In debt all my life time to face up to responsibilities

sweetpea26

Hi dprovan

Had subscribed and wondered how things were going for you. You are doing so well. Its the realisation that you are no longer wasting money that is the eye opener. Keep going and keep posting.

sweetpea26

Hi Dprovan


How are things. Just thought I would pop on and see how you are coping.

dprovan

Hi sweetpea26, thanks for the post. It is stating the obvious to say that I am not the most prolific of posters.

Things are going good. We have continued on our journey of discovery. Our attitude has changed significantly. I can't quite believe we lived as we did before. It wasn't that we had flash cars or flash holidays and because of that we believed that we were not reckless with money. However we were spending more than we earned and we earned well. We bought little and mid range things continuously. If we seen a plant we liked we would have bought it with a pot and with some compost and some feed. If we decided to paint the room we would have got a new mirror and curtains and cushions. And on we go. Yesterday I was in tescos getting the reduced meat:beer: and i seen two handmade (yes handmate that would have been good enough for me before) plant pots reduced from £30 to £10 each and I thought thats a good deals. Thankfully i now have a thought process which says plant pot? Then you need a plant, compost and for what a plant pot when you have 40k+ of debt. Yes simple I know but it has taken me 40 years to get there.

As to our debt reducing journey. I think we are making steady progress. Every month there has been something. The boiler needing fixed, the car needing new tyres, the clutch going etc etc. This month we had a bifgger electricity bill and telephone bill which was higher than expected. We took care of 2 of the 3 kids christmas presents and covered a couple of unexpected dental appointments.

We had a disaster when due to a couple of mistakes on a few fronts one of our cc payments was late by 2 days. It was a life of balance card at 6.6% and they immediately cancelled the rate moving it to 19%. To say I was worried is an understatment. Thankfully with a smooth call to a kind caller they re-instated the life of balance rate. But it was another reminder that I want out of this lifestyle.

On the positive front one of the ccs that I thought the 0% would end on last month is still 0%. Not sure why and not wanted to enquire too much just enjoying the bonus. I need to change one cc that has a poor interest rate but need to wait a couple of months to get the debt down more and to built credit rating as we had a few refusals.

So debt currently stands at £43764. Which is progress in the right direction.

dprovan

Time for the monthly update:

debt reduced by £3807 paid in the last 5 months. Not as fast a reduction as many, however I need to stay concentrated on the positive which is that we have in the last 5 months bucked the trend of the debt increasing and turned the tanker around and are heading in the right direction.

I know that we could have made bigger sacrifices and reduced this by more, but knowing us, I think this is the way to go which is steady and careful so that we dont get sickened by the sacrafice and come off the rail. Another way that I am looking at it is that we are not going to get ris of the debt overnight so we may as well tackle it sensibly rather than all or nothing.

We have definately spent more in the past two months on getting bits and pieces for the kids for christmas so I am hopeful that the new year will give us an opportunity to up our activity to bring the debt down on a quicker scale.

I am delighted to say that christmas is covered for all 3 kids. We have been able to get them what we wanted to get them and haven't added to the debt which is not something we could have said in previous years.

Just a quick post, as I have to go to work.

sweetpea26

Excellent Dprovan :):)

That is real steady progress. Well done on being so organised for Christmas and not to add to the debt.

Onwards and upwards is the motto or should I say downwards re the debt. :)

dprovan

thanks sweetpea. steady progress is exactly right.

2joanne

Hi there how's it going? I struggled a lot since October but seem to have my mojo back now...would be good to hear from you...:)