Drop Debt Diva – ‘Plus-Sized Debts to Plus-Sized Savings’

beanielou

Good to hear from you.
Hope all goes well & have a good hen do.

urg123

Great to hear from you Swinstie - I love it when the OH and family say everything's sorted and there wasn't too much to do anyway!

Try to enjoy the planning (okay okay!) - it's all part of the occassion.

urg x x

Swinstie73

Hi all,

Well have had to bite the bullet and tot up everything that the house move/
wedding/cruise has thrown at us, it feels good saying US, as at least I know this is not my own personal debt. Not even going to call it debt mess as the biggest bulk of it is house deposit money.

Here goes:
House Deposit - £10,000 :eek::eek:
MBNA - £4,650 :eek:
Barclaycard - £4,790.49 :eek:
So, a grand (joint debt) of £19,440.49 :eek::eek::eek:

Lots of eeks there, BUT my house is still on the market with a strong chance that the tenants will buy eventually. I'm 'making' £135 extra every month from the rent money after paying the mortgage. This £135 is going into a bank account in case anything in the 'old' house needs done, I won't touch this until the house is sold. If the tenants keep renting, I keep saving and if they stop and there is a break in the tenancy then this should hopefully pay a few months mortgage.

IF house sells and all debt is already cleared, we WILL have an approx profit of £25K, even if I drop the price again to sell, we're still looking at around (worst case scenario) £15 - £20K profit so we will be sitting pretty, it's just a matter of WHEN. If it sells soon, then the profit will clear the debt, nice eh!

House Deposit Money - to be paid back by next July (fingers crossed for a sale) or it will be onto plan B (which I've not thought of yet).

MBNA is 0% until May 2012 but already thought about transferring some to another 0% - hoping for another offer on my Halifax card as that is currently at £0.

Barclaycard is on 6.9% BUT we're already looking at minimum payment this month of £107 and potential interest of £39, so I have today applied for a Lloyds 0% card which I seen on here, it is 0% for 15 months and 50% refund on BT fee, so have asked to transfer £4500 so should have a fee of £67.50 which is only £28.50 more than one months interest. Trying to be optimistic of getting this as have never been declined before. Got worried about only being at new address for two months but previous address counts and I was there for over 10 years.

If I get declined we will just plug away and get right into the money busting after the wedding/honeymoon. I believe it will all work out in the end, we have our house which doesn't need anything else done, the wedding is all paid for from savings and we are not planning on baby Swinsties so the worst case scenario is that there will be no holiday next year and maybe the year after. No big extravagant nights out either, we're enjoying having our house and even talk ourselves out of eating dinner out, which makes things way cheaper.

Anyway I am rambling now and don't want to scare off any lurkers.

Tete_en_l'Air

Hi Swinstie, I've been away from MSE (and anything other than work!) for a while but just stumbled on your diary. Eek to the new debt but it sounds as though it's under control sort of if there's the chance your tenants may buy the house. And at least there's two of you now! Not long til the wedding - you must be so excited! x

Swinstie73

Hi Tete, nice to 'see' you, didn't think I'd ever hear from any of the threadies (apart from the lovely Cinny), have been lurking on Dinah's thread but 'scared' to come back after my meltdown. Too much going on at the moment to spend much time on here, it can be very time consuming reading all these threads.

Well, have finally got the bus booked, stupid family not replying to say whether they are coming and/or getting the bus is doing my head in. Have opted for a 33-seater as the bigger bus would just end up empty as I found out last night that my cousin who is the PT is driving so might be bringing his mum and dad and his brother and girlfriend aren't coming as they have something else on. So out of 10 passengers from the first pick-up, we're down to 5 max, possibly even 3. Just hope the others use the bus or it will be the most expensive taxi ride in history.

Had a big, shall we call it chat with OH last night as the last two months he had charges on his bank account for stupidly going over-drawn. He it quite bad with money, always thought he was good with money but apparantly not. Had to have it out with him as I seen his last statement which is when I noticed the charges, he doesn't even check and kept asking if his new one was in to see if he'd been charged again. Turns out it came in the other day with £60 of charges and he was scared to tell me. Of course, he thought that the £60 had been taken when in fact it comes out at the end of this month, so since he thought it was paid, he'd end up going over-drawn AGAIN! It ends here, we are sitting down tonight with a notebook and listing everything that comes out, the dates and what he should leave to cover DD's until he is paid again.

