Desperate To Be Debt Free!

artyfartyem

Hi All,

This is my first post after lurking for a few months and reading all the fantastic advice and tips.

Decided to start a diary because at times I have found it incredibly difficult to come to terms with the situation I am in, and hope reading back will be a comfort to me as things gradually get better, and hopefully to share some tips with other people in the same situation as me.

My LBM was back in April 2011, well, not by choice, after coming back from an amazing holiday in Las Vegas and Hollywood it was time to face the music... Myself and my OH had been constantly overdrawn and struggling to make ends meet for a while. In 2008 we had gotten married and taken on another house (renting out the old one) and the bank had given us a £20,000 loan on top of the new mortgage. In 2009 I gave up my job to go back to university to do my teacher training. Coupled with a house to renovate and our love for expensive holidays, the credit cards severely took a bashing _pale_ Looking back now I don't know how we managed to survive on one income, and I have to say I am embarrassed that I allowed things to snowball and become so bad.

Coming back from the holiday in April was a massive wake up call, we pleaded with the banks for help, and we met with 'If you earned more money we could put you on a repayment plan'... TBH if we HAD more money, we WOULDN'T be asking for help would we?! By this time I was in my first teaching post, traveling over 60 miles a day and we cut down on things as much as possible to save money, but on each cc statement the amount of interest almost swallowed up the payment and it felt like we were getting no where.

We stumbled across CCCS from looking on this website and they were really helpful, but I had loads of concerns. I was worried about opening a new account, feeling guilty for not making payments to out creditors (foolishly I know). It took a couple of months to get everything set up and we started making payments of £966 in June 2011.

We have had SO much trouble with Lloyds TSB over our accounts. Most of our debt is with them, including the £20k loan, £9k credit card etc. They continued to charge interest, refused to accept the payment plan with CCCS, constantly harassed us with calls and letters and always when we answered the phone it was an overseas call centre who claimed to have either no record of the CCCS offer/or have declined it. The calls were so traumatic I would often be in tears and felt sick about answering the phone. CCCS recommended we write to them asking to cease all phone correspondence, and even sent us a template letter to send to them. In the end OH ended up writing to them as we had paid over £700 on one account and they had charged £1000 interest! He said that we would take the case to the Financial Ombudsman as they had said we were on a plan, even sent us a letter to confirm and then change their mind again. They agreed they were wrong and refunded the interest and now the balance is coming down quicker.

Another small victory was with MBNA, I spoke to CCCS about potentially paying off a cc and then recommended making an offer of a 1/3-1/2 of the total balance remaining on the card, which was £1047. I offered them £400, which was rejected, so I went back with £500 which they accepted. I do have a partial settlement on my credit file (but I NEVER intend to have credit again), but I have written confirmation that the debt will no be sold on and I will not be chased for the outstanding amount.

We have shaved off as much as we can from our budget and we are currently paying £992 a month to CCCS. I have to admit that I am completely obsessed with becoming debt free. I try and make extra payments when I can, and I update my balances on CCCS to make sure I know 100% where I stand-I would love for it all to be paid off next year, but I think thats wishful thinking.

I have seen lots of tips on other people's diaries, but here are some I have used to help;
mutualpoints-you earn points for receiving and clicking emails and if you buy things through the site. I just ordered another £20 cheque from them
i have an iphone so I use voucher cloud and O2 proirity moments whenever I am out so I can see if there are any vouchers or free stuff (eg I got all of my christmas cards for free with a BHS voucher)
I have 2 piggy banks- 1 for change and one for £1, £2 which I pay into the old overdraft (reduced from £600 to £280 so far)
We have sky movies (our only entertainment really) and we get free cinema tickets almost every week so we get to have at least one night to look forward to.
We sold our 2.2 vectra and bought a 1 litre peugot 107- the road tax is on £20 a year and it hardly needs any petrol!

