Staying Positive!

Adoremouse

Hello everyone, I have posted a few times, but thought I'd start a diary. This is so that I can keep track of how I'm doing on this journey back out of debt. Also, so that I can start to get to know some other lovely MSE people

I thought I'd start with the history of my debt…

When I was very young, barely into my 20s, I wanted very badly to go and visit my Mother who lives abroad. However, the day before I was due to go, I realised that I was very short on cash. I phoned my bank to see if they could help and they offered me a special kind of loan (can’t remember what it was called) whereby they put a certain amount aside that you could dip into when you need it. You would only pay interest on what you had taken out of that ‘pot’. Each month you would pay back what you had borrowed, or the minimum payment, whichever was the lowest.

In the naivety of youth, I thought that was brilliant! Of course, I kept dipping into the virtual pot until I’d maxed it out. I phoned the bank back for more advice and was offered a more traditional loan, which would also clear my overdraft, which I went for.

I then went into a spiral of using up my overdraft limit, then taking out larger and larger loans with my bank to cover it. This is the bit that looking back I am so angry at…they started offering me higher and higher amounts, by selling it to me as ‘you need £3000 to consolidate your overdraft and existing loan, but if you borrow £4000, then you’ll qualify for a cheaper interest rate…so it really makes sense, and you can use that money for anything you want!’.

Being youngand stupid, I fell for it every time, not thinking of the consequences. This became even worse when I decided to take out a credit card. I just kept consolidating and consolidating. This went on for about 10 years. During this time, I met my husband, and we eventually joined our accounts/debts (not that he had any to begin with!).

We then started moving credit card balances onto 0% cards, but rather than cut up the old card, we’d carry on using it! It got to the point where we had several CCs, a large loan, large overdraft all maxed out. We consolidated all of this onto a Picture loan secured on our house (see my signature).

Now, you would think that we would have learned our lesson at that point...had our LBM? No. We then carried on using the bloomin CCs!! By this point we were married with a baby, and I had been made redundant, so we used CCs to keep ourselves going.

Our LBM came after we went abroad for a huge family reunion, which was very expensive. We seriously maxed out our CCs again, plus overdraft. It got to the point where on the journey home, we didn’t have enough money to even buy a bottle of water at the airport!

The minute we got home I started researching DMPs etc, luckily I came across CCCS (I believe it was this forum that pointed me in the right direction!) and they were amazing.

We signed upwith CCCS back in 2009, and it was a huge weight off our shoulders! We started off paying around £300 a month (much better than the minimum payments on the CCs etc that was well over £1000 per month!). Then once our car was paid off we upped the payments to £488. All creditors froze interest almost straight away.

We have now had another baby, and our family is complete. We are in negative equity in our small 2 bed house, so our aim is to be in a position to move in the next few years, before the kids are too old to share a room (opposite genders!).

We should complete the DMP in 4 ½ year’s time (before that if we get a lump sum to do F&F payments), at which point we will be saving the £488 each month so that we can settle the Picture loan early (we took it out over 25 years!!).

I’m so excited to get stuck in to some of the challenges, and to bring that Debt FreeDate ever closer

Yes we were stupid, for many years, but we are putting it behind us now and moving onwards and upwards!

Thank you for reading this if you have got this far! I’ve probably missed a lot out, but I will be updating on our progress with the challenges etc.

Mouse

Hiddenidenity

Look forward to reading x

*Subscribes*

Adoremouse

Thank you

I am really keen to try out the £10 a day challenge for October, we have been decluttering lately, so I have a lot to list on Ebay.

I have also started joining a survey site a day, and I'm compiling a spreadsheet with them all.

I will also be relying very heavily on MSE when it comes to renewing anything and everything!

Finally...I have a hobby that improves our economic situation rather than the opposite :rotfl:

Adoremouse

Sorry for all the posts but I keep remembering things, and am going to be using this diary to keep myself organised!

Christmas is coming up, and I am aiming to use the money I make on the £10 a day challenge to pay for pressies for my kids.

Hubby and I are happy to go without pressies, but will get each other a little something from the kids (for their sakes, so it's about giving as well as receiving). It will be things that we need anyway though, such as clothing, toiletries etc. Or maybe just something that they make for us, we will see how much I make by selling stuff!

We will be letting family and friends know that we will only be doing pressies for their kids this year, and there will be a budget of £5 per child max. That way, people know where we stand!

I might make some chutney to give out to close family, or flavoured oils, as I can incorporate the cost into our grocery budget.

Anything that I sell on Ebay I will keep in my Paypal account to buy the kids gifts, I don't want anything to come out of our account!

We will be making simple cards, and delivering them by hand where possible (walking, or when we are seeing them anyway).

I will be using Tesco vouchers to pay for the extra food/drink at Christmas.

