I've had my LBM and now it's time to sort it out once and for all

Primrose2004

I had my LBM over the last few days and realised not only do I have to sort out the debt but I need to seriously re-think my spending habits. If I don't the debts will just keep on building up and up and will never go.

I've decided a diary on here is my best way to not waffle on about this in real life and also a reference to look back on and, hopefully, celebrate my success:rotfl::rotfl: I've been readng the dfw board and it's very inspiring. Please excuse the unloading of my thoughts on here, better than keeping it locked away in my brain

I'm cross with myself because a while ago I had cc debt of £6000 and took out an interest free loan with work to get rid of it and have now ended up with £7000 on cc plus the repayments to the loan:mad: Its all my own fault but instead of wallowing in self pity(as I had bene before) getting depressed and then spending more I AM GOING TO SORT IT OUT

So my debts are

£7,000 cc
£1,900 overdraft
£450 overdraft
£5,000-intital balance-interest free loan from employer, paying off over 3 years, have already paid back just over a year. It will be cleared by May 2012

plus the mortgage but i'm not going to count that

I'll post my SOA later, should be interesting reading:eek:

The good news is that I have been doing some freelance work and should be getting around £1000 over the next 2 months. Also I start a 2nd job in September which will bring in £160ish a month after tax/NI and will all go to the debt. And my son will get his free 15 hours at preschool from Sept so I won't be paying for pre-school anymore and also my childcare whilst I work will halve:T My husband gets childcare vouchers from his salary and i've costed out childcare until my son starts school and it looks like we'll be able to stop having the vouchers from around May 2011 as we'll have built up enough vouchers to pay all the childcare until Sept 2011 when he starts school:T that'll be an extra £180ish after tax/NI:T

I'm trying to think up some idea of how I can make an extra £100 a month to go to the debt, I will be ebaying a few things and could possibly do a bootfair stall with some bits and pieces. I can't really get another job as I already have 2(well I will as of Sept) and they total 23 hours a week and I have 2 children to look after as well!

Oh and I forgot I hope to increase my hours in my first job once my son is at school from 15 hours a week to 25, it just depends if my boss agrees. If this happens I will get approx £300 extra per month after tax/NI

I have already swapped suppliers, switched to PAYG for mobile, cancelled Sky(although pay £20/month for top up TV so hubbie can watch his beloved sports) hubbie bikes to work so we don't have to have 2 cars, daughter and sons clothes are normally donated by a friend.

My problem is impulse buying. I have a plan for that. I will find a notebook and take that with me everywhere, when I see a 'good offer/bargain' I will get the notebook out, write details of the offer(place seen, item, cost, when the offer ends) and then NOT BUY IT. Once I'm home i'll consider if the offer is actually good enough/warrants buying and I reckon 9/10 times it won't be.

I would appreciate any comments and support along my journey and hope to be debt free asap. Ideally by this time next year I would like to have halved my debt(not including the mortgage!!) this means I need approx £500 a month to go towards the debts:eek: I already pay £140 to the interest free loan(I know I should pay less to this and more to the cc but I don't want to approach my boss and admit i'm in a mess again so I will be leaving that as it is), my new 2nd job will give me £160 so in total thats £300 already, I just need another £200 and i'm there:(

Right, enough of the waffle.

Primrose2004

I forgot to add in earlier that there's a distinct possibility of overtime being available at work over the next few months which will help no end if I can squeeze the hours into my day somehow

jwil

Hi Primrose, happy new diary!

I'm another who consolidated, then doubled my debt It's definitely not a good thing to do!

One thing I do is online surveys and bingoport to earn amazon vouchers which I spend on books mainly. It helps me not feel deprived about not buying anything for myself, but loads of other people save them up for Christmas and Birthday presents.

Your plan to stop the impulse spending sounds good!

Good luck with the debtbusting!

CITDFW

happy diary writing, i've also just joined diaryland hoping it helps me control my spending

Primrose2004

Thanks for the replies, not been doing much to sort the debt, apart from getting paid £550 for some work i've been doing, finally got the cash :j Shame some of that went on essential food/petrol. I have £350 to bank though, which will end up against the cc debt.

I have been ebaying tonight. 15 items listed. I only keep the good bits to ebay as I find it a faff. I also have a large boot fair box., so hopefully before the end of bootfair season I can have a stall to raise some cash and clear some clutter.

Also saving a lot of toys to ebay nearer to christmas as they'll fetch more money then.

I've got some more things to ebay now but have run out of enthusiasm:o Will try to get them on either tomorrow or tuesday so they end either sat or sun.

