Life begins at the end of 41k debt

rachelww1

I had my Lb moment in Dec 2010. It was awful, but not as bad as tonight. I told DH I wanted to start a diary on here and all hell broke loose. He thought everyone in the world would be able to see everything about us. I've told him that they won't.....Will be back tomorrow, cos I'm too upset tonight,even though he has agreed to it.

tabby_cats_mum

Good for you, I'd really like to start a diary but I'm paranoid about it being really boring so I just read everyone elses and gain motivation that way. Good luck Rachel x

rachelww1

AAAAAggghhh........just lost my entire post, I hate this computer:mad:. Oh well, will start again.
Thanks for the support, I expect my diary will be boring, but I need something to keep me motivated.

Right, well I'm 38, married, work full time, and have 3 kids - DD18 (now at uni :T), DS13 (lives with his dad but here at weekends), and DS6 (little monster). And I'm terrible with money. But I really want to change this, and I'm determined to clear this debt asap.

I had my lightbulb moment last month and came on here and posted my soa (hope that works, never done a linky thing before ).

So we owed a grand total of £41,176:eek:.

So I sat down and spent an entire weekend making my budget spreadsheet for the whole of 2011.....what an exciting life I lead. I also made a few overpayments to natwest cc and barclaycard. I set up my snowball calculator and it gave me a DFD of Aug 2014. But I'm an impatient woman, so I want it gone sooner than that.

Last week DH received £5500 which was an insurance payout for an accident he had at work in 2009, which left him unable to work for 6 months. The 'old' us would have frittered that away quite happily and easily. DH wanted us to put it in savings for a rainy day, but when I explained that the rain was here already, he agreed to let me pay off things.

So..the natwest cc has gone :j:j.....:jinfact I have overpaid it by £200 cos I stupidly pressed the wrong button (WHY/HOW does it let you do that :mad: ). They're going to sort it out, but it'll be next Weds before I get the money back. My d/d for the minimum payment also came out, so they owe me this back as well.

£2500 went to the barclaycard, leaving a balance of £4728.08 (first time that's been under 5k in years). £330 paid for a full service on my car and the remaining £120 stayed in the account to go towards the O/D.

So left we have Barclaycard cc £4728.08 (19.9%), Natwest O/D £4000.00 (19.89%), Natwest loan £9174.11 (16%), MBNA cc £4147.08 (12.9%), Barclaycard loan £1375.36 (12.24%), Abbey loan £8261.88 (7.9%) and Egg loan £1814.48 (6.73%). Grand total owing today £33,300.99:eek:. And DFD of Oct 2013.

So the aim is to pay at least £1215 per month towards these debts, with the barclaycard being overpaid to start with. My snowball has me down to pay it £294 a month, but it will take until July 2012 to clear paying that. I have budgeted to pay £350 a month, but would like to make this £400 a month, which would enable me to pay it by the end of 2011. From Feb, I'm going to reduce the grocery budget to £350 pm and see how we go from there. Ideally if I can get the grocery budget down further, I can pay off barclaycard quicker.

Both the Barclaycard and MBNA are 'closed', as they both tried to hike there rates up.

Oh, and we scrapped DH's car last weekend, as it would have cost us more than it was worth to get it through it's MOT. Also, it's not like I need a car, yes it's handy, but I work in the village I live in, and DS6's school is just over the road from my work.

It's also saving us £35 pm insurance, plus tax, repairs and petrol for another car. Another bonus is I may loose some of the stone I have put on since giving up smoking :rotfl:

DebtFree2012

Hi rachel, your link worked yey!!!!

So sorry to hear that all hell broke loose re putting a diary on but can understand it too - I often think what if someone I know reads it who doesn't know my situ and tell everyone etc etc but I have too many other things to worry about that that - i figure it's way down on my list of priorities! Lol.

Congrats on getting your SOA and balances all together. What order are you hitting the debts in?

I am with you on the grocery budget - I have 2 adults/2 kids (1 is baby on formula/nappies etc) and my budget used to be £350 and now I am looking at £100 month as that's all I can afford.

Will be nice to go through your journey with you and take inspiration from each other for the things we have in common.

