Long Haul or Do Up House??

Hippychick

Can you not write to your creditors and ask them to freeze the interest? 28% apr is ridiculous and if you get it frozen means the debt will reduce so much more quickly.

You can get template letters from the cab website https://www.adviceguide.org.uk

Worth a shot, the worst they can say is no.

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Hi EE,

The six month review sounds like a good idea. If we sold (bear in mind there is still a ton of work to be done) the plan was to rent if we can find something cheaper than the mortgage or if not to roll the mortgage on to another house / flat. At the moment we're luckily on a tracker so it's 0.99% over base, so 1.49% at present, but the only way is up for mortgage rates. To try and cope (ha ha) we've gone interest only.
I do actually love attacking houses and i would like to keep doing that! The hope was we'd make enough on this to cover the debts and increase the deposit on the next house. But who knows, so yes plod on with doing the house and trying to focus on the debts too for six months is a great idea - thank you!

I'll have a nosey at your diary in a minute.

Hi Hippychick,
Nice to meet you too.
I've wondered about that but shyed away as i'm in one of those professions that throw you out if you go bankrupt! So i'm wary of getting a poor credit rating too. There is part of me too that says i got us into this and i need to get us out of it and as we have this 'asset' it's wrong not to honour those debts one way or another - call me mad... What does annoy me is the rates of interest these companies are charging, they have gone up and up and although we are struggling we have never missed a payment and have always managed to juggle to make the minimum payment at least. I suppose at least it's finally made me open my eyes to just how deep we are in it!

PWD xx

Herewego

Hi PWD
I found you and have subscribed so I can keep my eye on you . Looks like you have some good plans in place, with regards to the OD I try to use a little less of it every month even if it is only by £10 and luckily it got me out of a sticky spot the other day a bit of a safety net.
Hope ebay is going well keep us posted.

Cialilerin

Hi, Saw yo on HWG's diary so thought I'd pop over and lend some support! You're certainly in a very positive frame of mind - read one of Martin's blogs the other day about how people forget debt over Christmas and only try and tackle it in the New Year - so you are ahead of the game. Well done!

claireforest

Polly_Wolly_Doodle wrote: »

Good Morning,

Merry Christmas to you too MicheH, hope Santa is good to you!

Hi Claire £80 is fab and as a proportion of your debts that's a lot. Sounds like you've got good plans for the new year though. Have you got your new heating in?

Today Opus had it's main payment of £170 and i've just moved £10 to it too from the overdraft (od at 3% pa, so it's a nice debt! - although it could be pulled at a moment's notice, so i need to think about reducing it too), so before they add interest it's now at £5,399 but can't update my signiture until they add the interest and i get the statement. Estimated interest was £120.80 but hopefully less with the PADs.

Oh and wrapped up a box of old CDs last night to sell to musicmagpie, £25.66 for 40 odd CDs that wouldn't sell on ebay, feels odd only getting 30p for a CD that probably cost £7.99 but hey ho it's decluttering and getting something back (3.75%, that's some depreciation - should have bought a Masaratti!)

Right cup of tea and some spreadsheets required.

Keep up the good work everyone.

PWD xx

hey how are you? we got heating on tuesday (finally) just got to pay for it now. i might try the cd thing- what kind of condition do the cd's need to be in? de-cluttering and making money sounds perfect to me! car boots, ebay etc
we brought our house to do up and sell, how far along are you with the renovation? its hard trying to juggle debts and spending on a house- i feel guilty everytime i buy something.
sounds like your going to give that credit card a bashing- everytime you do it will feel great just snap it up so you cant use it again

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Morning All,

EEkk Christmas Eve.
Have to admit to feeling a bit mean this Christmas, have got very little for the children but i stood in Argos yesterday, spending BIL's vouchers on them and saw so much tat! I don't like plastic cheap stuff anyway, having 'taste' is expensive! Anyway got them a mini drum kit (why oh why, but they will love the noise. A firestation thing, recommended over the Fireman Sam one, a new watch for DD, her's broke and the Toy Story 3 dvd, almost half price for spending over £50 on toys.
Then went to Costco and bought them some books, odds and ends of food and a new dog bed as the [STRIKE]tasmanian devil[/STRIKE] puppy has shredded his current one. Plus my membership was due so that was £185 to the poorer. Oh Argos cost me £30 over the vouchers...
Tesco was £107 for Christmas food and got two cc statements yesterday too, so debt has actually gone up as i was still using one of them before we got paid. Will update my signature in a moment.
So not great but not half as bad as usual.
As i said above wish i could spend more on the children but then the sooner we crack the debt or get the house sorted the better for all of us.

