One Day I Will .... get debts below £8500 (Debt Diary)

onedayiwill

Hi all,

I made a couple of posts on other threads a couple of days ago. I'm a secretive partner and haven't told my OH about my debt, but I hope I will find the courage soon as I know he will be supportive.

Anyway, got into debt on CC and OD because I was depressed and spending helped me feel better. Now I have a handle on the depression but the debt is stopping me from getting completely well.

So a wee bit about the debt history:
Got an Egg CC
Ran up £9,500 debt on it.
Ran up £2000 OD on bank account
Did the stupid thing and took out a loan to consolidate the debt 2 years ago..
Didn't cancel CC.
Didn't cancel OD.
Started spending on CC again, back up to £3500ish
Started spending OD again, back up to £2000
Towards the end of last year, banki cancelled OD. Uh-oh. Called back, agreed to reduce by £200 per month.
Current OD £1200
Still have £6200ish to pay on loan (28 more payments)

So my current debt is around £11,000
Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

BUT the good news seems to be, looking at this written down, my debt hasn't increased since 2 years ago. So, there is hope.

I hope to have an SOA posted on this thread in the next couple of days so that you can help me out.

You have already helped me so much. I found this site last Friday, so it's been a week. In my first week I have:

1. Started the process reclaiming my bank charges
2. Joined Quidco
3. Opened A&L Premier Plus account online through Quidco. £50 cash back. Hope they will match my overdraft so that I can move it across for 0% interest and hopefully reduce it quicker. The interest on my OD at present is 11.9%
4. Applied and been accepted for M&S CC with LoB rate of 3.9% for balance transfers in first six months. The interest on my CC at the moment is 16.9% so transferring the balance will be good for me.
5. Destroyed my credit card so I can't spend on it.
6. Obtained a piggy bank.
7. Sold some old books for about £38 - money is in the piggy bank.
8. Spent as little as possible. Carry only enough cash for each day - the debit card stays at home. Total over the last week - £17.30 (and there was a special event on Saturday which took £15 of that!).
9. Earned 550 points (£5.50) on pigsback.

So thank you all. I will keep you up to date and post my SOA soon.

Skint_Catt

Well done! What a great start :T

I need to leave my debit card at home, but I'm scared to 'just in case'!!!! It gets me into such trouble!

Might start with one day next week.

Catt xx

juliejim

Congratulations on a great start.

tigzem

Wow - well done!! What a fab start.

But how did you get so many points on pigsback? I've only just joined and got 260 so far!

onedayiwill

Tigzem .... to get the points I make use of the help provided by the generous members of this forum in this thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=359420

The first two posts are very helpful and updated every day

oakdale_minx

what a great start. As the days and weeks go by you will find the little changes adding up and it will all start to snowball from there.You will be debt free before you know it!

onedayiwill

Hi Folks,

So I got to this sooner than expected (will have to work doubly hard at work tomorrow to make up for the time I spent doing this today!)

SOA as at 22/2/2006

INCOME

Salary - £915
Payment from OH for bills - 122.50

Total: £1037.50

OUTGOINGS

Debt Repayments:
Egg CC repayment - £70 ish (min payment)
Virgin Loan payment - £223.00
OD reduction - £200
Total Debt payments: £423

Bills:
Electric - 43.00
Gas - 70.00
Phone - 14.00
Council Tax - £155.00
Mobile - £27.50
Mortgage & Home insurance - £192 (1/3 of total, OH pays rest)
Joint savings account to cover mortgage shortfall - £10
Total bills: 511.50

Essentials:
Car - £0 OH pays everything
Groceries - £50 OH pays for 'big shops', this is just for the little things, extra veggies when needed, milk, bread etc
Total: £50.00

Other:
Sports membership - £20 (as many sessions as I wish to attend - has really helped my depression and keeps me 'sane' at present. Will not drop this payment for these reasons)
Holiday - £100
(to OH for next 3 months - this will cover my flights, he pays for his flights, accomodation, food, excursions, spending money etc).
Sky TV - £0, OH pays
Broadband - £0, OH pays
Clothes - £0 (what are new clothes??)
Total Other: £120

Total Outgoings: £1104.50


Balance: -£67.00 :eek:
(In reality I have usually made this up by selling something or working extra hours when possible)

Debt Line Up
Egg CC - £3356.76 @ 16.9% (making min payments)
Virgin Loan - £6262.56 paying £233 per month (28 installments to go...)
Smile OD - £1227 @ 11.9% reducing by £200 per month
Total Debt: £10846.32

You may be wondering why, after having been married for 5 years and together a lot longer, OH and I still have separate finances.

The truth is I did not want him to be responsible for my debt so I have always made an excuse about it being easier to have separate accounts. And I looking back think this was smart - if we had had joint finances I am sure I would have spent his money too and got us both into even more trouble than I am in now.

I know that OH will be supportive when I come clean with him - he will probably tell me to stop paying him holiday money until I can afford it and may help in other ways too - but it is still very difficult to do as I also know he will experience a lot of pain at knowing we are in debt ... and I do not want to see him hurting, especially because of something I have done.

As I said in my first post I have opened new account with A&L so hopefully can transfer my OD to 0% there, and new CC with M&S to transfer Egg Balance so it will be 3.9%. Will cut up the physical M&S card when it arrives so I can't actually use it to spend on!

If I've missed anything out, please question me. And please help me to reduce anywhere that is possible.

Thank you for all your help so far.

tigzem

onedayiwill wrote:

Tigzem .... to get the points I make use of the help provided by the generous members of this forum in this thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=359420

The first two posts are very helpful and updated every day

Thanks for that - appreciated it - upto £3.10 now!! yay

onedayiwill

No comments on my SOA?

Well, let me try for myself. I've been looking at it and thinking about it...

My gas seems too expensive. We were paying 43.00 by DD but this wasn't enough to cover the bills so a few months ago they put it up 70.00 to make up what was owing.

My £50 grocery spend seems a lot given it is just veg and stuff! Not sure what it all got spent on. In theory keeping a spending diary should help me figure it out, but in practice the act of having to write down everything I spend over the last week has ... stopped me spending anything!!.

Anyway, sure would appreciate your help and suggestions.

Thanks.

onedayiwill

Just did my snowball on whatsthecost ..

It gives me more hope. I'll tackle the OD first, because I think it will be a huge psychological boost to see my account regularly in the black (I can't remember the last time it was!).

I should have the OD paid off in 3 or 4 months. I am going to wait until this is done before coming clean to my OH. Somehow 2 debts seems more "manageable" than three.

Then the CC of course, according the snowball that will be gone by June 08.

And finally the loan. Which is not supposed to end until June 09. But if I can save some money once the other debts are paid off, perhaps I can come to an early settlement for it.

So, at the latest it looks like my DFD is June 09. Which is only 28 months. Not so far away and just in time for my 36th birthday.

Storm

Hi :hello:

With the gas & electric - this is really high, so keep an eye on Martin's switching traffic lights to change supplier via USwitch (via either pigsback or quidco). If you've not spoken to your OH yet about the debts, you can always tackle the utility one as an environmental concern - switch to energy saving lightbulbs, make sure TVs aren't left on standby, get better insulation etc.

You've not mentioned water bills in your SoA, or anything for prescriptions, haircuts, birthdays etc - even if you only budget a small amount each month it will help spread the cost of these.

The mobile is also high - if you can't get out of a contract try and switch down to the lowest tariff, and go PAYG if possible - it's nearly always cheaper (I put £10 on mine every 6 weeks, and I don't even have a landline!)