The Ultimate Hard and Fast debt clearing mission

GreenSaints

Hi Lara,

Thanks for your reply.

We are totally not on the same page, I'm totally aware of this. Maybe I filled in the SOA wrong - but that is how much we totally spend enough every year divided by 12 months. So for example we went to New York in May and everything included cost £500 each.

I earn more than him, but because I pay my student loan, have a share scheme and am taxed heavily (because of my car, medical) I only found out yesterday that we actually have the same take home pay! I pay £600 and he pays £450 into a joint account.

I was thinking about swapping our joint account from First Direct, if only for a money incentive. The only good thing about FD is that we are only charged interest when we are in our overdraft, no stupid overdraft daily fees like I'm charged at Santander (not this month - fingers crossed. Another 14 days to go!) I don't think anyone else does this, unless it's for a fee.

Our mortgage rate is low because of the variable rate. The money we have borrowed from my mum (not including the money I have borrowed seperately) was for things around the house to make it habitable. We currently pay her £200 a month combined. Once my BC is cleared, I will start my £200 individual payment to her again, so effectively we will pay here £400 a month. We are clearing our joint account overdraft so until January we have stopped out overpayments. In January, we will put £100 to that.

Make sense?!

Basically, to sum up, yes my BF needs a LBM, yes he needs to sell that (f***ing) car and yes he needs to get on the same page. However, this was our first conversation about money ever! I don't think you realise how massive this is! He said "You must have guessed I had something" How?! I'm not as psychic as I thought!

Dinah - you have 20mb fibre optic connection for £12? We are so far away from the exchange, the most we can get would be 5mb on normal broadband.

Cinny91

I've got a bit of a fuzzy head this morning Greenie but I'm going to try my best to help! First off, could you change your gas and electric supplier? I don't know your home set up but we're with Eon and use roughly £30 a month, and we're guzzlers. They're doing and offer now where you get 2 months energy free, or something. And no doubt cashback. I'd try and trim your grocery budget down, like you are doing. And maybe the clothes part of your budget could take a hit too? Would you realistically be able to live on one of your wages and throw the other at the debts?

I wouldn't ask your OH to sell his car either. I think your best bet would be to just plow on and forget about it as an option, I'm sure you have plenty of other ways to make extra payments. Maybe if he sees the struggle he might come to his senses by himself and decide to sell it, but if it was a bought for him it might have too much sentimental value to just sell.

I get you on the internet though, we pay over the odds for ours but there's only one company who can offer us a decent connection. We have downgraded from Unlimited to 40gb which saves us £10 a month as it turns out we're not using that much. Only used 11gb last month and that was with my youtube addiction and streaming movies. And OH's playstation... Or is it MB? I think I mean to say MB?

N.I.M

GreenSaints wrote: »

Basically, to sum up, yes my BF needs a LBM, yes he needs to sell that (f***ing) car and yes he needs to get on the same page. However, this was our first conversation about money ever! I don't think you realise how massive this is! He said "You must have guessed I had something" How?! I'm not as psychic as I thought!

Dinah - you have 20mb fibre optic connection for £12? We are so far away from the exchange, the most we can get would be 5mb on normal broadband.

Hiya Greenie,

I do actually get that this is a big thing. I just think about what we did when we realised how in the brown and sticky (yes its a stick) we were. I also get where your OH is coming from. I sold my mk 1 Hyundai Coupe, which I'd wanted since I was 14, cause of where we were and I struggle to understand why he wont.

That said it wasnt the first time we had those kinds of talks. He needs time to realise how big an issue this is and then, as Cinny said, he might come round and realise that its for the best.

Cinny91

Bad news on my Brother's relationship. They made up! All my family were playing kind to his face which was annoying but when he told me I came out with 'You f*cking idiot' because I am very tackful. Things got a little heated, and I said somethings I maybe should have kept to myself. I still think he's a bloody fool, not looking forward to WWE this weekend because she's going to be there

On another note, does anyone know the best place for cheap flights to Europe? My Sister's going to Germany for 6 months on December 13th so I said I'd fly out and see her twice before we get our puppy. Wanting to fly from Doncaster (all of 15 minutes from my house) if that makes any difference? I don't even know where to start looking! Going on my own too, I can't even speak German unless it's Rammstein!

Oh, and our puppy momma is in season Was texting OH's Mum last night who seems more excited than me, and I can't shut up about getting a dog!

GreenSaints

Cinny91 wrote: »

I've got a bit of a fuzzy head this morning Greenie but I'm going to try my best to help! First off, could you change your gas and electric supplier? I don't know your home set up but we're with Eon and use roughly £30 a month, and we're guzzlers. They're doing and offer now where you get 2 months energy free, or something. And no doubt cashback. I'd try and trim your grocery budget down, like you are doing. And maybe the clothes part of your budget could take a hit too? Would you realistically be able to live on one of your wages and throw the other at the debts?

