love to still have 'a life', it's just not possible without missing payments and ruining my credit rating. I do try to do as many free things as possible, such as walks in the park or sitting in a pub drinking tap water, but I know my boyf is thoroughly cheesed off with me never having any money and is fed up with me saying no to activities because 'I can't afford it'. So for me it is a race because the sooner I clear rhe debts, the sooner I can enjoy myself guilt-free and finally think about starting a family (something which I haven't been able to do before as I didn't want to bring a child into a debt-filled house).

Speedybug

I have a question for you all. How do I get through day to day, month to month and living from one payday to counting down the days to the next payday without getting so hung up on how much we spend?

I 'inherited' my debt. I divorced my husband in 2008 and moved in with my boyfriend whom i'm head over in heels in love with. The problem is that both him and his ex wife had a ton of debt. We've paid most of it off and remortgaged etc etc. We have one large loan, vehicle finance and some CCs to pay off. I find myself getting stressed every month trying to work out how to pay for everything. I end up doing a budget and then having to rework it time and time again through the month. My BF is not great with money so trusts me to do the budget and tell him yes we can or no we can't afford things. I feel like the bad guy every time i have to say no to things. How can I help myself relax and not worry about it so much?

Percy1983

In_The_Red_2009 wrote: »

I suppose for me, the problem is that I am only paying the minimum off every month and am still only just scraping by, so whilst I would love to still have 'a life', it's just not possible without missing payments and ruining my credit rating. I do try to do as many free things as possible, such as walks in the park or sitting in a pub drinking tap water, but I know my boyf is thoroughly cheesed off with me never having any money and is fed up with me saying no to activities because 'I can't afford it'. So for me it is a race because the sooner I clear rhe debts, the sooner I can enjoy myself guilt-free and finally think about starting a family (something which I haven't been able to do before as I didn't want to bring a child into a debt-filled house).

I was in similar situation at first, if you are just covering minimums then you need to break the deadlock as it will take a long time to get away from that stage.

Do you have anything you could sell, I ask as I broke the minimum payment deadlock by selling a few things on ebay, in total I listed over 250 items and got over £2500. I also managed to get a few APR's lowered on cards.

Once you have the ability to overpay you will soon find the amount free to overpay things will grow as minimum payments come down as you make some headway into your debts. Once you are overpaying a decent amount every month this is when you can start to spend a little of you overpayment fund as such.

To me a great help was then also getting a loan at 8.9% over 7 years, it is the lowest rate on any debt I have so decided to stretch it as long as possible to keep payments down and this reduced what was 'needed' to service debt monthly.

The plan now is to hammer the credit cards then play catch up with the remainder of the loan at the end, right now I have about £650 a month which I overpay on cards so as you can see I can spend a bit if needed.

So basicallt if you can only service minimum payments see if you can do anything to reduce these payments as this is when some freedom comes back.

Most of all try and stay positive, I know how it feels when you are at the point you are in, but trust me there is light at the end of the tunnel.

As for relaxing about it, that may just depend on the type of person you are. Personnally I know its all under control, yes it may take a while to clear but that doesn't worry me.

yorkshire-lad

as with all the other posts ginger, i too know the feeling.
everyday i wake up and think to myself, at 21, decent wage, still living at home, i should be rolling in cash, and with lots of savings but i have 9k of debt:(

i was daft and got myself into debt, but i have seen all of this as a learning experience. always look on the brightside:D

debtdesperado

So true IntheRed... I think what makes it more difficult is that the debt has been run up the debt by having a turbo-charged social life - doing expensive things in expensive clothes, buying expensive treats etc. This makes it feel doubly hard to try and adjust not even to a realistic standard of living, but to (what feels like, after the excesses of the past) a positively frugal existence.

When I had my credit cards I never usually looked at the price of things, would never make myself choose one or the other (I always bought both) and it never occurred to me to deny myself anything. It was a few months into my debt-free journey before I realised I would always have to consider the price etc not just when I was paying off debt, but forever, if I wanted to continue staying in the black. I think that realisation was the lowest point.

TheMunk

Been there done that got the t-shirt.... Having paid off my debt I can say there is life at the end of the tunnel and the feeling of freedom to say i have no debt is 100% worth it. No more feeling bad, no more worrying about how can i pay this if x happens; its all good it may be hard now but just keep your chin up and plow on.

Though moneysaving is a habit hard to break (prolly a good thing). Whe you reach the end you'll have turned into a tight git, well i did. I now take all my free cash i used to service debt and pay it into savings running the spreadsheets this time to watch the money go up not down waiting for pay day to hit my savings goals.

I suppose the long and the short of it is your not alone and as long as you hang around here you never will be. Good luck and keep the faith

-M-

fritillaria

Yep, I know how you feel! I
'm also incredibly impatient and have set in my head a target to pay off all debts this year which I know, while possible, is completely unrealistic. The past 3 months have been particularly bad as I've been waiting for my maternity allowance to kick in following being made redundant - first payment should go in mid-March!
I'm trying to think of more things I can do on a daily basis to help towards the debts to keep my motivation up.