Desperate

isy1011

Not sure what jobs you do in the public sector. Did you say maybe I missed it. But... having worked in public sector for a while in management posts and during the last difficult financial climate. There was alot of talk about losing jobs but in practice they tend to just freeze job vacancies and not replace those having left of their own accord. The Unions are quite strong in the public sector and its a large workforce so you can save a great deal of money on staff costs by just doing it this way. Doing it any other way tends to cause a big backlash that they prefer to avoid. So try to put this thought out of your mind.

dktreesea

How about using some of your savings to pay down one of the cards and keeping some for a rainy day, if you would rather hanve some emergency money? At least the pressure on your cash flow would ease a little bit.

unhappydebts

I have calmed down (a little).

I am going to take £1000 out of savings and put it on biggest card. I know it's not the whole £8000 savings but it will calm me down for this month and give me time to think.

I am also going to pay for another £1000 of largest card (which us LTSB) with my Barclaycard as the apr is much lower and will save me x amount in interest on the largest balance.

So including my monthly £300, this month I have paid £1350 off my debts taking them to circa £11800....

Obviously I cannot sustain that every month but is a start yes?

I will also phone barclaycard and Halifax (my two lower cards) and ask them what deal they can do me on 0% transfers....both have been hounding me to balance transfer for a while...hopefully they will be able to do something...

Does all this sound ok?

Thank you for all your kind words. I do need to go and see docs re my post natal depression. I cannot bear the idea of my lo's first years of life being blighted with my depression and stress about money. He is such an amazing amazing little man. He deserves better.

miggy

This makes good sense to me - especially about giving yourself time to think. It may take a little while for you to sort out what works for you but in the meantime you have paid some off and if you can get 0% that's going to be a big help.
I'm glad you will get some support for the PND. Having a little one is demanding and depression makes everything more difficult, so it will be good to get some improvement there. I think it will make more difference to you than to your little one though. My kids (now teens) don't remember the early years. Where it makes a difference is in your enjoying him and having nice memories to look back on.

indebtagain

Hi Unhappydebts,

I am so glad you are going to see your doctor again, I too suffer from PND and at first I tried to hide it and it wasn't until my husband took the morning off work and actually took me to the doctors and said 'my wife is ill' that I had to deal with it - even then I didn't want to take the 'anti-depressants' - but they were good with me and said 'you had a headache - you take a paracetamol' - its the time of the month - you take 'neurofen' etc - these tablets are just to help you deal with your anxiety/depression - I too went on crazy shopping spree's and I've racked up a nice little amount that I am chipping away at slowly but surely and its just recently I had this light bulb moment - I've got 2 wonderful children and a caring husband and a housefull of Stuff - so now on nice sunny Sunday mornings I load up my car to the brim with this 'stuff' and go and sit in a nice sunny field selling the 'stuff' while my husband stays at home with the children - its decluttering my house and making more cash and boy does that feel good. Like you I've brought the kids winter wardrobe and not brought so much this year - they don't need tons and tons of clothes - the same as I don't need lovely Next bags for work - I no longer work in an office and haven't for nearly 5 years - I just clean the local cricket club at 5am on Saturday and Sunday mornings and then go in at a more normal time once in the week. My daughter will also be wearing some of my sons hand-me-downs - tracky bottoms, PJ's etc after all who is going to see that she is wearing a Thomas PJ's - this summer I've lived and died in my denim skirt and a few little £1.50 tops from Primark. I wish you all the best and think about car boot sales - so much fun. I'll check back in on you again and if you can do that SOA - there are some very wise people on here

Kind regards,

Louise

Smilerwoman

Unhappydebts,

I'm so pleased that you are paying off your debts - small steps. And what's the story about the tortoise and the hare? Slow and steady wins the race.

Please go to the docs. When I suffered with depression, things felt so out of my control. I hated it. I hated not being able to get a handle on things - my ironing, my debts, and then when my depression started spiralling, I thought - I'm a failure, I can't even be depressed properly.

But I went to see a doctor. I took counselling, I took a course in CBT. I'm now in control of my debts, even though they are still there. And when I'm not in control I can take a deep breath and have a think about what I can do.

I'm thinking of you

chevalier

Hi there a few random thoughts for you.

Why do you keep on saying my debt. Did you spend the money on nothing but yourself. Or did you spend it on buying clothes for the kids, food when the money didn't stretch to the end of the month that sort of thing. This being the case your OH also has some responsibility for this debt!

Does he know you are depressed? If so then he has to understand that what might be 'a bit of debt' to him, is a massive mountain of debt to you that is threatening your very way of living, and is incredibly stressful.. HE should be the one sorting this or at the very least doing 60% of the work. YOU ARE ILL. If you had a bust leg would he expect you to carry on as normal? Then why is he expecting you to cope with the debt normally?

TELL HIM and tell him you need him to take some responsibilty for helping to sort it. You can't do this on your own.

Maybe he can do the price comparison stuff for the electric/gas/car,house, contents insurance/mobile phone tariff/broadband tariff etc etc to make sure you are on the cheapest plans?

Does a magazine slip through your letter box that you never read? Then cancel the subcription and cancel the direct debit. Check that all direct debits are for things that you still have/use. There have been cases on here of very naughty companies continuing to take money via direct debit for years after the service has been discontinued. So make sure yours are all for current suppliers or services.

