All help and advice so very, very welcome!

Spirit_2

Well done on telling your wife.

You may want to tell her about this site and direct her over to the 'old style' board where they make living well on a carefully managed budget a joy. As she is a SAHM she may welcome the'company' of others who are giving their families 'more' by spending less.

Tightening your belts will be worth it, and you will see the fruits of it in just a few years.
We had a huge income (at least 3 times yours:eek:) but got ourselves into over £60K worth of debt when my husband was made redundant. He got another job our income was restored but it has taken us 3 years to clear the debt....the DFW way of life is now giving us a secure future.

Go to www.whatsthecost.co.uk and make a snowball of your debts ..it really is a great motivator


Keep posting. Good luck

depressedwithdebt

FortunePig wrote: »

Hi DWD

Just read your thread for the first time - congratulations on starting to sort everything out. You mentioned that you might like to try using Excel to keep track of your finances. I sort of learnt it for work as although its not a huge part of my job to deal with calculations, there are times when I need to. This may help if you're new to spreadsheets:

Firstly, you don't need to buy Excel if you don't already have it! Google Open Office and download it. This is an open-source (which means that people develop it for the fun of it without charging users - google open source for more info on this type of program) version of a microsoft office-style suite of programs. Open Office works more or less the same as Excel, you can open Excel-created files in it, and you don't have to pay anything for it!!

Once you've got either program open and working, here's some spreadsheet tips...

I don't know if you're an occasional user or complete beginner so here's the excel basics: http://www.ehow.com/how_2262166_set-up-basic-excel-spreadsheet.html. Open Office will work much the same. You can find lots of good tutorials for whatever level you're on using google once you have the software installed. Apologies if this is too basic - I'm assuming that you've not used the program at all, but even if I am going too basic, maybe this post could help someone else.

Open and look at a spreadsheet and you will see that it is divided into rows (numbered) down the side and columns (alphabet) along the top. The little boxes that make up the sheet are called cells and each has an individual name. For example, a cell on the row marked 3 that comes under the letter B will be B3. A cell in row 10 under column R would be R10 and so on.

All you need to do when building a financial-type spreadsheet is think of using it like lists. To make a simple spreadsheet telling you (as an example), what your debts cost each month, you could list the name of the debts in column a (going down the column) and then the total payment to each debt in column b (with each figure in column b next to it's resepctive debt in column a).

Once you're comfortable with entering information into cells, you can make it do clever things for you like adding, subtracting and multiplying.

Take a look at these tutorials - all very easy and will teach you quickly how to do basic maths in both programs. You can really interchange them but I'm linking to info for both as I don't know which program you're using and it can be confusing if the screen you're looking at doesn't match the one in a tutorial:

http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/tutorial/Spreadsheet_Math.html - Open Office add/subtract/divide

http://www.ehow.com/how_9694_add-two-cells.html - excel basic addition

http://www.ehow.com/how_2248062_multiply-cells-excel.html - excel multiplication

http://www.ehow.com/how_2248064_subtract-cells-excel.html - subtract in excel

I hope this might help as a point in the right direction. Its such a huge program it can be a bit daunting to begin with, but this hopefully will point you towards opening a file, entering data and doing simple maths. The best advice I can give from there is to use google constantly. The answer will be on there - especially with a program like this with millions of users. That was how I learnt and it was so effective that no one in the office realized that I didn't know Excel from day 1!

Hope this helps!

Hi FortunePig

Thanks so much for this. Trev has also kindly emailed me some advice and assistance on getting to grips with excel, so over the next few evenings my mission will be to master (well, perhaps use!) excel so that we can keep a tab on the debts (hopefully) reducing month after month...!

It really is so strange. As those of you who followed this post will know a week ago I was really at rock bottom. My debt problem was being hidden from my wife, and week after week I was going further into debt, trying to give the impression everything is going well. I have a good job, and couldn't face telling the one person closest to me that whilst good at my job, I am useless with money. I was considering DMP, and scared senseless about CCJ's (owing to my job) and bailiffs banging on the door.

It is just a week later, and everything is now in the open. Provided the consolidation loan goes through (which it should, but you never know), and thanks to my lender being understanding, I have 12 months when I am able to bring my debt down, maybe by £10k, which would be a massive reduction. We are going to have to live very frugally, but the challenge is now to only use money coming in rather than credit cards.

Everyone here has been so helpful and supportive. I just cannot believe that there are so many people out there who have been, or are, in a similar predicament to me, and who use their own time to help others out. I can honestly say that I do not know how I would have started to sort this mess out without every single one of you advising and supporting me.

It is early days, and a lot is to be done, but I will, as suggested, just start climbing the hill to clear the debt rather than looking to see how high the hill is!!

So let the money saving (and debt reduction) begin!:):j:money:

Sunnylooloo

I've learnt a lot from your thread too!!

