Finally escaped PDL's, long way to go

moneymoron1

R_P_W wrote: »

Am I missing something? You borrowed more money from your mum to pay off debts but STILL have £15k debt and your mum has already lent you 30k?

Can I just ask - where has all that money gone?! Is your wife fully aware of all the debt? I hope you have not misled your mum into lending you more on the basis that yo would be 'debt free'?

Not missing something, I have been spiralling this for about 4 years, I have finally just got clear of the most crippling debt, finally took one of the lifelines I have been given.

In reality I lived way way beyond my means, and buried my head in the sand, for the last 2 years I haven't done that, just spiralled out of control struggling to pay things off, at one point I had 7 different payday loans totalling around 6k

Wife is aware of the debt, but not the stuff that has now cleared, nor how much I owe my mum, and it will stay that way, especially now the payday loans are gone

moneymoron1

theoretica wrote: »

Also, what is your wife's contribution to the household finances? Many of those numbers look OK for the full cost, but very high for half.

The figures I have out above are just my own, council tax is very high where we rent. I have also tried to overestimate wherever possible to make sure I don't think I'm in a better situation that I am.

Wife earns a very good wage, something similar to mine, she is currently saving money whilst I try to pay my debts off, she is saving for a deposit.

I intend to use equity in my own house in a couple of years time to fund my half of the deposit, which is when I hope to have paid all my debts off

[Deleted User]

moneymoron1 wrote: »

The figures I have out above are just my own

So you and your wife are really spending about £400pm on groceries? :eek:

moneymoron1

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

So you and your wife are really spending about £400pm on groceries? :eek:

I'd say not, but I wanted to estimate high so that I didn't think I am in a better position than I actually am

[Deleted User]

I think you need to keep a spending diary.

Overestimates just confuse the situation.

moneymoron1

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I think you need to keep a spending diary.

Overestimates just confuse the situation.

Thank you.

I will do that this month

theoretica

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I think you need to keep a spending diary.

Overestimates just confuse the situation.

Agreed! You need to be completely honest with yourself and put the work in to have a correct budget.

Another good way is looking at past bank/card statements to see where it went.

moongarden

Keeping a money diary is a great suggestion from Bedsit Bob.

Without having a clearer view you might think that e.g. if you don't buy any clothes for 3 months then you will have £150 to pay off the highest interest debt .

lynz68

At least you have gotten out of the PDL trap but you still have a long way to go in sorting out the remainder of your debt. I hope you are planning to use the money you were spending on PDL to increase payments to your debts. I would highly recommend the spending diary it's amazing how all those little insignificant spends add up.

I would also do a more accurate SOA had a quick look at your old one and it looks like your income has gone down yet you were talking about expecting a substantial pay rise. Has this come through yet as would obviously be a great help as long as you use it to service the debt.

While I appreciate you don't want to tell your wife or mother about how bad it really is if you are trying to maintain a lifestyle you can't really afford to keep up appearances you're not going to make a serious dent in your debts. You have been struggling with this for a very long time as it is and there is a long way to go. Do you actually have a time frame in mind of when you would like this paid by? You need to be realistic particularly if you're looking to buy a new home at some point.

moneymoron1

I always set myself a target of this time next year but I know that is unrealistic so I would like to be free of this by December 2015, ambitious but in quiet months I may be able to pay off larger chunks at a time.

I will set up a signature on here showing all my debts and update each month with the new balances, I haven't actually spent on any of my cards for over a month which is an achievement considering where I was 6 months ago maxing out the cards with cash transactions to service the payday loans.

I'm hoping that once I pay off one of the higher balance cards I may be able to get lower interest balance transfer deals on them so that I can reduce the amount the debt is costing me each month