Also need to find time for doing my SoA. Not sure when that'll happen though as i've ended up with my 2 children plus a friends 2 tomorrow. Should be fun:eek:

Primrose2004

Oh and another thing I am very proud of since starting this thread is that I had my step mother's 60th birthday present to buy. I didn't want to spend much(couldn't afford to either) so I noticed I could double my Tesco clubcard vouchers for flowers. I bought £10 worth of cut flowers(4 bunches) some reduced already:o and made them into one lovely more expensive looking bunch:D Went down well until my daughter announced that mummy started with 4 bunches of flowers and made them into one, cue mummy dying of embarrassement:eek: 6 year olds eh!!

And I went into town today and only spent about £9 in the 99p and £1 shop on essentials :T

Primrose2004

another quick post, just counted my coppers/silver jar and have £7 to bank:T and another nearly £2 in coppers left in the jar plus I didn't count the silver as I want to leave that to mount up a little more before seeing how much is there. I plan to empty my purse of all coppers and small silver on a weekly basis. to quote Tesco 'every little helps'

Primrose2004

oo oo and I have just taken my cc out of my purse :j I won't cut it up just yet but will put it hidden away somewhere, but if it's not in my purse that's a start. Right?

Primrose2004

Ok, so here's my SOA. Be gentle with me

Household Information[/b]
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 633
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1200
Benefits................................ 176
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2009
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 779
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 134
Electricity............................. 43
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 40
Water rates............................. 50
Telephone (land line)................... 19.5 this is with BT, is it worth looking around?
Mobile phone............................ 20- hubbie and I both on PAYG and don't always top-up each month, have budgeted a £10 top up each every month
TV Licence.............................. 11.5
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 20 we pay for top-up tv, hubbie loves his sport so unlikely to be able to reduce much more
Internet Services....................... 0 no internet as work pay for this
Groceries etc. ......................... 280 in reality I would think this is more and definately need to work on this
Clothing................................ 15 again this could be more, but children generally get hand-me-downs and I try not to buy. hubbie at work most of the time with a uniform!!
Petrol/diesel........................... 20
Road tax................................ 10
Car Insurance........................... 26.5
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 30
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0 this is taken out of hubbies pay before he gets paid so accounted for in his net pay above
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 10.5
Buildings insurance..................... 14
Contents insurance...................... 14
Life assurance ......................... 31.5
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 40
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 50
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1658.5

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 170000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 172000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 100000...(779)......0 not sure on the rate but it's fixed until Feb 2012
Total secured & HP debts...... 100000....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
credit card....................6770......215.......0 unsure on the rate
Interest free loan.............3333......139.......0 started at £5k, paying off over 3 years
Total unsecured debts..........10103.....354.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,009
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,658.5
Available for debt repayments........... 350.5
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 354
Amount left after debt repayments....... -3.5
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 172,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -100,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -10,103
Net Assets.............................. 61,897


I must have missed some things as we're never in budget I will try a spending diary but I imagine most of the shortfall is on food. Also we're bad for takeaways but have got better. Need to get even better:o We have started meal planning but the school holidays have got in the way. i shall re-start tomorrow. Bet there's enough in the freezer for a week

Any comments will be gratefully received.

saorsie

Primrose2004 wrote: »

oo oo and I have just taken my cc out of my purse :j I won't cut it up just yet but will put it hidden away somewhere, but if it's not in my purse that's a start. Right?

Hi Primrose and welcome to diaryland :hello:

One of the suggestions for 'managing' your credit card is to freeze it in an icecream tub of water, then if you need to use it 'in an emergency' you have to defrost it first thus buying you time to decide if it really is ....... an emergency that is!

Good luck on your journey - will pop in from time to time to see how you're getting on

-s-

Primrose2004

hi saorsie, have been reading your diary tonight. I admire you dedication, well done on saving enough money to pay the cc off once the 0% bal ends :T I hope one day i'll be able to get there. at the moment everythings reached it's limit, cc, overdraft oo actually they're not on my SOA, but they're the least of my worries

But as I said before in May 2011's pay hubbie will get £160 more just because we won't need childcare vouchers anymore. And then in Oct 2011 I hope to up my hours at work by 5 or 10 hours a week which will mean £160 or £320 more per month for me. I really hope I can do 10 hours extra a week, it'd be so good if they let me.

And I think there will be overtime at work soon. My aim is to earn an extra £100 a month via ebay/overtime etc etc to go towards the debt and to try and pay of half the cc in a year, so that's £3,500 which is £300 a month plus the interest that'll be added.

But i'm proud to say, after looking at my online banking I haven't added anything onto the cc since 20th july :T to be honest that may have more to do with it being near the limit than anything else :rotfl:

Right I really ought to go to bed