Im sinking - financially and mentally

MsKex

Please help me.
I have always been in what you would call "controlled debt" ever since leaving school at 16 years old (im now 30). The past 2 years I found myself single and its been tough - I took the mortgage on myself and I am a single parent.
I have racked up debt stupidly (this year I decorated and went on my first trip abroad in 5 years - all on my credit card). Usually I consolidate on top of my loan (I did this last year) but I am determined to take control of my finances. The debts currently stand at just under 20k. I've started trying to be savvy (I have ebayed/gumtree/sold mobile phones for my son's uniform in September/birthday presents) and then I will go and do something stupid like book him a birthday party for a whole bunch of kids at one of those wacky warehouse type places which I put the deposit for on my credit card - I find that all my outgoings are going on debts/house bills etc that anything like birthdays or "living" goes on the CC. I know I am stupid.
I am going to post my statement of affairs shortly if you guys could mull over it.
Im also feeling pretty low - I wasnt sure whether its down to recent weight gain/sick of my job/money/the fact since coming back from a supposedly well needed holiday has actually made me feel 10x worse. I actually feel like phoning in sick tomorrow I feel so sad.
Sorry to ramble on.

MsKex

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,565.00
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 224.00 (80pm child benefit and 56pw tax credits)
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Child maintenance from ex-partner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250.00

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile phones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33.00
TV licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.00
Internet (inc with SKY). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home phone(inc with SKY). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cleaning products/Cleaner (food shop) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Garden maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.00
Council tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71.00
Overdraft cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 No overdraft
Bank account fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.50
Home insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.05
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618.00 (17 yrs left)
Plumbing/Boiler cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27.00
Mortgage life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.08
Mortgage payment protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sickness insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.53
Food and household shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180.00 (tend to do a £80 big shop at Aldi then £25pw for bread/milk/fruit/veg - child pack lunches)
Drinks for home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00 (£5 bottle of wine at the weekend)

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Rail/Buses/Taxis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54.17 (bus fare)
Breakdown cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Debt Repayments

Credit card repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150.00 (Barclaycard/Min payment is £126 = Owe £5,275)
Hire purchase repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Personal loan repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264.14 (Tesco loan - 4.5 years left = Owe £13736)
Car loan repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Cant afford a car
Bank of Dad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00 (Owe £600)
Fridge Repayment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00 (Owe £147)

Savings & Investments

Pension payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Buying shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cash ISAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump sum saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Family

Pet food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 (1 cat, inc in food shop)
School trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pocket money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Nappies/Baby extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Children's travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00 (not pay yet but next month he turns 5 so will have to pay bus fare to school)
Baby-sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Playgroups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Travel insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Son's Swimming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Son's Football. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Son's School Fund . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.00
Son's Kids Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143.80 (goes to a breakfast/after school/holiday club)

Entertainment

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56.00 (inc phone/internet/sky - apparently I dont have a TV aerial so cant get freeview, need to check this)
Family days out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00 (odd days out or save up for a trip)
Cinema/Theatre trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big days out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Shopping for fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (antivirus, etc) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
DVD rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Drinking out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Eating out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Complimentary therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Beauty treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Healthcare cash plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private medical insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21.00 (weightwatchers - hoping to push myself to gold member so no longer pay)
Work clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New children's clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.00
New clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Education & Courses

University tuition fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Big One-Offs

Funeral expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00 (probably too less as theres always childrens parties etc to go to)
Winter holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers and magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular charity donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,039.00


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,073.27



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good_advice

Hiya, no wonder you are feeling low. Just returning from a holiday payed for on a credit card.

Put a smile on your face and now move forward....post a SOA soon and we will all make suggestions.
You are going to have to look at your outgoings and see where cuts can be made. Yes, we all have to trim our belts as the house bills are forever rising and so is debt with interest.

[Deleted User]

Well done on posting, if you are looking for practical advice and support this is the right place to be. Getting it all written down can be intimidating but it is the key starting point to get to where you want to be.

You ARE NOT stupid you ar exist one of many thousands of people who find themselves in this sort of position for a variety of reasons you are however smart enough to recognise it and do something about it.

It is having children and wanting to do things for them and you can sometimes feel guilty about materials things for them but in reality the most precious thing you can give and the stuff the will remember it time spent at the park or the beach or playing boards games on a rainy day.

