Grow business, pay £30k debt, TTC, get fit and stay positive!

Catzpaws

I left my job earlier this year to set up my online business. This was a dream of mine for quite a long time and it was a real 'now or never' point in my life. At the time, I was so desperate to focus all my energies on my business, I stopped posting on MSE. Things are now more manageable (although I'm still going to be continuing to push business growth in 2011) and I'm now able to start thinking more about clearing debts again.

Not only that, after putting my life on hold for over a year, I would love to tackle other things, such as TTC, getting fit and just generally developing a positive mental attitude.

On the negative side, my debt is higher than when I first started my old diary which is here (boo!). This is mainly because of the money I've borrowed for the buisness (£11k + £6k for living expenses). Trying not to stress out too much about that though as it wouldn't have been possible to set up my venture without the finance. Current debt is around £30k (it was about £28k when I first started my last diary). Quite high and scary, isn't it? Oh dear. Unfortunately, it won't really be possible to overpay anything for the immediate future as there isn't any money left after wages each month. In fact, we're living off money that we've borrowed to see us through until around mid-year. This will probably make MSE peeps cringe, but it was a bit of a necessity to allow me to do what I wanted to do.

- OH and I are TTC. Slight madness really with the business and everything still in its start up phase, but have had complications previously and OH/I (esp OH!) are getting more and more broody. No success with this yet, but not from lack of trying ;-)

- Looking to get fit. Doing lots of walks at the moment, but wanting to start running again in the new year.

- Develop a positive mental attitude

- Expand my interests and social circle. I find working by myself quite lonely and it feels like I never see anyone or do anything new anymore! So, one of my new years resolutions is to do something about these. Maybe do a creative course that will help me with my business too.

I'll post up a new SOA soon.

Hoping for a determined 2011 with lots of positive vibes...

CPx

chevalier

Hi again Catzpaws, welcome back to the fold. Some times I feel the there is a confluence of things that just have to happen at one point in time. And I guess this is what is happening to you now. Hopefully TTC will give you the motivation to work as hard and as efficicently as you can with the business, because you have an extra potential person you want to be able to support

Make sure you are both getting lots of exercise as this will help. Also don't forget to be taking the folic acid already! I am sure there are loads of other things that you could do, but the most important thing is to try not to stress about TTC!!!

good luck with your debt busting journey. and look forward to your SOA soon
chev

Catzpaws

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 1
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 567
Partners monthly income after tax....... 2275
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2842
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 635
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 99
Electricity............................. 110
Gas..................................... 55
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 30
Telephone (land line)................... 25
Mobile phone............................ 25
TV Licence.............................. 10
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 18
Internet Services....................... 12.25
Groceries etc. ......................... 275
Clothing................................ 30
Petrol/diesel........................... 30
Road tax................................ 10
Car Insurance........................... 32
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 20
Car parking............................. 7
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 25
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 30
Buildings insurance..................... 29
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 15.85
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 75
Haircuts................................ 25
Entertainment........................... 275
Holiday................................. 30
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Lovefilm................................ 6
Mum and dad............................. 25
Pet food................................ 55
Contact lenses/glasses.................. 50
Professional membership................. 15
Total monthly expenses.................. 2079.1

Assets
Cash.................................... 4750
House value (Gross)..................... 220000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 9000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 233750

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 144966...(635)......1.08
Total secured & HP debts...... 144966....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Santander loan (A&L)...........2207......318.......8.4
Santander loan (biz)...........9099......284.......8.9
Tesco loan.....................4726......186.......6.57
Mum & dad (biz loan)...........8493......0.........3 Payments for this will start in summer 2011
Santander cc (DH)..............3646......82........0
Santander cc (mine)............4249......25........0
Total unsecured debts..........32420.....895.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,842
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,079.1
Available for debt repayments........... 762.9
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 895
Amount short for making debt repayments. -132.1
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 233,750
Total HP & Secured debt................. -144,966
Total Unsecured debt.................... -32,420
Net Assets.............................. 56,364
Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission, using IE browser.

Catzpaws

OK, trying hard not to feel totally sick looking at the £32,420 figure. It's slightly higher than what I thought it was before! And that's not a good thing -

Approx £20k of this is related to the business (borrowed to set up the business or for living expenses while the business is in start up phase). No excuse for the rest of it though - hubs and I have always enjoyed nice things a bit too much!

The £4750 cash is from a loan taken out earlier this year for living expenses/further investment into the business. Really undecided whether to use this to pay off the Santander loan (A&L) - £2207 - or not. Psychologically, this 'safety net' makes me sleep better at night but this debt really irks me. Any advice on this would be much appreciated.

Since I've taken the plunge into self-employment, we've curtailed our lifestyle quite a bit, but there's still definite room for improvement.

Catzpaws

chevalier wrote: »

Hi again Catzpaws, welcome back to the fold. Some times I feel the there is a confluence of things that just have to happen at one point in time. And I guess this is what is happening to you now. Hopefully TTC will give you the motivation to work as hard and as efficicently as you can with the business, because you have an extra potential person you want to be able to support

Make sure you are both getting lots of exercise as this will help. Also don't forget to be taking the folic acid already! I am sure there are loads of other things that you could do, but the most important thing is to try not to stress about TTC!!!

good luck with your debt busting journey. and look forward to your SOA soon
chev

Thank you for your kind wishes... and, yes, thanks also for the reminder about the folic acid. I'm rubbish at remembering!

Catzpaws

Morning all!