Please have a look at the freecycle (https://www.freecycle.org) or freegle site in your area. You will quite often find people offering clothes on there for free! You just have to go and pick them up. Also your little one won't care if his clothes are from the charity shop at this age, so count your blessings now (when they are teenagers and only want nike or ripcurl, then you are in trouble :eek:) on that front LOL!

As someone else said about car boots, but if you can't face people much (this was my problem when I had PND, I became very shy), then ebay is your friend. If it hasn't been used for 6 months then off it goes (this doesn't count clothes you will get back into if you still have a bit of baby weight on....!).

And please please see your DR. If you can't get the words out about how you feel, then write them down before you go and hand it to them to read. That way you will give them how you truely feel...

And I second the others who think that you should pay as much off the debts as possible with the savings.

Here is something to think about £8000 with an interest rate of 1% this will net you £8 in a whole year. Then you will pay tax on it (if it isn't in an ISA)

Lets say that your £13000 debt is being charged at 15% of interest That means in a year you will pay £1950 in interest. I can't work out compound interest right now, but why were you hanging on to the savings again? Even with my basic maths here it isn't cost effective!

And if you do get made redundant then you will get enough money for you to pay this off anyway! If you only had £5000 to pay back your monthly repayments would be significantly less and you could also pay back the remaining money quicker.

Good luck moving forward.

chev

bouncydog1

Hi

You might find it helpful to set up a spreadsheet giving each of your credit cards a column with the rate at the top. Put the date in one column on the left and put in all of your balances at that date. Put a total column on the right.

When you make a payment put that in, so that you have a running total. You can then concentrate on where you need to pay a bit more. Use the snowballing site to start you off if that helps as it will tell you what order to pay your cards off in to save the most money.

If you are good with spreadsheets you could set up another linked sheet that records all of your income and outgoings so you always know exactly where you are.

This will make you feel that you are doing something positive - try not to use your cards unless you can use them properly e.g. take advantage of the free credit period and pay off in full the following month. Alternatively you might be better just to take a certain amount of cash each week as your starting point and when it's gone, it's gone - at least that way your debt is not increasing.

As others on here have said, your debts are not huge, you are dealing with them - as long as you can pay over the minimum each month you just have to plod along - and make sure you enjoy your family. You have another 3 years to think about your mortgage and a lot can happen positively in that time.

tallyhoh

I dont see why you are beating yourself up so much over this, your husband is also responsible & seems to be sleeping soundly at night. You must talk to him again & work something out between you,you should not take al the blame. My guess is that he leaves everything to you & will only complain when it goes wrong.

Been there, done that.

Hannah_10

There is a strong link between over spending and low self esteem. The salesmen prey on it. The media promotes it. Everywhere you look being a good person is branded and sold.

Very many of us with debts have them because of health problems, mental health is top of the pile, you're not alone.

We spend to fill the void, to try to provide some of what we need. We want to dress nicely in the hope people will like us, provide well for our kids int eh hope people will respect us, do stuff int he hope the experience will bring us happiness. We are told again and again that spending makes us happy. Just watch any given advert break on TV, there is a man driving a new car in a state of clear contentment while the rest of the world looks on enviously. There is the impossibly gorgeous A-lister with unrealistically long lashes showing us a pseudo-scientific diagram of how our little stubby mere-mortal eyeslashes will curl up and seemingly stretch before our very eyes (very bad pun). Some children skip by with a milkshake, wiping the froth from their faces, as they prance off into a meadow full of flowers. A reassuring regional accent man tells us how the mobile phone company want to keep us close to our friends... We all like to think we're immune to this sort of stuff but the truth is the auto-suggestions implanted in adverts register with everyone. The more you feel the need for validation the more the salesmen will persuade you that validation lays one card-swipe away.

It doesn't though. As you've felt. It's a lie. All-singing-all-dancing baby monitors don't relieve the worry about SIDS. Having a beautifully turned outchild in a stunning pushchair does not bring reassurace about your parenting capacity. Jars of posh organic baby food with labels with wild flowers on aren't as nutritionally saint-like as nuking a banana for 30 on max. All the parental worry remains. No matter how much you try to fill it.

It's not just parenting either. It's a void in how we see ourselves, the void in our attractiveness, in our sense of professional competance, but worst in our ability to trust we are loved.

Depression is like a subsidance, it undermines your foundations invisibly at first, nothing shows on the surveys, until one day it all slips down. One of the invisible things depression most errodes is your self of self. Your confidence and trust in yourself and your own abilities. Your perception of yourself as a valuable person, your perception of the love people give you as real and meaningful. Your perception of what tomorrow may possibly hold. Is it any wonder that you turn to retail for the answers- they're promising us cures! They're telling us that we will be confident again, able again, important again, loved again.

The saddest part is this: You were always all of those things.

There's nothing you can buy that will make you valuable because you always were. You don't need "retail-therapy", it's the biggest lie out there. You need love and acceptance and trust and security, which are things that come from within yourself not from your credit card. Forgive yourself for over-spending, you are not bad for doing so, just normal. It's what normal people do when they feel low. Turn over a new leaf, leaving the last few months/years behind. Accept and recognise how you came to the debts you have, but also accept that in order to stop the cycle you need to recognise and satisfy the needs that drove you unwittingly to that debt. You need to put yourself first- really first (not salesman first). You need to start to give yourself love and respect and validation. CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) might be helpful. A good cry and a frank chat to your husband might also help. But nothing you can buy and take home in a plastic bag ever will.

It's cheesy but it's true that you may be one person to the world, but to one person you are the world. Make that person you.