HWG, yes that's another good idea about reducing the OD and then having that as the emergency back up, so i could still tackle Opus first.

Hi Cialilerin, great to have your support. Must admit i wish i'd had my lightbulb moment a long time ago but better late than never. Probably more a hitting the buffers and not getting any new cards or loans that did it. So had to accept that we have to get this sorted. It could be a very long haul as my loan has two years to run and only then will we have an extra £400 a month to play with and by then my car will need replaced if not before. So hence the house dilema, if we could finish it and sell we'd be in a stronger position...
Anyway positive thinking!!

Hi Claire, ahhh you have the house to do up too! Ours is about 200 years old and the more we do to it the more we like it and now we've ground to a hault as i think subconciously we don't want to move! We've added two bedrooms and a bathroom and dug out the garden which was higher than the back of the house.
Having now stripped artex off EVERY ceiling we now find there is more damp than we realised etc etc etc, it just never stops!
However i was brought up in a selection of old houses as my Mum did the buying, doing up and selling thing long before it was trendy and she managed really well financially. Sadly i haven't inherited her skill!
What about yours? Great to have heating at this time of year!

Right off to update my spreadsheet and change my sig

Oh and the other thing yesterday was a letter from Child Tax Credits saying we've been overpaid by £1600, now it seems to say that they will continue to pay us but at £300 less per month :eek: and will take the overpayment from future payments, not sure i follow it all but will have a think and phone them for clarity...

Back later, have a lovely day and enjoy the festivities.

PWD xx

Cialilerin

Morning
Don't worry about not being able to get as much as you want for the children - my experience is that they get so much they are overwhelmed and don't know what to play with anyway - I find I choose more carefully now and get what they want rather than just 'lots'!!;) I used to end up throwing stuff away on New Years Day if not earlier!! How old are they? The younger they are - the less likely they are to notice anyway. Just think when they are older - you will have loads of money and will be setting them a great example!!!:)

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Morning C,
I know i hate the waste and the tat factor too! Think it's just that my sudden money awareness has come at this time of year! But yes the sooner we're in control of our money the better.

Right progress on the Child Tax Credits, we have been overpaid but they just reduce your payments and retain the difference to pay off the overpayment, unless you go below the basic rate in which case they stop the payments altogether. Clear as mud and talking to the guy i mentioned we were on a pay freeze for at least the next two years and he said so are they, which makes me wonder if someone somewhere was hacked off that day and awarded us more than we should have had a few months ago when i shot up!

Also phoned Canon as we had to send our camera in for work under warrenty and it came back minus it's battery! So i can't even check if it now works, hopefully something will come of it. Thankfully we have another wee camera that should do for tomorrow.

Ohh and the great news was we managed to get a second hand DVD player from Gumtree yesterday for £5 - HURRAH!! She also threw in a cd / tape player as well, so Santa will be giving that a wipe tonight to add to DD's little pile.

Right updated the sig, so that feels pathetic to be going upwards, ggrrrr.

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Morning All,

Hope everyone had a great Christmas, ours was fine but i'm a bit down to say the least because of the scale of this debt mountain and that didn't put me in the right mood for being happy mummy.
However i've put some things on ebay basically everything my mother gave us was the wrong size or the wrong colour, shocking pink jacket for my 2 year old SON??? Ho hum, so that didn't help my mood on the day but i'm a bit lighter hearted about it now, i just wish her total and utter thoughtlessness didn't hurt me year after year, bloody parents and now what did i do, be a misery for my children, gggrrr :mad:

Anyway nearly into a new year and a new plan! I think i'm going to focus on one of the open ccs not the closed one, although after HWG's advice about reducing the overdraft and having that as the emergency, then maybe i should continue to attack Opus, oh blast this indecision!!

PWD xx

Cialilerin

Christmas is quite a stressful time - have to make sure everyone else is happy (but who is doing that for you?) debts mount up and any family tensions become more obvious! You should be proud that you have got through it and you are doing something positive with your debts (and with your unusual presents!!;))
I know my first year of battling my debts has been a little hit and miss but I always update my money totals on a particular date each month ( for me the day after pay day when the motgage gets paid!!:)) The money situation does fluctuate during the month, esp when I pay on the card one day and then pay it off a few days later so for me just doing it once amonth (or at least publically acknowledging it once a month;)) gives a more accurate overall picture. Does that make sense?