Well, I've been thinking more about my goals re paying off debt. I relish a good plan and so thought it would be good to get this down in my diary:

By December 2011

- To reduce debt to £20k (edited sig to reflect this)
- To double earnings at a minimum (bit pie-in-the-sky this one as it depends on how I'm doing with the business)


By end June 2011

- To pay off the Santander (A&L) loan as a minimum
- To start paying off parents loan
- To increase earnings by £300+ per month


From now!

- Research more economical batch cooking options for the new year that DH and I both will enjoy.
- Cancel SKY - but need to arrange a TV engineer to sort out TV first.
- Get motivated but not obsessed. Perhaps easier said than done, but for me, I don't want this journey to suck the joy out of life. More importantly, I want to devote most of my positive energies to the business. VVVVV important!

Reducing the debt by over a third would be brilliant. Not perfect, but then, there is never a 'perfect' time to start a family - so everyone says...

We pay £895 per month towards debts each month at the moment. That's a lot, not to mention the mortgage on top of that. Bless my lovely husband, he seems to think that we could live off his income and I could take some time off from working for a while to look after a newborn. Anyway, we could manage it - if we didn't have debt, of course.

Onwards and upwards...

Lemon_Tree

hi, just found your new diary. Will be back after work no doubt to help/hinder you lol

Catzpaws

Aarrgh! Today I have come to the realisation that I need more cash for the business - and fairly quick too. What this means is that we'll need to take some of the personal loan that was taken out to cover living expenses and use this. Not ideal, buy hey ho.

From a personal point of view, it does mean that we will definitely need to make more cutbacks with our spending. Spoke to hubby about this and he has said that he will try harder to budget better. He mentioned about borrowing more on the mortgage once we've passed this bad spell so that I can finance the growth of the business, but truly hate the idea of getting into further debt. Esp when we're planning to start a family and I have no idea what it'll be like to manage the business and be pregnant/have young children to also fit into the crazy schedule.

Still some options (like can sell some jewellery if I really need to), so trying not to feel too despondent.

I'll be back on when I have something more positive to say!

Catzpaws

Happy new year!

Apart lots of odd (anxiety?) dreams last night, I am feeling bright and optimistic about 2011.

Starting this year with a renewed sense of vigour. Braved the scales this morning after the festive bingeing on food and drink. Quelle surprise (not) - I've put on some extra pounds over the festive break soooo have started diet too (this is day 2). I'm aiming to lose 8lbs in total by March. I'm not following a specific plan but am using an iphone app to track calorie intake and expenditure. It's vvvv good. My plan is to lose 1.5lbs per week. Well, generally, I'm pretty pants at diets, but I'd love to get down to my slimmest 'ideal' weight by my birthday so that I can feel as good as I can about myself.

What I've done today:

• Walked dog for 2 hours
• Bought some brocolli and potatoes to go with batch cooked dinner tonight with cleaning products from Aldi - total spend £2.52
• Started my 2011 lifecoach programme (a book free with Psychologies magazine - MSE style lifecoaching!)

Also, rather than joining the gym, I'm hoping to borrow an exercise bike to plonk in the spare room. Will save forking out on a gym membership (which was the plan before), so I'm really pleased about that.

Catzpaws

New updates:

• I've lost 2lbs (half of the Christmas flab) - hurrah! Been quite good with the diet and weighing out food. Gosh, normal portion sizes are quite small, aren't they? I also went for a run yesterday and nearly managed to make it all the way around without stopping. Nearly, but not quite tho!
• I applied for a part-time call centre job last night. They've had over a 100 applications though... Still, you have to be in it to win it, right? If I were to get this, it would be another £500 each month, which would be brilliant
• I transferred £2.5k from the savings account to the business account.... meaning we will now need to be super super strict with the budget from now on. DEFINITELY won't be able to go over (unless I get the job, of course)
• DH & I have challenged ourselves to not go to the pub at all this month (unless it's a family event or similar, where we are invited to go for a birthday or something). We were going every week, not exactly spending a lot, but it all adds up
• Signed up for the grocery challenge for Jan - £275.
• DH applied for new c/card for balance transfer - was accepted, which is good news.

Aside from the above, DH is really fed up. As well as our financial woes, PILs are having a money crisis, meaning they will need to sell their house. It all feels quite sad really and there's not much we need can do for them at the moment. In ordinary circumstances, we might have been able to, but things aren't there for us right now on the finances front.


.... Anyway, what I also need to do this week:

• Sort out new budget (quite simple really, the grocery and entertainment budget will be slashed so that we can meet the deficit). I'm not sure we were spending that much actually, but things like recent stag/hen dos and birthdays really pushed it up.
• NO MORE FOOD ON GROCERIES!

Catzpaws

Another enthralling update (well, for noone perhaps but good for me to read back on in any case):

• Spent £9.21 on groceries in Aldi (so much for my resolve to not spend anything more on groceries this week... oh dear!). Included bottle of wine for tonight to take around to BILs birthday though. At least no expensive spends for restaurants and pubs for this birthday! Brilliantly cheerful b-day for a cheap price as we had dinner there too. Will update spend for Jan for grocery challenge.
• Got paid for some freelance work - small triumph - plus chq from DH's credit balance on Mint c/c - means £400 deposited into bank today. Yay!

Other than that, the diet's gone slightly awry, but going to get back on the straight and narrow tomorrow. If it's not snowing, will attempt a run this weekend.

Got loads of work this weekend to help DH, plus work for biz too, but MSE plans for this W/E are:

• Get more positive thinking books out from library tomorrow
• Go to art gallery this weekend (t'is free) for some culture, daaaaling
• Whip out breadmaker to make some herby bread rolls - yum

BFNx