Good luck and well done keep us update and please consider doing the statement of affairs as all I have to offer is encouraging words but others will be able to offer that and some good practical help.

MsKex

As can be seen from the statement above - I dont really have anything spare for me/emergencies so I tend to use my credit card a lot - for example going to a friends house for tea I would need to get a taxi home that would be an extra tenner here, someones sponsored run at work an extra fiver there. Im sorry to waffle on with myself, just need some guidance and a knock around the head I suppose.

MsKex

Thanks for your kind words - I've actually just burst out crying. Probably because I am actually "talking" to someone about it and the realisation Im not coping very well.

I think I just feel a bit overwhelmed. Im panicking a bit about the the school holidays because I have to work full time, and its like £575 I need to fork out that again would have to go on a credit card (I can deduct around £250 from that figure once the weekly tax credits come through) but its still another thing to add.

alannadrama

Aww, I really feel for you. I know how you feel. You've done really well to come on here, that's what I did a few weeks ago and I already feel great about the future thanks to the help and advice.

First things first - you're not in "scary" debt, i.e your house isn't in danger and you've not got baillifs knocking at the door.

Second thing - you've got a good monthly income, we just need to figure out a way of getting your outgoings a little less.

Things like your freeview, you can pay about £50-£80 to get an aeriel fitted in your home and then you've got freeview for life. It's soo much better than sky. If you miss particular shows, you can download them from the internet, thats what me and my boyfriend do.

In terms of kid care in holidays, have your children got a friends they could go to? You could always ask and offer to pay a certain amount each week to cover costs?

I'm pretty sure there will be some sort of charity/gov scheme for school holidays where your kids can go while you work, there must be a million people like you in the same situation.

You seem to be paying a lot for gas, maybe get in contact with your provider and ask for a re-calculation?

Bottom line, you're not in dire straits at the moment at all. Well done for taking the first steps

MsKex

Thank you for your reply.
I do have a good income, and I take comfort knowing im not in negative equity. I feel like if I want to have a "life" im using debt for it. I think its easy to just not go out but since I am sat in on my own most nights with my son, I end up going out and about and before you know it my purse is full of receipts. Ive calmed myself down and made a cup of tea.

Freeview - other than the cost of installation is there any cost in it at all? Or is the clue in the name ha?

Im glad you think the gas is high - and when I last did my meter readings in December, I was in credit so I was shocked when it went up to £85 in February (from £60!). When I rang them they said due to fuel price hikes I would have to build up money in the account for next winter (even though I havent really had the heating on for a long time). They finally agreed to compromise at £75 a month. I will probably ring with new meter readings tomorrow.

Kids Club - all my friends dont have children and all my family/friends work. I have made a friend with another school mummy who I know works part time I may ask if she can do the odd day but feel like I would be encroaching on her time with her daughter iyswim. I think thats part of my problem, I dont ask for help. Son's dad works shifts and doesnt know what he is doing from one day to next so its like banging head against a wall when I ask if he can do some days.

tallyhoh

Nothing for Christmas? or don't you celebrate it. Your house insurance seems very high. I paid £93 for this years for building/contents. Of course it depends where you live etc but when its due for renewal make sure to check comparison sites etc.

MsKex

This is the cheapest quote I got for home and contents insurance, it actually used to be £45pm

This is another reason why I started the post - I can't afford to put money aside for Christmas, which I have worked out I would need around £350 for presents all in, which would inevitably go on a credit card.:( Not sure what to do really, do I tell people I cant get them christmas presents so dont get for me? I have tried this before but it fell on deaf ears (I know you dont give to receive and all but I felt so bad knowing someone was going to buy for me I ended up getting them a present anyway - especially knowing that the people buying for you dont have a lot of money themselves). The amount is for family, friends, friends' kids, nephews, nieces etc plus two best friends birthdays that are on the 21st/25th December. Its just a rough estimate, I am sure I can get it down with 3 for 2s but as it stands I have zero budget for it anyway.

[Deleted User]

It is easy to feel overwhelmed by debt and sometimes by life we all have our moments, the upside though is that by writing it all down and making a plan helps immensely. Even if the amounts you can pay towards are not large as long as its going in the right direction that is a positive thing.

Sometimes emergencys happen and things come up but it is the ability to accept them deal with it and even if it means a bad month then just get right back to the plan. It won't be a quick fix but if you have a plan and stick to it in the main it will help you get through.

Remember also that freeview boxes are 10 a penny so if you go down that route try cash converters or the like for a cheap box.