Not totally giving up the good life LBM!

NearlySortedMum

Long time lurker here finally deciding to come out of the woodwork….Hello all!!

I’m not actually expecting anyone to follow this diary but I wanted to start one to keep me on track. It’s more for me, my husband and I have been doing great with the debt busting but im starting to lose interest and want to try and boost myself so we don’t give up.

Currently I don’t do any PAD or challenges but I am hoping that’s something I can eventually get into, so I won’t be posting about payments every day because it’s something we just don’t have the option to do at the moment.

So the LBM came last year - August to be exact, after our wedding. We decided now we had got that out the way we wanted to shift everything and get on with enjoying life. At its peak our debt was over £12000.00, we didn’t actually realise it was that much we thought we were at around the 10k mark so we were quite shocked when we saw that figure!

When I think of how we were before that LBM I can’t believe we lived like that, I cant believe anyone does! We weren’t struggling as such we were paying the minimum payments we weren’t missing any we were just treading water! So it wasn’t the fact that we had no money that brought on the LBM because we did! In fact we had more spare than now! It was just the shear amount we owed and that we didn’t want to carry on that way. I think we worked out that all our direct debits added together equated to around £400 so therefore once we paid off the debt we would be in theory £400 a month better off!

The debt has mainly come from over drafts and credit cards that were used when I was on maternity when my pay stopped and to help with the last minute bits for the wedding. Then there were store cards that I must have for around 10 years paying minimum payments on and 2 catalogues.
I will do a breakdown of the debt from August 12 when we started.

My Credit Card - £2000
Husbands Credit Card - £1200
Store Card 1 - £1400
Store Card 2 - £240.00
Store Card 3 - £170
Catalogue 1 - £1334.49
Catalogue 2 - £2081.00
My overdraft - £300.00
Husbands overdraft - £2100 (I didn’t even know about this until we started!)
Joint account overdraft £2000

Now we started paying things off in what may seem a strange order to some. It was before id found this site and before I knew about snow ball calculators. I knew a bit, enough to knew which things had the highest APR so that was the way we started paying things off. And at first instead of just concentrating on one thing at a time we upped the payments on all the store cards and catalogues.
Which means that the overdrafts and credit cards haven’t even moved we have merely been paying off the interest. But as they are lower APR its what we have chose to do.

Earlier this year we decided to concentrate on the highest catalogue debt and as we hate the company and the shocking amount of APR they charge we wanted it gone!!!

We hope that by October the remaining £250 on the account will be paid and we can concentrate on the next thing.

So where are we now???

SammyJo1206

Hi NS Mum! Good Luck, I've just started a diary and its becoming addictive! x

NearlySortedMum

Our current debt stands at £9634.20 so in just under a year we have paid £3191.20!!! :j:j

Im pleased with that because to be totally honest we haven’t cut completely everything out of our lives.

We still have sky (albeit on half price with £140 cash back so bargain!) we have mobile phones again bills cut right down to £15 a month for iphones. We have lots of fun days out with our LO, some free but at least one paid a month, we have had holidays, breaks, weekends away. I know if I was true with myself we could cut it right down and not have any of these things but to be honest I don’t want to! I like my life, we have a good social life, do lots with friends and family and I don’t want to miss out on all that and don’t want my LO to either.

We spend roughly £500 servicing our debts and up until last month we were throwing around £800 at it. We have peaks and troughs depending what is on the calendar that month. We have sacrificed a family holiday abroad this year, we have still had a few breaks and have 2 week long uk breaks booked but they are already paid and budgeted for.
But after September we should be able to up our payments to £800 a month again.

I may sound like I haven’t given up much but I have, we have. We used to go shopping every other week to the big shopping centre buy clothes and have a meal out. We would fritter away hundreds on nothing. We rarely do that anymore only when we need something. And we will only eat at places I know that I can get money off at!
We have a strict food budget of £35-£40 for all three of us, we don’t smoke don’t drink and get plenty of lovely fresh food and treats for the LO with that.