We were both feeling really down about not being able to go out or go on holiday so we have set up a savings account and have given ourselves a monthly target. We are saving up for a holiday, but we will not book anything until every single penny is saved and accounted for. I know this money could go to debts, but we both felt if we had nothing to look forward to it would make it more difficult to carry on. I have got a new job much closer to home (in a much less stressful place) and things are much easier. OH has had a promotion and works incredibly hard to earn a good bonus so we can pay more off the debt. (I am incredibly proud of him-he was in the top 4 performers in the country from over 400, and he always makes me feel better about things)

I wouldn't say that this has been easy. It has put a massive strain on our relationship, and I know that I can be difficult when things get too much. I find it comforting reading other people's journeys and knowing that its not just me going through this, as it sometimes seems as my friends don't know what's going on.

Sorry for waffling on. I only hope this helps someone else how other people's advice has helped me!

artyem

banwa

Hello artyem:hello:

Well done for starting your diary. If you're paying back that amount each month, the debt will be gone in no time at all. I'm looking forward to hearing all about it

Banwa:)

FlacosFloozie

Well done for facing up to your debts. That's the hardest bit. It does feel better as you the that total fall month on month. Good luck xx

artyfartyem

Thanks guys, its fantastic to see so many success stories on here. I mazuma'd a phone for £33 quid yesterday, £27 on zapper and £10 on music magpie... We are also going to try and slash our grocery bill next month down to £150... Need more cheap meals!

artyfartyem

Some small victories... British Gas are installing free loft insulation in a couple of weeks (suprising seeing as we both work) and have some stuff on eBay (free listing weekend).

Have joined opinion outpost to try and earn some money from doing surveys to pay into old bank account (only £280 to go!)

artyfartyem

Paid £60 into the old bank account yesterday, walked all the way up into town so we didn't have to pay to park/for petrol. Made up of £2 coins saved and the £33 from mazuma. Hoping that eBay items earn a decent amount, because I really want to pay off the bank account asap. Down to £220 now, but the bank are charging £11 interest/charges a month! I have a cc with them at £600 which they are only charging £8 a month! Joke!

artyfartyem

Feeling really down again today about the debts. Sometimes it feels as of there is no light at the end of the tunnel despite throwing all we have at it, and it feels like I am just existing. I get up go to work, eat tea, walk the dog and then to bed, all to pay off things I have already have had. Oh the joy.

artyfartyem

Somehow have managed to pay off the TSB overdraft from £220 last month, which will mean our other creditors will receive the extra £25 a month between them. My only concern is that as we keep trying to pay more and more towards the DMP each month that the creditors will start to charge/increase the interest each month?

We managed to only spend £27 on groceries last week, but due to a really stressful week (with work and horrible neighbours) we ended up spending an extra £15 on wine and a nice meal. I can't shake the feeling of feeling guilty about spending money, but I feel incredibly stressed this week so much so I am getting a strange feeling in my chest that just won't go away.

The neighbour situation is so bad we are trying to sell the house. But because of our poor credit rating we are having to appeal Halifax's decision to not allow us to port the mortgage by sending our credit files over to them. We don't want to borrow any more money, and because we have never missed a payment the advisor said it should be fine, so fingers crossed. We bought our house as a repossession so we are hoping to make some money on it, but to be honest this will probably go into another property rather than to the debts.

We have also managed to save £800 since January, which we were hoping to go on holiday with on a last minute deal. The only problem is, I again feel incredibly guilty about spending the money or even having it in the bank. I feel like I shouldn't be allowed to have it, because I owe so much money to my creditors. Is this normal? I worry that I will never get over this feeling, and although I know that I will never get into the same situation again, I don't want to become one of those people who doesn't enjoy life and just sits on their money. I feel so much like my life is on hold until this is all over, I don't feel myself and I feel incredibly trapped. I would do anything to pay it off quicker, and I am trying so hard, but it's just not happening quick enough for my impatient self.

We have dropped into the 20ks now (29 to be exact) but I know until this is gone I will not settle-but then I am wondering-does this feeling ever subside?

