Hello again.....

mintymoneysaver

I've been here before, and I'm back again. Having cleared all the debt left over from a big holiday to Florida a good few years ago it has crept up again. Annoyingly, not because of any huge expenses but we have made the mistake of having a couple of small breaks which we couldn't really afford and it's all mounted up again. I control all the money in our house so OH hasn't realised how bad it's got, although he knows we owe some money, and the way our relationship is at the moment I can't tell him.
We look well off on paper, both earning a decent wage but I just want to get this sorted.
We probably have a slightly different situation than a lot of people in that the bills are paid, sorted, worked out very carefully. We each put £625 in a Bill account each month and this covers all household bills, food, petrol, mortgage, insurances etc. Our bills ( except Sky Sports) are all the lowest they could be. I shop round every year, we overpay our mortgage ever so slightly so this can't really be cut so there's not much point me showing you an SOA. This is more just a case of keeping a diary for myself of how it's all going.

We also have a 'savings' current account ( rather optimistically titled!) In theory this pays for all family extras e.g meals out, presents, clothes for the girls ( two teenage daughters) school trips, holidays. Usually we put all this on a credit card which is paid off every month and then anything else stays in the account. There is the odd month ( like this one) where there isn't enough money in there to pay the card so rather than go overdrawn at £5 a day it's not been all paid off. Over the past two years though I have taken out a couple of 0% cards and this is where our debt is. It's either been spending on it e.g We went to Disneyland Paris two years ago and it hasn't all been paid off from then, went to London this summer and that needs paying.
I know we've lived beyond our means in a way but we should be able to afford these things with the money we earn. So this 'savings' account has over £700 put in there each month and that's where the problem is. Things just seem to add up because we have no actual 'savings' to call upon. ( Not true, we do have a fair bit of money tied up in husband's share sceme at work but that is for the Girl's university fees and comes out at source so we don't notice it)

I'm waffling anyway. OH thinks we only had about £800 on a card plus the money we spent in London ( about £700 ) when we actually owed £1900 on one card plus £800 on another so our debt is approx £3400, plus the £300 I haven't managed to pay off the 'family' credit car this month.
He asked the other week how much exactly we owed and I'm worried that he's going to want to see the bill soon, plus a couple of the 0% are coming to an end. I know people will say to tell him but at the moment I just can't. We are going through a very rough patch and this wouldn't help!

Forgot to say, none of my or his personal spending is involved in this, we keep the rest of our salaries for ourselves. Again this would seem generous to a lot of people as we keep £300 each. My plan is to try to use some of 'my' money to pay this debt off as it's me who has got us into this mess!

So current situation;
In savings £259 ( but £100 needed for daughter's ski trip)

card 1 Halifax ( usually cleared every month) £844.79 outstanding
Card 2 Amazon £800 0% but only till November
Card 3 Virgin £1900 ( 0% till January) plus recent spending in London ( approx £800 0% till March)

My plan at the moment is that I've just applied and been accepted for a Barclaycard at 0% for 16 months. Not sure of my credit limit yet but I hope to move all of Amazon there, about £500 of Halifax ( be able to pay the rest off at the end of this month) and as much of Virgin as it will let me.

Virgin will then still be getting paid off and will look much more like OH expects it too, and he has talked about clearing it at the end of the 0% with some of the shares money.
Barclaycard he won't know about, which I know myself is sneaky but it's just what I need to do at the moment to keep things stable. I will pay the minimum balance off it myself out of 'my' money and try every which way I can to find extra money to throw at it, while at the same time I want to get that 'savings' account sorted so that we do actually start to have some rather than just robbing Peter to pay Paul.

I would love it if people were kind enough to comment, and I will try to remember to update regularly!

First stop, waiting for Barclaycard to arrive!

KingElvis

You sound like you have it all worked out so I wish you good luck and hope it works out for you.

BTW you're lucky, the ski trip at our school was £650...that got knocked on the head real sharpish LOL

mintymoneysaver

Oh no, the ski trip is £800 but that is just this month's payment! Only £250 to go after this though!

katie2407

just want to say good luck and will pop in to see how you are getting on

mintymoneysaver

First bit of good news is that Barclaycard sent me an e mail telling me I've definitely been accepted and giving me a credit limit far in excess of what I need. So I'll be able to transfer everything that I want to, which was one of the things I was concerned about.

Roll on the card arriving!

mintymoneysaver

And it's arrived, with a lovely big credit limit! Only to be used for a balance transfer and then hidden away, obviously. Just waiting for the two bills to come in and then I'll know the exact amounts that need transferring.

