It's time.......

FinancialSurrender

I suspect it should have been 'time' on many, many occasions before. But I'm here now, signing up, posting which is all new behaviour for me.

So what's my deal? I'm 32 with a fairly heft sum of debt in my name. It's debt I've had practically all my adult life and budgeting, spending responsibly, saving for things before you purchase them have all been foreign concepts to me!

Well not any more. I really hope that this time I've had enough and will be willing to put the long term gain over the short term gratification and start to make some inroads in to these debts.

In terms of my current financial situation - it's not hideously unmanageable - there have been many lower points to be honest! But my tolerance in terms of finding this kind of financial irresponsibility acceptable has changed - it definitely doesn't feel ok anymore.

I live in London, earn a fairly good wage and have no dependants so there really are no excuses - it absolutely is in my own hands to sort out. And that's the thing - I'm starting to feel like I'm really laughing in the face of my good fortune if I don't start doing the right thing around this stuff soon.

My debt doesn't currently have a hugely detrimental effect on my daily life as my outgoings aren't huge and I can comfortably afford my £250 minimum payments. HOWEVER, this has not always been the case, there have been many, many anxious finance related hours in my life and realistically its always neem a weight around my neck.... PLUS the other huge thing is that at 32, I'm nowhere near being able to buy a property in London which given my salary shouldn't be the case.

So this is a commitment to change! To look to the long term and not to the short. To concentrate on the simple and often free things in life. To be grateful for all that I have and know that I already live in abundance.

I will be posting an SOA soon, but have put my debts in my signature already - although there's one more that I need to add which is circa 4k I think?!

Also plan to join some challenges - just need to get my head around which ones are suitable for me.

My overspending is mainly on clothes on holidays. Tend to shop the high-street, but can go through phases where it's total overkill. ANd holidays - have always been a bit of a thing for me and as I mentioned earlier - have never saved for a holiday in my life.

That was one of the key moments that made me realise I was in a place to change at the beginning of this year when I realised I was ready to sacrifice the holidays - or certainly the majority of them. Am ready to stay at home.

I suppose one other thing that's its worth mentioning is that extremes don't work for me. I've been in recovery for 7 years and balance is hugely important. Budgeting and living my life in a responsible, planned way is crucially important, but I don't want to move to an obsessive place of self-deprivation.

So it's pay day tomorrow which is hugely exciting as I haven't been paid in 40 days - arghhh! They paid us super early before Christmas and it's just felt like it's dragged on forever.

With this paycheck I plan to

1. Pay off the £250 debt I have to Halifax
2. £205.55 of my Postoffice debt is purchases so on standard APR so will pay this off to.
3. Am doing a course though the Open University and they haven't been taking my monthly payments so need to get in touch with them and pay what's owed.

Other goals

1.Post SOA
2. Join challenges
3. Set budget
4. Call Barclaycard to get balance and post in signature.



Think that's it for now!

CommitedToChange

Didn't want to read and run - but congrats on your lightbulb moment. It may take a while but soon it will be second nature to budget and plan.

[Deleted User]

Well done on taking the plunge and start dealing with your debt.

Good luck on your journey.

D9

wannabee_in_credit

Well good luck with it all. It's nice to have a plan and make a start.

FinancialSurrender

Thanks for everyone who's said hello! Do get so much inspiration out of reading everyone else's stories.

Ok - well that was a bit demoralising! Or not demoralising as such - more than the picture is slightly worse than I'd thought. Called Barclaycard and found out that my balance is £3,041.43 which is actually better than the 4k I predicted, but on the down side, I'd had my head in the clouds thinking that it was on a 0% APR interest rate when actually I'm currently paying an 15.3%. Uh.

Also called Halifax to confirm my interest rate with them (thinking that the whole thing was on lifetime of the balance) when actually £1,864.30 of it is on a 0% which ends on the 9th of Feb.

So.... Not the end of the world. Just a bit of readjustment required in terms of what to pay off. Like I said, pay day tomorrow and I work in sales and am owed quite a bit of commission. Realistically doing my SOA is a priority so I know exactly how much I have left for debt repayment.

Going to update my signature now with the total figure.

PS: A tick in the positive thing box that I've done is made sure that all my credit card providers have my actual address! This was just pure laziness/lack of responsibility which meant that I hadn't done this before (moved last August!). My overall attitude toward money mean that I don't consider how important things like this are.

Oh and finally another thing on the to do list is to check out my credit report. I've never defaulted on anything, but suspect I have tonnes of open credit cards which probably mean that things don't look great.

chevalier

I gather Noddle is a good place to start checking your credit score.

