A Debt Free Journey From Stress to Success

purple.sarah

This is my first debt free diary. I am 24 and I live with my husband, our housemate and our pets: 1 dog, 2 rats and 7 cats. My husband and I both work at a supermarket. I owe £452.42 on a Capital One credit card with a 34.9% interest rate. My husband owes £1560 on a HSBC unsecured personal loan.

We have had a nasty shock recently. We had been receiving Housing Benefit at our old address and filed a change of address when we moved in July. After a long wait for them to process our claim they have decided we aren't entitled to HB, we have been overpaid and we owe them £3800! Basically they think we should have been paying ½ of the rent not 2/3. We split it three ways with our housemate, which seemed fair since there were 3 of us! We always told them the total rent and how much our housemate was paying. Based on their new calculations we wouldn't be entitled because of our income, which we've always made them aware of. We have appealed but this could be more debt for us to pay off.

We want to pay off our debt so we can start saving and planning for the future. Our dream is to own our own farm one day and run it as a business as well as being more self sufficient. We're planning to start by renting a smallholding in July next year when our current tenancy expires.

The small steps we've taken so far:

I am cutting down on unnecessary spending. I've stopped buying magazines, I used to spend at least £3.50 a week on them, which MSE's handy Demotivator reminded me adds up to £182 a year.

We are trying to cut down our monthly grocery bill using tips from the OS board.

We're taking packed lunches to work.

DH has changed his mobile phone service from Orange to O2 so he can get free texts and calls to other O2 customers like me and our housemate.

DH has cancelled his monthly DD to Friends of the Earth, which he set up before he even met me because the fund raiser was cute then forgot to ever cancel! I agree with charity but we can't afford it at the moment.

I have stopped spending on the CC and asked DH to hang onto it so I'm not tempted. I have also pulled my head out of the sand by ringing Capital One to clarify exactly how much I owe and the interest rate etc. I have set up a direct debit so I don't fall behind with the payments.

DH has also clarified how much he owes on the loan, less than we thought!

We have appealed the Housing Benefit decision.

We have made an appointment with CAB to discuss the HB.

As work would say, Every Little Helps!

The next steps we're going to take:
Post an SOA here for advice.
Look for better paying jobs.
Join the library rather than buying books.

Other things I want to achieve:
Lose weight
Clean, tidy and declutter the house top to bottom.

optimistic-mummy

hi, **subscribes** you have made some great steps so far. well done. xx

rising_from_the_ashes

Happy new diary and absolutely pants to the HB really hope the appeal at least reduces the amount owed.

Well done on what you've done so & best of luck *subscribes*

purple.sarah

Thanks for your support :T

I have joined the Sort 7 financial things in 7 days challenge.
Here are my 7 things:

1. Start a debt free diary. Done
2. Join more money saving challenges. Done
3. Meeting with CAB about HB. Done
4. File our financial paperwork.
5. Apply for 5 jobs.
6. Find things to sell on eBay.
7. Post a SOA.

rising_from_the_ashes

I'll see you over there too then!

purple.sarah

I've joined these challenges:
Pay off as much as you can in 2013 challenge
I'm going for £3000. I'm not actually sure how we're going to achieve this but we can look for jobs and opportunities to up our income. The New Year feels full of new possibilities!

No Buying Unnecessary Toiletries in December
Previously, I've bought toiletries because they looked nice and never got round to using them, so now I'm going to save money and go through my 'stash'.

We Are Decking the Halls with NSDs December Challenge
I'm going to go for 10 NSDs total and 4 in a row.

Daydream thread continues.....
For people who dream of owning a smallholding or a house with loads of land.

Foraging Challenge 2012
The challenge is to supplement your families food with one foraged item a week. I've always wanted to try foraging for food but not got around to it, so this challenge has inspired me to go for it. I'm not sure my family will so enthusiastic though!

mineallmine

Great diary :A

Have your thought about going to your local MP about the HB? In particular as you've been transparent about everything to the HB people. Many MPs hold surgeries on a Saturday morning. Worth a punt.

:j

lurvlyloz

good luck with your Debt Free journey x

purple.sarah

mineallmine wrote: »

Great diary :A

Have your thought about going to your local MP about the HB? In particular as you've been transparent about everything to the HB people. Many MPs hold surgeries on a Saturday morning. Worth a punt.

:j

Great idea, I'll look into it, thanks.

purple.sarah

NSD number 1 today, hopefully the first of many!

missymoo81

Yaay for NSD number 1, good luck on your journey.