He admitted to being crap with money, think I made him feel bad when I told him that him going over-drawn could impact my credit rating as we are now financially linked. I didn't work my butt off to get debt free to end up worse off cos he can't budget!

Rant over peeps, but have been up all night worrying myself sick and trying to get a plan of action together, just needed to vent a bit.

Had my last latte today as I've decided it's not good for my waistline or my budget. Talking of waistlines, went up a cm last night, could've cried as I have my fitting tonight. Oh well, onwards and upwards, must not dwell.

Swinstie73

Morning all, well turns out that Mr Swinstie has been paying for his son's mobile phone and his bill was big this month which in turn made him go over-drawn. I knew he had got the phone but he told me that his son was paying towards it and it was just coming out of his account. He has in fact been paying NOTHING all this time.

Now, his son was working but was paid off and is now at college. I'm mad, because a) he was working and still didn't contribute a penny and b) even though he's at college he can still afford to go out 2 - 3 times at the weekend and buy (although not sure if he actually did it) his GF an iPad for her birthday. !!!!!!, OH is paying over £50 a month for a mobile that isn't even his. I know he won't do it but I suggested he ask his son for £15 - £20 or tell him to get a PAYG. I like his son and I know he's not working but he can't continue getting his phone paid for when his dad is paying £60 in charges for going over-drawn.

Also, OH got a credit card from his bank to use on hols cos mines is at it's limit and he only went and withdrew cash from it - I could've cried last night. To be fair he has never ever had a credit card and didn't know not to use a credit card for cash. He has taken it all in and we're going to pay the card off on Saturday, well try to, it's with Santander so not sure how it works! I will get him MSE'd if it kills me.

urg123

Swinstie - OMG. I couldn't help but cringe at the taking cash from the CC. It sounds like there are lots of lessons that you need to pass on!

It does make my think about my hubby and money. We still haven't got to the sharing finances part yet and I need to get him whipped into shape before we buy a house together!

Good luck and hope all the wedding things are falling into place.

urg x x

Swinstie73

Hi urg, I had a major cringe too, but he has learnt his lesson. Giving him credit (pardon the pun), he's never had a credit card before, I was also worrying he'd go mad spending on it but he's assured me he hasn't - it's for the hols, although my card (with a low APR) still has loads of credit if need be.

I am getting really nervous about the wedding, I feel physically sick all the time and having panicky moments/teary moments and loads of OMG moments. Just want to get to the honeymoon so I can relax for a couple of weeks.

We're getting into debt busting once it's over with, have cut down on Christmas this year, almost got everything actually as only giving my neice and nephew money, lucky dip between mum and sisters and I've already bought OH's. Got him two pairs of shorts and sandals for his hols, ha!

Feel like I've so much to do the next few weeks, so probably won't be posting much but I will be back on a debt busting mission soon.

Swinstie73

Here goes with the weekly update:

After making debt repayments of just over £500 this month, debt is currently at £19287.69 which is only £152.80 less than starting debt. Had car insurance to pay and the new wardrobe (which we badly needed) from Ikea was added on which was not so good.

Other bad news was I was turned down for the Lloyds card, I am gutted but to be honest a bit relieved as it means we need to take more responsibility for paying this off. I got my Experian report but haven't looked at it as I know it was probably because both the CC debts are against my name, moved to a new house, old CC with nothing on it still open, big mortgage etc., probably all contributed to it. As far as OH is concerned, him lifting money from CC and going over-drawn contributed too, you know, just to put him off a bit.

However, we have a plan to pay what we can til the end of the year then totally knuckle down and try and get it paid by the end of 2012, gosh seems so far away. It would all go away if house sells but I've got it on good authority that the tenants are very happy in the house so even if they continue to rent, it'll all come good in the end. The 'extra' rent money can happily build up for now.

Wedding jitters even worse, family nightmares as hardly anyone in extended family coming, didn't even get any acknowledgement last night when seen them for the first time in ages. Don't even feel like I belong in the same family. Anyway enough about family craperooni, not even going to waste my time on it.

Well suppose better go do some work.

Shoe_Gal

Hope the wedding was amazing!