Sorry for moaning, I am just feeling really low atm.

artyfartyem

So after paying off a debt and increasing the monthly payment through cccs tsb have sent a letter saying we have missed the payment and that they ate cancelling the agreement we have with them. They claim it's because out payment Is the 5th of the month, when we have been on the dmp for almost a year and they have consistently received payments on the 25th. When I called them and was transferred to an overseas call centre they said thu couldn't change it with me over the phone and that cccs would have to change it. I cannot put into words how angry I am, why are we penalise got paying them more money, and trying to clear the debt as quickly as possible?! We have put in another conplaint but I feel so helpless

artyfartyem

Well things feel like a rollercoaster again. We are down to 29k with the debts over all and the complaint to tsb worked, we received a letter saying that the interest would be permanently frozen from now on. On the down side, we had the house valued an would stand to make 37k profit on it, bit Halifax refuse to give us a mortgage got less money with a higher deposit as we are seen as too high risk despite never missing a payment and keeping up with their increases in interest. Not sure what to do now. We felt like this would be the way to sort everything out but now it seems like we will be stuck here until the Dmp is done and probably until the defaults come off!

Getmeoutofdebt

Hi there,
I just wanted to say hello and good luck after reading your diary. I am pretty new to this site and I also have a diary on here. I am doing a self managed debt plan with the help of national debt line and CASHflow. Debtline told me it would be easier than using a debt management company because creditors tend to respond better to you than DMC's. I have been in debt since I was 18. I am 37!! I hate it! It's so easy to get into but almost impossible to get out of. After making the decision to contact debt line I felt more scared than I have ever felt in my life. I think it was because I had finally admitted to myself what a mess I am in. My creditors are yorkshire bank cc, MBNA cc, Lloyds cc, Barclaycard 2 x cc and also Lloyds 2 x overdrafts and littlewoods catalogue. Its a nightmare, almost my whole wage was going to make payments. I researched the forums regarding everyone I owed money to before I began my plan and I found that like you have said, Lloyds are no help at all and won't freeze interest and that other credit card companies put the interest back up if you pay extra. I want to get my debt paid as quick as I can and if I only pay my new offers to my creditors then it will take me 6 years. I think I can possibly pay it back in less than that, as, like yourself, I have been selling bits and bats on ebay and looking for ways to save a bit of extra cash to pay off my bills. I don't know if it is going to work but I have devised a plan. I have kept LLoyds (all 3 debts) and Littlewoods out of my plan. My idea was that if LLoyds are so hard to deal with and they won't freeze interest, then its not worth the hassle, but also part of my plan is that if I do have extra cash, I have debts that I can pay it off without being penalised. I have heard if you pay any extra at all off Barclaycard they just put the interest back up and mine is at 22 % on one and 24% on the other so if I get them to freeze it I don't want to jeopardise that. This month is the first month that I have payed my new lower payments. Yorkshire & MBNA froze interest straight away but i'm still waiting for a reply from b'card. I got a bit extra in my wage this month and because I hadn't paid as much off my other debts I had some spare cash. I have used it to halve my Littlewoods bill. My plan now is to use Ebay and spare change etc to pay it off, then move onto the LLoyds overdrafts and then the credit card. I know I am going to still be paying interest on the LLoyds stuff but it makes it feel a bit easier for me to know I can pay any extra cash off them and let the interest free stuff plod on.
Other stuff I am doing...... Saving £2 coins in a sealed pot to pay for christmas. I am getting obsessive about it which is a good thing because I am less likely to break in and spend it that way. I have also worked out a debt free motto to use as the password on all my credit card accounts online so that every time I log in I remind myself of my goal. Every time I pay a chunk off my catalogue I use the commission earned from my payment to buy something off them that I can then ebay and I use the money from that to pay back off my catalogue.
I also have joined good food website where you can save recipes for cheap and easy meals in a binder. Every sunday I sit down for half an hour, load up my binder and work out a meal plan for the week and try to plan meals that I can use the same ingredients in more than one meal so I'm not having to buy tons of stuff and less likely to have leftover food going to waste.
Like you I have good days and bad days. I don't really know what causes it because some days I feel so positive and it feels like its going to be easy to get out of debt yet the next i feel terrible and I feel like its a pointless battle.
Reading your diary reminded me so much of myself. I really wish you all the best in your debt battle! You are doing the right thing and admitting you have a problem and trying to do something about it is such a brave and difficult step. keep your head up and your thoughts positive because you do have light at the end of the tunnel even if sometimes it seems a bit distant remind yourself that it is there!
Good luck xx
G.m.o.o.d