"Simply not solvent!

taxi73

I agree with Hypno on this one I'm afraid.You haven't come up with a single reason to go PAYE so I really don't think it's for you.
Have you called the tax office yet?...It may be worth calling them to see if they can give you more time to pay as it was in the pre budget yesterday that they were alllowing businesses to take longer to pay.It won't harm you to give them a call and then make desicions based around what they say.

chevalier

Seax yes you are disorganised, but you recognise this and strive hard to overcome it. It isn't as if you never try and change.

Yes you still have debts BUT they haven't gone up, and that means that whilst not saving for tax, is embarassing maybe and a pain, it isn't as though you CAN'T pay it, you will just have to up the debt TEMPORARILY to pay it.

So now you can plan on how to pay the tax in the most interest efficient way possible. So NOW is the time to research 0% cards so that you can have the money for the tax at the best rate.

Then you can plan on how to work so that you MAKE yourself put away some money through the year for the tax. It doesn't even need to be all of it. For the next tax year make it an aim to have A PERCENTAGE saved already, so that next financial year you have to borrow less.

Keep on doing this for the next 4 years increasing the percentage you save each tax year, and then when that loan finishes you will already have saving for the tax as a habit and can just up the amount you save each month.

You CAN do this. You know you can. But just as you didn't learn to start debt busting all in one go, then breaking the saving for tax down into smaller steps means you are less likely to fail, and therefore think you are a failure.


chev

tyllwyd

I think you are being too harsh on yourself saying that you can't save - it seems to me that you are trying to live on slightly less money than you really need to keep on top of things, and that is why you are always finding a more urgent need for your 'tax' money and you aren't managing to save to replace it. If you had lots more cash than you were spending, you'd find saving for tax was easy.

If you were in a PAYE job earning exactly the same money as you are now, you'd still be struggling to pay the bills, it would just be that your tax money would be ringfenced so that would be one less issue. And of course you would be able to plan ahead a bit better because your money would be the same each month and come in on time - but also, you would probably find it difficult to do overtime and earn a bit extra.

I agree with chevalier, if this is a huge issue then you need to change the way you think next year, and take a slice out of every single pay cheque to put aside for tax. If that leaves you short for other bills, you maybe have to accept that and deal with it when it happens because that's the situation you'd be in anyway in a PAYE job.

Good luck with everything. Hope you feel a bit more cheery soon.

bountiful

Dear Seaxwyn - gosh, it just so hard to change our habits, isn't it! The simplest thing to do, as you are, by your own admission, disorganised (though I don't believe it for a minute when I read how much you manage to achieve) set up a standing order to an ISA - you decide how often and how much it needs to be - and keep that purely for tax. Then, with luck, it will just get set aside each week or month, without you getting the opportunity to spend it - maybe? :think: Or, if you have any form of book-keeping for your self-employment - then have a column next to all your incoming payments where you write down the amount of tax that you need to take out of it. Well, nothing you don't already know, I know...... lots of love :A

Karmacat

Hi Seaxwyn

This is so difficult, isn't it? And even tho we know we need to have money put by for tax, putting it by every month and leaving yourself short for other bills *seems* to fly against Martin's advice about not saving when you have debts. But then .... if you did that, and came up against shortfalls regularly - maybe it would act as a spur to spending more of your time on paying work? I'm thinking of the facebook thing/5am start on the previous page.... I don't know. What chev said made sense. What hypno said made sense. tyllwyd too. Everyone in fact, but what matters is you being able to put these good ideas in place. Is it time to look at your own psychology, like I've been doing with my trading? You know, my survival fears/focus problems, that sort of thing? Identifying them, not dealing with them per se, just identifying them so you can stop yourself putting them onto the moneymaking - thats what turned the trick for me in this last fortnight.

Seaxwyn

Thanks everyone for your really thoughtful, useful and encouraging messages. Every one of them has given me something to think about.

Seaxwyn

I usually update my signature on the 1st of the month but today my total is £32,838.43 - nearly £400 more than on the 1st of Nov and over £300 more than on the 1st of Oct.

Even worse, this includes £500 on a Sainsbury's CC which is not on my signature - we've been using that for general spending with the aim of clearing it each month and I very much doubt we'll clear it this month. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I'm not going to update my signature until I have salvaged the situation a little.

Anyway, enough of beating myself up and feeling terrible. It's nearly the end of the year and I can start again in January.

I've come to realise more clearly than ever that the obvious way out of this is to earn more. I need to leave behind the editing that I do and go for higher paid consultancy stuff. I have huge confidence issues around this, but whilst acknowledging that, I just have to go for it. If I don't earn more, it's going to take years and years to get out of debt, and we don't have years and years.

I got my £50 Amazon voucher from Qype and sold a chest of drawers on ebay last night for £65. So I hope those two things will cover Christmas presents. Still got a load of carboot stuff in my front room too waiting for a dry weekend.

lucielle

Hi Seaxwyn, sorry to hear things are pants at the moment. Hope things pick up for you.
L

Sea78

big hugs honey - sorry to hear about the debt increases.

Sea xxxx

hypno06

Seaxwyn wrote: »

I usually update my signature on the 1st of the month but today my total is £32,838.43 - nearly £400 more than on the 1st of Nov and over £300 more than on the 1st of Oct.

And about 17,000 LESS than it was at the beginning of last year. Don't lose sight of that fact - you have come an awful long way. So things are slow at the moment, debt busting wise, but so what......overall you are massively heading in the right direction. Be proud of that.