Newbie - first post, scarey!

barnaby-bear

david_hellier wrote:

Welcome to the site. According to my calculations you have £43.97 per week to spend on anything else including food, clothes, baby. This is an emergency situation and you must not spend more than this per week to avoid further overspend. I suggest you seek advice from CCCS and consider bankruptcy/DMP.

!!!!!!! The only reason they only have 43.97 left is because they spend it on bling, chav-tackle and alike. Champagne lifestyle on a jacobs creek income. People keep whole families on a quarter of this. They can't afford their lifestyle, that's why they are in debt, spend-and-bling and keeping up with Jones.

Dolly_Smith

I have to say, OP does have about quadruple the income of a lot of people here, but my debt has always risen or fallen in line with my income.

There are a lot of luxuries here - clothes, haircuts, products, days out, meals out, gym. I earn quite a good salary and don't have a budget for any of those per month!

so with some fairly minor adjustments to your lifestyle you could easy have a lot of disposable income to throw at your debts

babes21

To be honest i would have tried to reduce/clear the debts before you even thought about moving to the bigger house as it seems with your plan now your mortgage will be a lot higher and at the moment you're only just managing keeping above board, that's without paying the debts off.

You need to reduce the monthly luxuries dramatically, even if that's to just cover you new mortgage, will you have any left over to start paying off some of the debts monthly?

beeniemac

you have to face upto the fact that if you wish to clear your debt, you simply cannot live the life of luxery that you currently lead. You HAVE to cut out your luxery items if you want to make some inroads into this debt;
Gym
Golf
Hair
Presents
Clothes
TV package

We can only help you if you are prepared to help yourself.

Headintheclouds_3

barnaby-bear wrote:

!!!!!!! The only reason they only have 43.97 left is because they spend it on bling, chav-tackle and alike. Champagne lifestyle on a jacobs creek income. People keep whole families on a quarter of this. They can't afford their lifestyle, that's why they are in debt, spend-and-bling and keeping up with Jones.

That may be so, but the OP obviously realises that they need to take control of their finances - hence posting in DFW. There are more effective ways of getting your point across than silly insults - perhaps you can use some of your experience to offer constructive advice on where the OP can start.

barnaby-bear

Headintheclouds wrote:

That may be so, but the OP obviously realises that they need to take control of their finances - hence posting in DFW. There are more effective ways of getting your point across than silly insults - perhaps you can use some of your experience to offer constructive advice on where the OP can start.

I was actually responding to the guy who thinks it's an emergency panic-station situation. It's not silly insults it's blindingly obvious - living beyond means, too much consumerism and unnecessary expense. Sometimes being nice and subtle doesn't work. These people owe £28k and spend £100 on a haircut, gym, golf (£80+) - some people have to feed their kids on less than that for a month - harsh but sometimes you can be too kind. You may want the haircut, pressies, gym but it isn't their money it's money borrowed from the future or never-never.

Where can he start spend - well how about giving up the meals out, gym, golf, £500 on food (the kids don't even live there full time!)

Ali-OK

There's a saying "the more you earn, the more you spend, the more you borrow". I don't know if it applies to the OP in this case, however I can understand how as you go up the career ladder and earn more, you begin to do extra things that cost more money and so on, because the take home pay and possibly the "I work so hard I deserve x, y and z". I understand that.

Coming back down to spending less and taking out those luxuries from the budget is hard in one go. Sometimes the smaller, less life-style changing steps lead to a bigger realisation that the debt will go down faster if you cut the luxury stuff too. They lead to big steps.

I'm a middle earner I guess (£2,750 a month nett coming in). I initially didn't like the thought of dropping some of my "luxuries" - 6 weekly cut & colour at £70 a throw. What I did instead, was to work my way through the utilities and get the cheapest prices, also reduce usage of water, electric and gas too. Get some free energy saving lightbulbs from the freebie forum, put hippos in the loo to save water each flush, turn everything off at the socket when not in use, etc. Do the same for your insurances.

Then mobile, broadband/tv/sky (sky went), mobile, etc. You will see savings start to add up over a few months as everything starts to take effect.

Hopefully, at this point, you will start to become obssessive about where else you can save and this is the point that you realise the luxuries have to be cut down or cut out. In your situation, it's about need rather than want. But only you can flick that switch of cutting the want.

I suspect with your car tyres at that price, you have a sporty or 4 x 4 car? Why not downgrade it - something cheaper on servicing, parts, tyres and more fuel economic - several savings in one.