I also admit that some of the reason i don’t want to be super super strict and allow ourselves nothing is a lot to do with the well know saying – keeping up with the joneses!
We have a close group of friends and I hate to say no to things.

But saying that I am very much getting in the mindset of if we can’t afford it we cant have it simple as. I am taking pride in buying all our clothes with our hard earned cash rather then getting in on one of the store cards or catalogue.

NearlySortedMum

Hi SammyJo

I love reading the diaries, will look out for yours!
Looks like we have a similar amount of debt left to pay actually

hostie1985

Hi NSM,

Just wanted to say good luck on your journey. I was in debt a few years ago and what kept me going was doing the debt free calculator and said that it would take me 3 years for the debt to go, managed to do it in 2

Good luck in your debt free journey!

Hostie

NearlySortedMum

I realise I haven’t done a SOA but I don’t feel I need to, I already have a excel budget sheet I know where every penny I spend goes. Every month I budget where every penny will go and bar out already outstanding debt we don’t live beyond our means we don’t add any more to the credit cards because we have reached our limits. Now we could try switching cards but im scared we wouldn’t get accepted so im just plodding on for now. I think with regards to the CC I still have my head in the sand slightly about these but we will get there!
Every single place I can cut costs I have, we are already very MSE we swapped energy suppliers, cut our food budget, changed car insurers. So im not going to do a SOA for now.

As of pay day we made the final payments on store card 2 & 3!!!
Freeing up £50 a month to go on to something else. Feel great to be rid of those two major things they have a been a thorn in my side for too long.

NearlySortedMum

Wow Hostie you have done so well!!! And look at your savings thats amazing.

I havent checked my DFD yet, I'm too scared to I think. My aim is to be rid by xmas 14 wether that will happen or not we will have to see.

I think the reason i dont check is because i know the snowball calculator will tell me to pay of my debts in a different order but for various reasons i want to do it the way im doing it lol

SammyJo1206

Hostie - that's amazing!! Congrats!

NSM - Wow, I'm totally the same as you! I have an excel sheet which I study nearly every day! I have also downloaded an app which does the same thing. I haven't done a SOA either as I feel I know where all my money is going.

I also haven't used the calculator, coz like you I know it will tell me to do it differently than what I have planned, and for some reason the way I have planned in my head just works for me!

I don't think I will get paid off as early as you, infact no way near as early as you! I'm leaving my job in 2 weeks and going into hairdressing trainee (never too late to follow your dreams!!) so my wages are being slashed!! I will just potter away though, and my debts wont get bigger as I'm defaulted so simply just cant get anymore credit... which is probably a good thing I will follow your progress for inspiration though....

PS, sorry for writing all about myself over your diary, how rude of me! xx

NearlySortedMum

Sammyjo

We sounds so alike!!
Our debt plans totally seem the same lol

We will have a influx of cash next year when our childcare stops (its over £500 a month :eek:) so thats why we can throw a bit more at it.

Now I have said it I dont know how possible it is going to be to pay it off maybe im being a bit niave! Maybe i do need to face my fears and do a snowball after all

NearlySortedMum

Now to the present day….i actually posted the above little lot last week all in one post but for some reason it didn’t come up on the forum so I had to start again!

So today I made the decision to pay off the final chunk of catalogue 2, at its highest it was £2081!! I can’t believe it was ever that high but today I decided to use some money I have saved for Christmas to pay off the last £250.:j

Another debt down seeing zero was the best feeling and big weight off our shoulders.

Debt as it stands today £9384.20

Total amount paid £3441.20!!! :j:j:j
My current target is to get to £4000 a third paid off by the end of the year. That doesn’t seem much but I don’t want to set a unrealistic target.

NearlySortedMum

Can anyone tell me how I do a signature??

Set myself some challenges for the rest of August
* 8 NSD until the end of the month (not to include weekly food shop)
* eBay at least 5 things
* raise £20 for a extra payment on catalogue 2