I will add more ideas as I come up with them!

Adoremouse

I have had a good day so far today! I took DD to the cinema,and it only cost me £1.80 as we went to the Movies for Juniors at our local cinema. It’s £1 a ticket but I got an extra 10% off, not bad for a morning of escapism, bonding with my little girl.

Lunch is re-heating in the oven, and it’s leftovers from last night so no spend or effort needed there. I’ve also just gone through aload of baby clothes and have quite a lot to put on Ebay. Some good items such as snowsuits, grobags etc and brands that sell well (Mothercare, Next etc).

I have tons of stuff to list, so need to crack on with that! I plan to start this evening once the kids are in bed.

We got an offer through to rejoin the AA for £39 and get a£20 Boots voucher (would be useful for the sales between Christmas and NY, when they reduce the 3 for 2 items, we see a lot of family during this period so we don’t need to have their presents bought before Christmas day) however DH thinks that he might get free breakdown cover through his car insurance, so going to check that out first.

Going out to see a friend this afternoon who is about to have her baby any day now! All the clothes that I didn’t think would sell, I’ve saved for her (2 bags full) so I know she’ll be pleased. It’s mainly vests and sleep suits that have been well loved, but plenty of life left!

We are going back to making our own bread again this week (we have a breadmaker that hasn’t been used for a couple of years) so going to put a loaf on before we go out.

I think that’s it for now! Will report back later.

Adoremouse

Hmm, this evening has not gone to plan! My DS decided that sleep was for the weak, and that an evening attached to my boobs was a far better idea (he's 5 months old). So no Ebaying has been done.

DH has just taken him up to his cot yet again, so fingers crossed I can get some sleep tonight!

My friend was really pleased with the baby clothes, I see it as karma because I was given so much of it free from my friends, so passing on the favour.

Her teenage daughter was also really pleased with some half used body lotions, nail varnishes etc that I no longer used and wouldn't have been able to sell, so that was nice

I am thinking about doing the sealed pot challenge as well as the £10 a day challenge, but not sure if they would clash with each other! I don't want to run before I can walk, so might start with the £10 a day one, then maybe do sealed pot for the last 6 months of 2013.

Surverys have been very slow this weekend, hardly any to do on One Poll, is that the norm at the weekends?

We are really working on getting our grocery budget down, it crept up after DS was born, but it shouldn't have. I will try and compile a list of ideas that I've gleaned from this forum. I like the idea of cooking a joint of ham and slicing it, as DD and DH love ham in their sarnies.

Night night everyone, hope to have a more productive day tomorrow!

Adoremouse

Having a frustratinly slow day in terms of getting stuff done! DS won't nap unless it's attached to me, and he was in our bed all night so I didn't get much sleep.

Hubby is very good and will work hard under my direction! But it's not the same as just getting on with it.

Went to try and list some items on Ebay and have seen that I have a limit of 10 items a month or £650, whichever is lowest! I've never seen a limit on my account before! It's a business account so is that why? Is this a new Ebay thing? So frustrated as I wanted to list at least 30 things this month :mad:

Right...going to try and crack on and achieve something today!!

clyndu

Re one poll, they only seem to put surveys up Mon-Fri. Have you tried pureprofile?They operate 7 days a week and the cash out is £25.:)

Adoremouse

clyndu wrote: »

Re one poll, they only seem to put surveys up Mon-Fri. Have you tried pureprofile?They operate 7 days a week and the cash out is £25.:)

Ooh, that's great to know! Thank you, I will go and join up now

Adoremouse

Ok the Ebay thing is sorted, thank goodness! I can sell up to 100 items or £3,500...now there's a limit I wouldn't mind hitting in a month

Adoremouse

Ok so my £10 a day challenge has officially started! I checked my adsense account (I have a YouTube channel) and my next £60 payment may hit this month, but more likely to be next month as I have no time to make videos at the mo

I've been busy on One Poll and have made over £5 so far, not sure whether to count it until I actually get a payout! Probably not.

Ebay is not going well, simply because I've had no time to list anything yet! DS was attached to boob again for a large portion of the day.

I went out this morning to meet some other Mums for coffee, so I spent money on that. However I've asked whether we can take turns going to each others houses instead, which they thought was a great idea. Will be a lot cheaper!

Have stuck to cheap meals so far this week, we had a roast dinner yesterday but that was planned for. Hubby will be content with cheap meals as long as he gets at least one nice meal per week! It wasn't actually very expensive as it was roast chicken. I bought a bread sauce sachet for 20p, stuffing for 27p, roast potatoes are cheap, and veg was from freezer.

Tonight we had leftover chicken cooked up with spices on jacket pots and salad. Yum!

Really must get on with Ebaying...so chau for now xx