Ready To Own Up To Our Debt

Bestthingsinlifearefree

MRS-MT wrote:

ok guys,
update already.
Husband has just spoken to Virgin CC, and they have given us £8,747 0% for 6 months, we will clear Marbles for £5100, B/Card for £2,700 and the rest towards the £3671 with Egg. This will cost us £150 a month
thats made a positive start.
Just taken the sky package down to standard package.
More to come......

Excellent start :beer:

Remember transferring debt is NOT paying it off. So you must use the money "saved" on interest repayments to reduce the capital of the debt.

But if you can get those CC debts moved on to zero or low interest rates that will definitely save you hundreds / thousands in interest but you must use this "saving" to pay of the capital.

WELL DONE ON THE SKY !!!!!!!!:j :j

Best,

OberonSH

Yay! go you!

Have you had a look at your insurances? Check you're not paying twice for the same thing in a different packet.

Thats brilliant going already. Don't forget to mark ina diary when the 0% ends so you can see if you can shift them again before you get hit by the interest.

Can I ask how old the kids are? Can you get them involved? That way you're doing it as a family, plus passing on vital money smarts to them.

Bestthingsinlifearefree

One other final point e-mail your husband a link of this thread (click on the thread tools button to do this) or sit down with him and read it together, as much of the advice, suggestions on here will be useful for him to think about to.

Best,

ftbworried

Hi,

Well done for getting this far! The folks on here are great and have already given you some brill advice. Just one thing I noticed....

Our caravan is our godsend

Rather than being your 'godsend', it is your 'debt-send' (i.e. god isnt sending it to you, your debt is!). I know you say you get cheap holidays out of them (4 a year!) but if you are going to make serious indents into the debt you need to think about not having four holidays (however cheap they may be). I don't want to sound harsh, but long term gain= short term pain and all of that.....

how old is your caravan? what is it worth? if you won't sell can you think about downgrading?

Smashing

ftbworried wrote:

Rather than being your 'godsend', it is your 'debt-send' (i.e. god isnt sending it to you, your debt is!). I know you say you get cheap holidays out of them (4 a year!) but if you are going to make serious indents into the debt you need to think about not having four holidays (however cheap they may be). I don't want to sound harsh, but long term gain= short term pain and all of that.....

I do wonder if the 4 holidays a year thing is because you want to get the best 'value' out of having a caravan? In that case, it may be in your best interests to sell, use the cash to throw at your debts and look at a once a year break (it's more than many get!) when your finances are more stable.

dancingfairy

Hi. Just a thought about the tv. I've just looked at Tesco and they do a really cheap tv for £50 (o.k not top of the range and I'm sure you could find some deals around if you looked) but this would be a one off cost and save you £15 a month. If you don't want to buy one is anyone you know getting rid of one for a new one/ have you tried freecycle - do they ever have them? Any other way you can beg/borrow/persuade someone to give you one? Even if you had to buy one at say £60 it would pay for itself in 4 months.


I would cancel the charity donation (I understand why you have it but that £10 could be better spent getting yourselves sorted and then you canm make it up later - I know it's an emotional thing though)

Petrol - do you get the cheapest. Can you get it from your supermarket where you get your food - make sure you are using tesco clubcard/sainsburys nectar card/ whatever card there is that gets you money off your shopping/ petrol this might help a bit.


p.s you're doing great already.

Yorkielass

Agree with Dancing fairy about the TV, my Grandad rented the same old tv for years but my Uncle finally persuaded him to actually buy one a couple of years ago, he could have a nice new one (cost about £100 but he does have it on for hours each day) and although there was that initial outlay it was much cheaper in the mid-long term.

Seaxwyn

Hi there

We recently put a wanted ad on Freecycle for a TV in good condition and were overwhelmed with offers. We could take our pick and have a good-as-new 26" Panasonic.

I am amazed by what you can get on Freecycle - bikes, breadmakers, all sorts of devices that help bust debts!

Good luck with it all Mrs-MT. We have a similar level of debt and fluctuating income like you so I'll be watching your posts with interest.

MRS-MT_2

Hello Again,
Am really enjoying reading all the replies, thank you all so much.
MORE NEWS: Have decided that we will just go away in the caravan once this yr, when i say we go away 4 times a year, they are for long weekends, but, evenso, it still costs money doesn't it.
Also, we can still carry on our food budget whilst on holiday, in fact we find we save money on food in the caravan as its all BBQ & salads!
Forgot to say that we got rid of the Dishwasher, as apparantley it costs 50p - £1 a day to run, don't want that
Re: the TV rental. This is something we started 15 yrs ago when we got married and couldn't afford one, and its one of those things that you can never afford, but we have prob wasted a lot of money over the years renting one ! Will look into this, thanks for bringing that to our attention.
I look forward to hubby coming home and showing him all these posts, he was a bit hesitant about me doing it, pride and all that !
I feel a lot more positive already, thanks guys.

lynzpower

In terms of cheap holidays, the Sun is running a scheme for 9.50 caravan holidays at the mo, and does repeatedly throughout the year. This is WAY cheaper than what you are laying out for the Wear & Tear, depreciation on the caravan, insurances and of course extra petrol carting it wherever you roam Entirely your choice, of course. If you choose to keep it could you rent it to mates for the weekends your not using it for example, help pay for itself?

I also thought you got free broadband with sky? I dont know, if you are getting rid of sky ( which I would ) then it wont work out.

If you buy ANYTHING do check quidco first. Its a cash back site. so for example when you buy your tellly youll get 5% of the cash back from a variety of retailers - have a look at it. tescos included too, so you can get 5% back off your 1st online shop if you use tesco.

I use tesco a lot, if you buy petrol it might be an idea to try and buy it there, then youll get more vouchers towards your shopping