As an example (and I wasn't paying out for golf or gymn) I've saved over £300 a month that I now throw towards my debt. You can change exercise in a gymn to walking for free, etc. The routines you have are possibly blinding you to the fact that there is alot of savings that could be made in your SOA.

Hope some of that helps and good luck.

bonnie_2

To put it in perspective.
£60 kids savings
£300 extra on food could easily manage on £200
£100 clothes
£30 products
£75 on days out
£60 meals out
£87.50 gym
£50 petty cash
£83 golf
£125 holidays
£25 hair
£75 baby Total £1080 per month on luxuries, which alone would pay your debt of in 5 years, you do not apperar to have had your light bulb moment, and if you are only paying minimum payments on your cards the banks are laughing, they actually prefer customers that never pay, because they make more out of you in interest.
What would happen if one of you lost your job.
what happens when the interest rates and council tax go up next year, will you end up having your house repossesed?

La_Tristesse_Durera

bonnie wrote:

To put it in perspective.
£60 kids savings
£300 extra on food could easily manage on £200
£100 clothes
£30 products
£75 on days out
£60 meals out
£87.50 gym
£50 petty cash
£83 golf
£125 holidays
£25 hair
£75 baby Total £1080 per month on luxuries, which alone would pay your debt of in 5 years, you do not apperar to have had your light bulb moment, and if you are only paying minimum payments on your cards the banks are laughing, they actually prefer customers that never pay, because they make more out of you in interest.
What would happen if one of you lost your job.
what happens when the interest rates and council tax go up next year, will you end up having your house repossesed?

I agree, if you need to ask where to cut back and you're spending this much on golf / gym / haircuts etc then I wonder how much you really want to get out of debt. As a previous poster said, with a good salary like yours and a bit of determination, you could crack through this in a few years.

I used to be the same with the meals, haircuts, gym membership and especially clothes. I used to spend around £160pm on food just for myself - this was without pubs & takeaways too!!. I know what it's like to give up these luxuries, but after a few weeks or a month, you won't notice them. You won't miss then, it's a lifestyle you don't need, you'll appreciate what you do buy and you'll never get into debt again. Cutting back needn't turn you into a hermit who never goes out, sees anyone or treats the family. It's just about being sensible.

I look back now and think how useless I was with money - mainly because I moved out of home at 19 and never had any real experience with money. I split with my girlfriend and I thought 'F&*k it, I don't care anymore', and became an extravagent fool. Wash the car myself? Nah, I'll run it through the carwash once a week at £7 a pop. Don't wanna cook? I'll get a takeaway at £8 a go. I work in an office, so I have to go to the gym. £45 per month. Nope, not anymore, I was living way beyond my means when I didn't need to. I now always wash my car (it's cheaper, good exercise and it's better for the car). I have the occaisional takeaway, say £5 per month, saving me a lot of money and much better for the diet. (I would go down the pub or restaraunt say 4 times a week, at £25 per go!!). The gym was boring, so I play footy now with my mates. It's more fun, more sociable, just as good exercise and free!!! I was always a Toni & Guy fella with top stylist so it was £60 for a haircut every 6 weeks. I'm a bloke, I moved area, found a really really nice place down my road and it's £20 every 2 months now - and it looks the same as a T&G cut. £400 per month on clothes, well that stopped, and I'm now wearing clothes that I had forgotten about or only ever wore once! Cutting back on food is so so easy, my £160pm has gone down to around £55 and this includes toiletries. I'm not an 'Economy' or 'Basics' buyer, I eat smaller portions, I freeze things, I don't let things go to waste. If I see fresh meat reduced in the supermarket I'll buy it and stick it in the freezer. It's made me a better cook - a really good cook!! - and it's more satisfying. For example today, I had a home made burger from a bit of mince, a third of a TTD ciabatta (which was reduced to 20p), and a small portion of chips. My one unhealthy meal of the week!!! But I did it for less than a quid! if I bought that in a pub it would have probably cost £8.

Like I said, with a bit of tinkering, and lifestyle adjustment, you could really crack through this. :beer:

anh1904

I have had a deal through with an MBNA card for 0% on all purchases till March statement (excellent).

Two ways this helps, firstly, cashflow, as I will be able to make £5 repayments on this card until March, but also, by buying EVERYTHING on it, I can easily see where the budget is going wrong and start to make changes.

Thanks for all the harsh words, but I think I had my lightbulb moment when I was over 70k in debt.

I have now got boxes of stuff we moved with which I am going to be putting on ebay too, so things are going to get better.