Good luck
chev

Pickle49

Hi Financialsurrender

Welcome to the forum. I too have recently had my lightbulb moment and joined. I find these posts and the people who write them truly inspirational. I have found so much practical help and moral support on these forums and I'm sure you will too.
It's always helpful to know that your not on your own, and well done to you for waking up to your debts before they get too unmanageable. Some of the posts on here from desperate people are heart-rending, but even those in their darkest hours are given words of kindness by people who are or who have been in the same position and you can see from their continuing posts that things are getting better for them.
Good luck and welcome aboard the journey to a debt free life and all the ups and downs, thrills and spills that go with it. :T

onamissionEU

Hi OP (Original Poster)

Congrats for posting and sharing your situation with the community - it does sound like you have had your LB moment. There are lots of people here who can offer great advice etc so once you can post a full and realistic SOA you should get great tips and help. In the hope of giving you some inspiration and a little advice I will share a little of my own story.

I too struggled most of my adult life with the debt noose around my neck. Sometimes tight other times a little looser but it was never a nice feeling. I lived in denial as I stupidly used to play with the "big dogs" and believe I was one of them. I work in finance and used to work in London also. At my deepest point I was around 40k in the red. I was 28 at the time (single, flat "owner", several cards loans & car HP). I had my LBM and decided to move to a different country and start a new life. I am now 33 with no debts apart from a mtge & a rosy financial outlook. I also have a beautiful family of my own!

Couple bits of advice. If you are able to transfer credit card balances to 0% do it BUT cut up / close any unused cards. NO emergency card, blah blah: it ALWAYS backfires. Pay off the HIGHEST APR cards first, min payment for the 0% cards.
DO NOT be tempted into a consolodation loan - ALWAYS backfires as you will only run up more debt. If you buy something like a jumper where you save say, 5 quid from what you would have normally paid, pay 5 quid off a card (use internet banking). Also check the snowball calculator. Good luck!

FinancialSurrender

Afternoon all!

Financial news as follows: :-)

Just wanted to share a couple of positive things that have happened over the last couple of weeks.

1. Claimed £200 in expenses which had been owed to me for at least 6 months and had been sitting on my desk the whole time!!! (money is now safely in my account)

2. MBNA paid £58 back into my account from a credit which had just been sitting on my account for God knows how long!!! Found this out when I finally had the responsible conversation with MBNA to change my address.

Financial unmanageability at it's best....

Have bought my lunch into work both days so far this week and eaten cereal at my desk. It was absolute standard for to buy Pret porridge every morning and then spend another fiver on lunch so this is a big deal.

Student Loan

I'm also pretty sure that I have just finished paying off my student loan - in fact I may well have overpaid it :rotfl:.

Am waiting for work to send me copies of two payslips I don't have and then will be on the phone to the Student Loan Company with records of all the payments I've made since my last statement. Unfortunately they're renown for continuing to take payments even when you've paid it off and as there's a disconnect bewtween them and HMRC so am going to have to live with that for a bit I suspect.

It is really interesting though - as it makes me see what can happen to my debt if I don't have a choice in the matter! Reckon I've paid off about £12,000 in 3 years because it's taken directly from my payslips.......

Paid £120 to my Postoffice Mastercard yesterday to pay off the bit that's not on 0%. Need to check whether they still take my monthly payment today, if not have to pay the other £80 off too.

Hi onamissionEU

Thank you for sharing your story - really good to hear from someone who's been in similar circumstances.

Couple bits of advice. If you are able to transfer credit card balances to 0% do it BUT cut up / close any unused cards. NO emergency card, blah blah: it ALWAYS backfires. Pay off the HIGHEST APR cards first, min payment for the 0% cards.
DO NOT be tempted into a consolodation loan - ALWAYS backfires as you will only run up more debt. If you buy something like a jumper where you save say, 5 quid from what you would have normally paid, pay 5 quid off a card (use internet banking). Also check the snowball calculator. Good luck!

Will call BarclayCard and Halifax today to ceck what offers they on my accounts - they normally have something going on and am able to move debt round this way rather than having to open a new card.

Like the idea of using what I save to make a payment too!

And Chevalier - thanks for the Noddle heads up - will have a look now.

Melaniep101

Well done on your lightbulb moment! I also work in Sales, and the great thing is that the amount that you take home is largely down to you (given the right mindset). I always seem to have a better month against target when I focus on what I want to get out of it (saving for a house deposit/new boiler/new kitchen etc).

Good luck, and I'm looking forward to reading your updates.

FinancialSurrender

Just called OUSBA who are the finance people behind the Open University and paid them the £412 I owe them (should have been 4 direct debits).

To be honest they have been very unbothered about the whole thing!! but was worried that it might show as a default.....

Next payment not due until 28th Feb which is good.

Then two x payments (as two courses) from the 31st March. Only for a short period of time though as the first course finishes a couple of months later.

Am going to add this signature to my debt as paid too as hadn't included it!