Time to get it sorted!

hillside777

Right, this is it.

I have been looking through people's diaries for a little while and have had my LBM and need to get the debt sorted out and then remain debt free.

Unfortunately the winter did not help with the debt. The reason being we purchased a Freelander from someone on Ebay. What a big mistake.

We drove 200 miles to collect it. On the way home the car broke down as the head gasket went and had to be towed home. It has cost about £2,000 to put the car right, there were also other things needed doing. Also we discovered that the seller had removed the original engine and put in an engine from an older model.

What a big mistake we made. We will never buy vehicles from Ebay again. Trading standards were unable to do anything for us. That's water under the bridge and time to move on.

I am writing a diary as I need some sort of motivation. Not only for debt, but to lose weight also. I have reached the age where it is easier to put on weight than to lose it. Plus I think knowing the debt situation I probably comfort eat when I get low.

So my goals, money and weight.

Weight:
To be at the top end of the BMI range for my height I need to lose 1st 8lbs. I would like to get lower down into the BMI range and would need to lose 3st 8lbs.
This is not going to be easy and is not going to happen overnight. I have to be realistic otherwise I will just fail. I wil cut back and exercise more and see how i goes.


Debt:
This has just increased because we had to have a new boiler installed. The last one was in the property when we moved in 4 years ago and was over 20 years old. We use LPG and is costing us about £2000 per year. With the new boiler it will cost about £1,300-£1,400 a year. So even though we have added the debt below we will save money in the longer term.

Boiler loan: £4,300
Cahoot overdraft: £835
Santander (A&L) overdraft: £1,420
Nationwide Credit Card: £393
Lloyds TSB Credit Card: £2,340
MBNA Credit Card 1: £1,325
MBNA Credit Card 2: £1,473
Bank of Scotland Credit Card: £867

I am trying to pay the cards off in order of highest interest rate.
By the way, I considered consolidating the debt onto a personal loan but the interest rate is too high to consider this.
Cahoot rate is 9.4%
Santander rate is £5 per month fixed.
Nationwide is 19.9%. So this is the first to clear in full whilst making minimum payments on the rest.
MBNA Card 2 is 6.4% for life of balance.
Bank of Scotland card is 6.9% for life of balance.
Lloyds TSB and MBNA 1 are 16.9%.

Also we have the mortgage which is about £72,000 to clear also.

It's a case of cutting back but with petrol prices increasing and the expense of the car it has made the figures go up.

I bus to work because I work 20 miles away but taking the Freelander is a no no. It does about 20 miles to the gallon.

By the way, some of the debt is from a business we tried to run from home in 2007. During that tax year we made a loss of about £8,800. At least we can carry the loss forward on the Self Assessment each year so any profit we do make is not taxed but reduces the loss.

I am registered on lots of surveys sites and also edigital research.

Well, that's it for now.
Time to go and list on Ebay as it is free today.
Also better update my signature.

cleggie

Hi Bonnington,
good luck with your debt free journey- maybe we could keep each other company on the way?
I aim to update my DF Diary every evening just to keep tabs on myself and see what i have been up to!

keggie

Hi Bonnington,

Looking forward to following your diary. I started mine today after lurking for a while too.

I agree about petrol increases making a big impact on ability to shift debt.

Good luck.

keggie

I agree about other factors dictating! A friend popped in for a coffee today and my dog chewed one of her shoes...! Felt obliged to buy lunch when we popped to shops so she could get new shoes for work! On the plus side she bought the shoes herself and was highly amused with my 7month old mut.

keggie

Excelent news re sky. Gool luck with the vat!

Deeperblue

Hi bonnington, Just came across your diary and thought I would say hi :wave:

I too have high aspirations of finally buying that dream house in the country .... there's just the little issue of £25K debt and £135K mortgage to get rid of first :rotfl:

I'll subscribe and keep poping in to see how your getting on.

Have you done a SOA to see where you may be able to save money to pay off debts quicker?

D.B.

Deeperblue

Hey Bonnington,

I know at times all these bills and extra expenses just seem never ending. I used to say to myself "Well this bill is a one-off so we'll be ok next month" but it just always seems like there is some kind of "one-off" bill every month! Doing a budget has definately helped me get on top of things like that and plan a bit more for these extras that keep popping up.

We don't have mains gas heating either and with the really cold spell at the end of last year decided that our only option was to pay £2000 to get the woodburner in the front room working and £2000 to replace the old wooden doors in the house where the heat was leaking out. It hurt to have to add to our debt like that but in the long run it's saving us a lot of money and we are much warmer for it too.

Your certainly very busy sorting things out for yourself at the moment (I love how you rang MBNA, definately worth a punt that was ) and you'll soon see rewards for all your hard work. Looking at your signature your already making headway :beer:

DB

LAM2011

Hi Bonnington - I know its hard in the beginning and I too like you dont want to really acknowledge that it will take years to sort out. Keep chipping away at it you will get there. If I didnt have this site to come to and chat with similar people and record my woes I dont think I could do it. It is so motivational.

will pop back later x

keggie

Good luck with the pointing - I know what you mean about therapeutic, I keep telling myself that about a number of mind numbingly boring jobs that just take time but bizarrely give you a great sense of achievment when you finally complete them!

Think we're going to attack our garden today. It used to look quite good until we got a puppy last August. He has eaten everything! We had a climbing rose that was just getting established but he has chewed it to a stump together with a young horsechesnut tree and 2 rhodedendrums oh and the lawn is now non existant with his digging!

Deeperblue

Our house was built around the same time and it too needs re-pointing.... though I have to say I'd never even considered doing this myself. I say 'needs repointing', but it's just something that would be nice to do as when it was done last they didn't make a particularly good job of it....so unfortunately it's just something we're going to have to live with till we're a bit better off.

Wow, I'd love to have a garden the size of yours, your very lucky! Ours is about 10m x 4m Although there's not really spare room to grow veggies we can squeeze in some herbs which is all very MSE :money:

Quaffle

Hi Bonnington,

Just dropped by on your thread. Good luck with your debts and with your weight loss journey. I am a Slimming World Consultant so if you need any advice.....

Quaffle