I'm also attempting to lose some weight at the moment, so trying to lose some pounds while gaining some. First day of my 'home made' diet today, tried Weight watchers too many times. None of you know me so I'll be honest with my weight. 15st 6 when I stood on the scales this morning, so as you can see I really need to lose some. I know I can't have a quick fix for either of my 'pound' problems so slow and steady will hopefully win the race. I only plan on weighing myself every fortnight, then at least if I've lost a lb or two it'll feel good!

mintymoneysaver

So balance transfer sorted. £1500 from Virgin, £740 from Amazon and £650 from Halifax. £2890, plus the 2.9% BT fee taking it to roughly £3000. Have set up a dd from my own account to pay minimum balance, but they don't take that out if you pay more off each month so I'll have to watch that and make sure I pay more than that off.

Virgin now has only £1400 remaining on it, and OH has decided to get £2000 out the shares as he wants that paid off and it will go towards a few other things we need to get sorted. I did panic the other day as he started asking to see statements and stuff but i think I got round it okay. I feel awful being like this, never have been before but needs must at the moment.

So plan now is to update every time I manage to pay some money towards this debt. Have just sold a mobile phone for £30 so can pay that off it, and that's 1% of it paid off already!:rotfl:I'll be comping like mad to see what I can win, preferably cash, to help towards it.
On the weight front, I'm still going ( 3 days! lol) and haven't attempted to weigh myself. Hopefully I can keep it up!


Savings £169
Debt approx £3000
Weight 15.6

josephine82

Hi

Well done for getting the balance transfer to give you a bit of a rest on those interest payments.

My question to you know is:

What are you going to put in place now, to make sure this doesn't happen again? Is it worth re-looking at your budget to try and put more money aside for the school and family stuff? Or maybe allocating some more aside for family things, meals trips out etc, and then keep the school things separate? Not sure what the best way would be but I would say its probably a really good idea to look at how you have things set up and see if there is any way to review it!

Well done on starting down the weight loss route. I'm sure you can do it. My one piece of helpful advice would be EXERSISE! Even if its only a 30 min walk a few times a week, it will really help you to start shedding the pounds- good luck!

Jo

cobblers_boy

Hi

Just a few thoughts.

1. The Credit Cards you have BT'd and paid off must be closed. don't leave them sitting around with a nil balance otherwise temptation may become too much.
2. Cut the Barclaycard up now you have completed the BT's. Again don't let temptation get in the way.
3. Barclaycard will reduce the DD to compensate for any payments rec'd prior to this (I pay mine early each month - wish I could pay in full but can't - but have a DD just in case forget etc). If you wish to overpay either set up a standing order to go out after the DD or better still make one out for more than the minimum payment before the DD. Paying earlier in the month will also marginally reduce the interest charge as well.

Good luck

CB:)

mintymoneysaver

Hi, thanks for that and good idea about the standing order. i'll sort that out as soon as I get the first bill. Barclaycard will be cut up, don't worry! Virgin will be cancelled, Halifax won't as that's our 'family' credit card which gets paid off every month ( usually!) and Amazon will be cut up too, as soon as I see if I've got any Amazon points to use up!

Thanks for reading.

mintymoneysaver

josephine82 wrote: »

Hi

Well done for getting the balance transfer to give you a bit of a rest on those interest payments.

My question to you know is:

What are you going to put in place now, to make sure this doesn't happen again? Is it worth re-looking at your budget to try and put more money aside for the school and family stuff? Or maybe allocating some more aside for family things, meals trips out etc, and then keep the school things separate? Not sure what the best way would be but I would say its probably a really good idea to look at how you have things set up and see if there is any way to review it!

Well done on starting down the weight loss route. I'm sure you can do it. My one piece of helpful advice would be EXERSISE! Even if its only a 30 min walk a few times a week, it will really help you to start shedding the pounds- good luck!

Jo

You're absolutely right, it's the extras that add up because we have no seperate pot to get them from. First thing I'm going to aim to do is put £50 a month in the savings account connected to my current account so that next year's holiday will be almost paid for by the time it comes round ( only a week down south, nothing flash!) I also need to look at the 'family' account. it does generally run well, but obviously not well enough! I think my fault is that I always think there's enough there, e.g for Christmas and then find out actually we were two hundred quid short or whatever so it has all mounted up.
For example this month there's £100 for the ski trip, the car needs servicing, we are off to Centerparcs ( trip paid for as a present off Mum, but we will want spends when we are there) Brother in law's 60th birthday, nephew's christening and that's before I even think about anything else!:eek:
The only consolation is that October's a much cheaper month so will try and put more aside there for Christmas.
I also never allocate extra spending money for the summer holidays, but I should do because all those extra ice creams, trips out etc soon add up.
There is no extra money for all of that, so I have to make do with what is there but I obviously need to think about spending it and budgetting it much more wisely! I've done it once before, so I can do it again!