Remortgaging to pay off cards?

jemandscout

Landyandy, thanks for that - the cars are expensive to run but mine is a lovely car and pretty reliable so glad to hear it wouldn't be worth selling (not that I can anyway) When we move we'll sell OH's car and hang on to mine as we'll only need one.
ETA thank you orangesmartie!

dumpy

If your phones still have 18 months to go, is it worth ringing them to see if you could drop down a package?

jemandscout

Thanks dumpy - I've just checked and I'm already on the cheapest package. And I was wrong - I've got 23 months of my contract to run :doh:(got to get on top of my admin!!), so unless I pay cancellation charges of about £400 :shocked: I'm stuck with it. Kicking myself - I've got 300 minutes a month and last month used 45!! On the bright side, reception where we're hoping to move is fine so if we do sort out a move next year I'll be sure to use every last minute!! Thank you though, that was definitely worth a try. It seemed like a good deal at the time as my last package cost about £10 a month more - thought I was being money-conscious!

Have managed to get my electricity direct debit reduced by £30 a month today, so pretty pleased about that:)

loveGSDs

hi jem,

just popping in to same well done on everything so far. also dont worry regarding the overspend on the shopping, you've still cut down and as you said, you wont need to spend as much next week

im not doing great this month with my grocery challenge - already spent £100 and its only the 6th! ahhh :eek:

xx

isy1011

Whilst you continue to be spending more than you earn if you increase the mortgage you are also going to keep spending on the cc's. I know because Ive been there about 3 times.

Just plan a budget, cut back but dont increase the debt whilst you still are not in control of the budget.

jemandscout

Thank you lovegsds:) Sure you'll rein it back for the rest of the month!
Isy1011, I think you're so, so right. I need to get to the root of the problem, which is essentially learning how to budget, and sticking to it long term. I've never been any good at living within my means - my spiral of debt began when I was at school actually (shocking I know) - I'd get stuff on tick from the shop I had my Saturday job in and my wages went on paying it back. OMG, that's so bad seeing that written down! Trying to figure out how to get my kids to be responsible with money so they don't end up in this situation.
Thank you so much everyone.

TurnaroundSue

Hi Jem, well done to you so far for the inroads you have managed to make in a short time; and to hubby also for agreeing to get rid of his gym membership and do free training.

The way I managed to get my head around staying within my budget was a challenge I did on this site around 4 years ago. It was called the Unnecessary Challenge and it was carried out at the time of Lent which meant you couldn't spend on anything unnecessary for 40 days. It really changed my attitude to money. By the end of the challenge I hadn't bought anything unnecessary and had money in the bank - wow! what a feeling that was.

Try keeping a spending diary and nip over to the old style forum where you can get loads of tips about cooking stuff from scratch, recipes, shopping wisely etc. Also see what other challenges are here that you can join - like the No Spend Day challenge, Pay off a bit of a debt each day, £10 a day of ebay challenge. There are loads of them and it really does help to focus yourself as well as get support from people who are all in the same boat.

Good luck and well done on getting your finances in order. How did you get on with the electricity people today? Have they reduced your payment at all?

jemandscout

Thank you Sue:)
Spoke to electicity co today and they've agreed to reduce my DD to £190 - so a reduction of £30 per month:j. I've paid off nearly £600 of the outstanding balance now which I'm really pleased about - my bill as of today was just over £1200 (still eek I know, but better than it was!). I was hoping they'd reduce the DD a bit more but they said they didn't want it to be too low to cover winter usage, which made sense. I'll keep an eye on the meter and call them maybe Dec/Jan if I think it's still too high. ( I have to say as an aside that Scottish Hydro Electric are brilliant, very friendly and helpful and I've never had to wait in a queue listening to terrible music.)