Good luck, your journey has begun!!!!

xxxx

mariemcg

Well done Rachel! Keep it up!!! :beer:

Baileys_Babe

Hi Rachel, well done for starting a diary. I have just read this thread and your SOA thread, I wondered if it might be usefully for you to post a new SOA as so much has changed since the original. I wish you well in conquering your debt, you come across as very focused

garfield44

Hi Rachel,

Just wanted to pop in and say 'hello'. Good luck with the debtbusting. I see your dfd is Oct 2013, mine at the moment is about that aswell. Hopefully work out a lot sooner though. Good luck with the stopping smoking too

rachelww1

Hiya eveyone, thanks for your comments .

This is what happens in my financial house. We have 2 joint accounts. The first has both salaries, child benefit & tax credit going in, and all the direct debits going out. Every week I transfer £200 to the other account, and for the last month only I have been withdrawing this straight away in cash. The card is then put away for another week and I don't let DH take his wallet to work :rotfl:.

This money is for groceries, pet food (we have 1 dog and 1 cat too), fuel, car repairs, haircuts, presents, going out, school trips etc. Basically everything that isn't paid by d/d or s/o. This is the money I need to cut down on. I mean come on, it's £200!!! How on earth do we spend £200 in a week on that lot!!!!

Well, I don't know, but we do. I have religiously been keeping a spending diary since the beginning of January. I think Feb will give me a better picture though, as there won't be any extra money coming in as there has been this month.

Anyway, there is still £50 in my envelope, so I'm only going to transfer £150 tomorrow. And when nawest cc return my overpayment, this will all be going to my Barclaycard.

My DFD of Oct 2013, includes the transfer of this £200 per week, o I really need to do something if I want to reduce it. But I don't want us to struggle if we don't have to. Does this make sense?? We both like a drinkie or 3 :beer:, but since quitting the dreaded weed (nicotine, nothing stronger!!) we don't go out so often.

DF, please tell me how you're going to reduce your grocery budget to £100pm from £350, as I need to take some lessons from you. Both my boys still wear pyjama pants at night (the eldest is on medication for it). So that's at least £40 a month on them, and that's only if they are on special offer.

Some better news, had the gas bill and was less than we thought. Well, we pay electric monthly by d/d and gas quarterly. This means we can usually set one off against the other. So after taking the amount we are in credit in electricity off the gas bill, we only have to pay £50. I'd budgeted £100, so that's another £50 to Barclaycard this month.

I think that's probably enough for this post.....if anyone's still reading their eyes have probably glazed over by now :rotfl:

rachelww1

Just had a thought....

If I'm paying at least £1215 to debt a month, that is £9 less a month than I get paid. So my entire wages go towards paying off debt :eek:.

So that means when this albatross is finally cast off, I can save £1224 a month. Which is £14688 a year (unless I get a pay rise). Or if I'm debt free by the time I'm 41 like I'm aiming to be (I would so love it to be 40) and I work til I'm 65, on paper, that could mean savings of £352,512.

OMG I'm gonna be rich :rotfl:

garfield44

Wow, that is definitely something to look forward to and give you encouragement. Think what you could do with £1,224 A MONTH! woop woop

dirtyepic

Hi Rachelww1,

Good to see another diary where someone just likes to chat to herself about thoughts etc!

I had my Lightbulb Moment last October and started to keep my diary. It kind of drifted for a few weeks but now I am rambling on about my thoughts and feelings on a daily (sometimes twice daily) basis and feel so much better for it.

I just feel that I can get thoughts out of my head onto my diary and things off my chest and onto my diary then it clears them and I don't have to try and remember them any more!

I keep lists and lists and mark them off on my diary but I think soon I will be able to scale the lists down a bit and just stick with the important stuff.

But it definitely keeps me going, no doubt about that. Sometimes I read back and see how I was feeling and it really spurs me on to see how much I feel I have personally achieved in such a short time.

Stick with it! I will be keeping up with your conversations to yourself!

Good luck with the debt busting. Remember little steps and all that. We all have great days and not so great days so never beat yourself up too much about anything.

T
aka dirtyepic