I wouldn't ask your OH to sell his car either. I think your best bet would be to just plow on and forget about it as an option, I'm sure you have plenty of other ways to make extra payments. Maybe if he sees the struggle he might come to his senses by himself and decide to sell it, but if it was a bought for him it might have too much sentimental value to just sell.

I get you on the internet though, we pay over the odds for ours but there's only one company who can offer us a decent connection. We have downgraded from Unlimited to 40gb which saves us £10 a month as it turns out we're not using that much. Only used 11gb last month and that was with my youtube addiction and streaming movies. And OH's playstation... Or is it MB? I think I mean to say MB?

Hi Cinny,

Thanks for your response. I hope you feel less fuzzy later. Don’t forget it’s hump day

I hate gas and electricity! We were with Scottish Electric who used to charge us £33 for gas and £80 for electricity! :eek: We have literally just swapped to EDF. We always pay a fixed direct debit so we know what our spending is, but we are going to send meter readings more regularly (possibly once a month)

I’m really focusing on the grocery shopping. As we shop at A$da (both me and mum), I’ve managed to get two of the £5 off vouchers and a voucher for £1.13! So effectively my two next shops will cost £35 each! :T

I think its right to just ignore the other car. He’s got it; he’s not inclined to sell it, so we’re stuck with it. At present I’m currently putting together an Excel sheet of our incomes and expenditures so we can really see what we can put money towards and pay off these debts. I don’t think he realises that being (potentially) debt and mortgage free by the time he is 42 is a good thing! He’s been desensitised by his upbringing (MIL “<insert BF name here> never has any money” then she laughs. Is that a helpful comment? No) so it’s never been a concern to him.

And in response to gb and mb. Your 40gb is your download load limit (i.e. the amount of information you are entitled to send and receive from the internet) 20mb is the connection speed we have (i.e. how fast I can connect to XBOX live and play Forza with the rest of the world! )

Birdie85

Cinny91 wrote: »

Only used 11gb last month and that was with my youtube addiction and streaming movies. And OH's playstation... Or is it MB? I think I mean to say MB?

If you're talking download limits then it'll be GB I think, when we download movies they're roughly 700mb and my addiction to downloading Nurse Jackie has taken up about 6GB of the hard drive! We'd be screwed if we had a download limit! I've got a new show to watch now called Pan Am, like Mad Men (set in the same year) but on planes! I now want to be a 1960s air hostess please

Greenie, I don't really know what to suggest with your SOA and the car issue, he'll have to get there on his own so you'll be best doing as the others say and work at your debts and lead by example until he cottons on.

What a shame that your brother made up with the GF Cinny! You did right to say what you did, we all know couples who really shouldn't be together and keep quiet about it and when they eventually break up everyone says 'Oh I didn't like him/her, you were terrible together etc' and a) it seems a bit two-faced and b) if they'd known all this in the first place it may have made them take a step back and realise what a rubbish relationship they were in before wasting years of their lives with someone awful! I'm sure your brother knows that anything you say/shout at him is for his own good because you love him

No suggestions for cheap flights, just avoid Jet2! Have you looked at Martin's flightchecker thingy?

archersluck

So much going on! I've already been at work 5 hours so will reply properly tonight.
However I am queen of flights! Where in Germany would you be flying to cinny? It won't be expensive if you avoid baggage etc

starnac

lots of talk going on since monday.

will catch up properly later.

Dinah I will post my november goals later too if that's okay. Def got "have this baby" on it though. Am officially overdue today

be back later

Tete_en_l'Air

Morning,

Don't think I can add anything really Greenie other than let the car go for now - you don't want to alienate him at this stage. As he gets into the moneysaving groove he may want to sell one of them (even if it's the cheaper one it'll help), and what you'll have to do is pat him on the head and tell him what a clever puppy he is as though it was all his idea in the first place!

Cinny I can only suggest Martin's flight checker like Birdie said - the cheap airlines are much of a muchness in that they all charge extra for essential things like seatbelts. You get 20k baggage allowance with Easyjet as opposed to 15k with Ryanair. Germanwings might be worth looking at too - that's one of their biggest budget airlines but I don't know where they fly to in the UK.

Started my Coast to Coast run last night 5k down, about 298k to go!!

wendz86

Hurry up baby Starnac! I think it might be a fireworks baby.

Greenie - i am not very good at the soa stuff and think others have given you great advise. Sounds like you are heading in the right direction though.

Bad news about your brother Cinny! Exciting about the dog bein in season hehe.

Might have to check out Pan AM, i love mad men!