I can't believe how much your mood as changed in literally a week. I am so pleased for you. As we all know it is one huge roller coster but at least you have made a start and you have got your wife on board (a huge relief for you)

As has been suggested there are so many money saving tips all around this site which are such a help.

Also as everyone as said keep posting and let us know how things go esp with the loan etc.

Keep your chin up

LL
x

depressedwithdebt

Hey there eveyone

Bit of an update really. As you will be aware, just over a week ago I started posting on this site as I was at rock bottom, having gotten myself into a huge financial pickle. My wife wasn't aware of the situation, and I felt unable to tell her as I didn't want for her to look at me in a different way.

Things are now looking up! I have posted already how I finally came clean to my wife, who has been, and continues to be, really supportive. It's naturally taking her some time to get used to the bombshell I dropped on her, but she is keen to work through it together, regardless of how long it takes to claw our way out of debt.

The consolidation loan I applied for (somewhat reluctantly) has been approved, with the funds to come in later this week. On the day they are in, I wil be clearing those cards with the highest interest rates (Virgin and egg, remainder towards the Natwest one). I have also had confirmation from the lender that I am now on interest only, paying £135 per month instead of £615. This is for 12 months, so I can hopefully pay off an extra £5,760 of debt. With what I am paying already, I am hoping to clear about £10k in a year, more if I can sell some belongings.

I know it's going to be very tough still, and I will have to live really, really carefully for a number of years, but I do feel as though I have turned a corner. I know what debts I have, and what steps I have to take to reduce them rather than add to them, and I feel ready for the challenge!

Everyone here has been so helpful and supportive. I really don't know what I would have done without the excellent support I have had.

wantabetterlife

I have been following your diary DWD and am so glad things are looking up for you. It will be tough but at least you and your wife can support eachother and you dont feel as if you have to keep pretending everything is ok.
It is amazing how easy it is to get into debt just by living beyond your means by a small amount every month. Me and OH used to eat out all the time and live on takeaways and had absolutely no budget at all!! We have managed to clear our debt and are now concentrating on the mortgage. The best advice i can give you is to get yourself a spending diary- a real eye opener All the best and keep the updates coming. WABL

Sunnylooloo

So glad things are looking a lot clearer now!!!

and as has been said keep those updates coming

x

missworks2jobs

depressedwithdebt wrote: »

Well, I did it. I told my wife it all last night. And she was so understanding I wondered why I had not told her before, before things became this bad.

She accepts the debts as being as much hers as they are mine, and we went through the figures together and recognise it is going to be a hard time ahead of us (certainly for the first twelve months when we are going to plough ANY extra money to clear debts to bring payments down as much as poss, whilst the mortgage is low), but that we will get through it. We will be getting a book (unless I can master excel quickly!) to keep a track of the debts, and (hopefully) note how much they are going down by each month.

She has also said that she can take on some of the food shopping money (so I only have to budget for £200 a month rather than £280), and will give any spare money a month over to the debts. She has also said she will sell a rolex she had been given some years back (before I met her) which will give a good bit towards the debt. I will be selling a lot of m,y things too, including my flashy mobile phone, and going back to a basic one. I think it will be nicer to have a flashy phone when i know I can actually afford it!

So sacrifices will be made, but the most important thing is that she is now in the picture. I no longer have to hide things from her, and she knows that I do not have a magical pot of money to dip into if we want something we can really live without.

Given her reaction, I still feel deeply ashamed as if only I had told her sooner (so much sooner) maybe things wouldn't have gotten this bad. But I suppose we all live and learn, often the hard way.

I guess there is a way out. It will not be easy, but at least I now have someone I can work with on a daily basis to get it all sorted out.

She agrees that the new loan over 5 years is a good idea, so we can clear the Virgin and egg cards (which have either double the interest or almost double the interest), then pay off as much as we can on the other credit cards with the extra money we won't be paying towards the mortgage. Any surplus funds we may have (which admittedly are not likely to be much) will also be used to pay money off debt, regardless of how small an amount it is (although as LL says, a couple of glasses a wine every so often and a pizza may be nice from time to time!).

Thanks again for all of the advice. I am now a MSE convert, so will continue posting, to let you know how things are going, and also to try and get even more money saving tips!!

Yeay! I'm so proud of you for telling her (and I bet she is proud of you too). She's probably been wanting to sort everything out for ages but has hung back waiting for you to ask for help so that she doesn't upset you or make you feel like she's being a nagging controling wife.

An extra person to share the burden and come up with ideas is much better than trying to manage on your own. So glad you're on the right path....like you say, its not going to be easy but you have a plan, you have a way out...there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Well done, a big pat on the back. :T
PS we've just done a balance transfer to Nationwide credit card (as I have a current account with them) they might be worth trying once your next 0% runs out). Or sign up for the email update on MSE they regularly update you on the best deals of the moment.