Back from the brink of disaster....now to pay off £160,400 interest only mortgage :-(

brummiebabe

Kate - welcome to MFW:j I'm only just starting out on this journey too & can't make a huge dent in my mortgage just yet, but this board has helped me to realise that every little bit you can overpay is heading in the right direction!

You story is, I'm sure, very familiar to a lot of people - the difference is that you're doing something about it! :T

Good luck with your plans - I shall be subscribing;)

lilyp

Good luck with it all Kate. I too arrived here having survived the brink of disaster (I couldn't relay it all on here because I was worried about someone I know reading it and recognising me) You will find that remembering the times of desperation will really push you forward as you wont be able to bear the idea of going backwards.

I think you will do really well on your MF journey xx

Cheapskate_Kate

Thank you again for all your warm wishes. I had a manic day yesterday so didn't get the chance to reply.

So, will continue with the story and then think about some of the ideas I've got for moving on.

Ok, so husband leaves, lots of debts, can't make even minimum repayments, am in arrears with council tax and gas, no job, 4 children, generally speaking a bit of a disaster. Timed all around the time the banking crisis began and we hear about all the reckless people living way beyond their means, living off the equity of inflated house prices...yada yada yada and it dawned on me then that actually this was me!

So I decided that I had to earn something - anything would do. Tax credits, child benefit and the generosity of my parents was the only income I had for some weeks. I may well have been entitled to other things such as income support but I did not want to go down that route and be that person. My pride wouldn't let me so I decided to become self-employed. I only had 1 at school at this point so childcare for 3...even for a part time job didn't seem realistic. So, I ended up doing all sorts of things - worked for Lionbridge on their internet rater programme, mystery shopping, did some database cleansing for local companies and a few cleaning jobs a week etc.

The debts were still killing me though - I was constantly worried I had no money for groceries, kept getting bank charges and was getting into mortgage arrears. And so I contacted National Debtline and one week later began a DMP with payplan. Suddenly life became much easier. Mortgage arrears were tackled and by saving on what we were 'allowed' for groceries I got on top of paying my priority debts and became organised so they and food went first and then the remainder went to the DMP. Can't remember my original debt free day but it was something like 2021 and that was if all my creditors froze the interest - which they didn't (and some even increased it).

Slowly I got used to this new way of life...fell off the wagon from time to time with stupid spends and nonsense but my priority debts were always paid. Which was an absolute revolution to me....they'd always been somewhere at the bottom of the pecking order after clothes, meals out and 'stuff'.

When my second daughter went to school I did some sums and decided to look for a part time job. I wouldn't be any better off with the cost of childcare for 2 but thought I needed to start some sort of a career. I managed to get some agency admin work for a large multi national and enjoyed it straight away. I continued to do my self employed stuff from home. Now, here is where my luck changed - the company I was doing agency work for advertised for a lot of trainees to carry out a new branch of work. I looked at the person spec and saw it was all aptitudes rather than experience so rather nervously decided to apply much to the disgust of fellow admin colleagues.

After a grueling assessment center and an interview I was offered a full time position :j The boys went to nursery full time and off I went. I've since moved around in the company and am now lucky enough to be field based -which essentially means I'm based from home.

As it stands now I have almost paid off all the debts. A successful PPI claim and the boys starting school in sept (and freeing up a huge amount in saving childcare fees) has really speeded up this process. I should have enough to pay the last £400 to my remaining creditor this month so my thoughts have turned to this ridiculous mortgage. Hence my diary here...........

skint_spice

Well done on turning things around Kate, looking forward to hearing more about your progress.

fothers365

You have made fantastic achievements so far, well done Kate:T

Best wishes for the future, I will follow your adventure with you:)

downsizer3

Well - with that attitude you'll soon be meeting that mortgage head-on too.
Good luck in your journey - be proud of what you've achieved so far!

QB_Wolf

Cheapskate_Kate wrote: »

I looked at the person spec and saw it was all aptitudes rather than experience so rather nervously decided to apply much to the disgust of fellow admin colleagues.

After a grueling assessment center and an interview I was offered a full time position :j QUOTE]]


My favourite bit of your story (apart from the kids of course), great that you had the faith in yourself to apply and prove you colleagues wrong.:D

Beckyy

Wow. Well done! Seriously. There's so many people who would have looked at their situation and just crumbled. You've done amazingly well to get yourself back to a comfortable position. I'm going to wish you the best of luck and I'll keep an eye on your diary

CathT

Considering everything you have been through, slaying the mortgage should not be a problem . Good luck and thanks for sharing your journey so far.

Cheapskate_Kate

CathT wrote: »

Considering everything you have been through, slaying the mortgage should not be a problem . Good luck and thanks for sharing your journey so far.

I really like that term 'slaying the mortgage' - it really sums up how I feel about it. Having a quiet day at work today...one of the joys of this job is that there's no real set hours. You just have to hit your targets and get the job done. While that sometimes means putting the kids to bed and logging on again all night - it can also mean having a day like today when I'm up to date and no new tasks have been assigned.

And so I've had time to think about things a bit. If I'm to clear the last of my debt I have £457.26 left to spend this month so that's for almost 3 weeks. Then I can stop the regular payments to payplan and siphon that money elsewhere. But I'm not sure exactly how to do this.

I really need to ring NRAM and find out my exact balance and how much a proper repayment mortgage would be per mth. I know I only have 16 years left so not sure I could afford the repayment one anyhow....gah i could kick myself. And I'm on a s@@t rate as I can't remortage elsewhere doing to just being crap. In addition I have a very high LTV...think we'd struggle to get 170K for the house tbh at the moment and in fact it's a miracle we're not in negative equity. All suddenly seeming insurmountable.