I've got myself into a MASSIVE debt in 9 months...

pickle_me

I'm amazed you came back here to update, after the stern words you had last time - and with an extra £20k debt :eek: You're either brave or, as you said, delusional ...

Agree with Armorica, absolutely no need for a car in London - especially not when you can't afford it. And as for your lodger moving out, you're simply going to 'suck up' an increase in rent and bills of £560 per month? Really?? You don't have that sort of money to throw away, not when you're £50k in debt. You say you're planning to pay an extra £600 per month over the minimum towards your debts; imagine how much more quickly you could be debt-free if you got another flatmate and could therefore put the £560 you would have been paying in extra rent towards your debt.

I think the best thing you could do would be to complete an SOA and let your fellow DFWs go through it with a fine toothcomb. If you're serious about changing your ways you'll have to make changes in every part of your life.

How great does the debt have to be before you make it your absolute priority and stop spending money on holidays and other luxuries? Before it really starts to bother you? Because it doesn't seem to bother you that much at the moment.

kindofagilr

Ive just read the whole thread, good luck weebit, I really hope you have had your lightbulb moment now.

spot3

I can completely see why you're still spending, I was the same until I ran out of options and then I had to have my lightbulb moment. However your earning and spending power is much greater than mine so you could get into far more debt before getting to that point.

I'm sure its hard when there are 2 of you in a relationship with the same attitude, you need a joint LBM but you do need it now!

Cutting up your cards is a valiant effort but I suspect you'll just end up getting a payday loan next time you want something unless you're already committed to money saving.

Flights via Dubai may have been cheaper on paper but those 3 days will be very expensive so its likely to be far more costly than direct flights. I would really consider cancelling Ibiza at the very least, and possibly even South Africa as your additional costs in Dubai (and you know you'll spend more than £550 in SA) will probably be more than you'll lose by cancelling.

I'd rather cut back, pay stuff off and be able to fly to the in laws once a year than spend as I wanted now then have to explain to them why you can't go for 6 years while you're on an IVA/ bankrupt.

But you know this, I'm sure you do, but like me you'll wait until the situation is out of control and spend the next few years utterly miserable. I hope you have a light bulb moment instead.

katsu

Thanks for coming back and bring honest enough to continue this thread.

I'm glad you and your wife enjoyed your wedding.

Maybe you need to set yourself some targets,such as only spending X in Dubai to ensure it was the cheaper route? Then work out how you could do that: how will you eat and what will you do in the days to enable you to spend max of X?

What is your wife's view?it will be much easier if you both commit.

Lastly,rethink the housemate. The extra rent you pay for them is as much as your extra debt repayments so would halve your time to debt freedom. Or it would enable you to pay down the debt and afford to visit your wife's family etc

good luck

ViolaLass

weebit wrote: »

One thing I've started doing in the past couple of months is walking part of the way home from work in order to get a cheaper tube fare. by walking out of zone 1 into zone 2, I pay £1.60 at peak times rather than £3.20. I sometimes get the bus home instead costing £1.45 (at 2014 prices, it'll be more for 2015). Once, I walked all the way home. It took me 2 hours though so I won't be doing that too often!

OP, just to give you context, if you do this 344 times, you will have saved the £550 that someone is giving you and that you are planning to spend on one small part of a holiday. If you do it 625 times, it will have saved you your spending money for Ibiza.

You are well beyond the stage of needing to save little bits here and there by walking part of the way to work - you need to completely overhaul your way of looking at your money.

Pepperoni

I'm really sorry to kick you when you've already had some quite honest responses, but I literally got to your 'year later' update and my mouth was wide open in shock and I literally gasped out loud. Then I got further down and read about your wife wanting a car and I'm literally concerned for you. This really isn't looking like it is going to end well.

I agree with everyone else that you are being completely frivolous. You absolutely should not be going on holiday - no matter what the reasons are! And as for 'not going on any more holidays, maybe just a few weekends away' - NO NO NO!! Even weekends away cost money that you don't have.

You do not have this money that you are spending. Every penny you spend is money that could go towards the 50K+ that you OWE someone else.

You're going to end up bankrupt or on DMP. Can you not see this? Honestly?

I don't know how you are convincing yourself that all is OK because you're going to close the credit cards ONCE you've used them one last time!

Pepperoni

ViolaLass wrote: »

You are well beyond the stage of needing to save little bits here and there by walking part of the way to work - you need to completely overhaul your way of looking at your money.

:T

Exactly what everyone is screaming at their computers whilst reading this thread I think!

Busy_Mee

Reading your thread is like watching a train crash - I don't want to sound harsh but I think everyone reading this can only see disaster ahead. Please stop and get yourself off this train. All is will take is for one of you to take a drop in income ( and don't think it won't happen to you ) and your precarious finances will just collapse.

You need to sit down with your wife and have a serious discussion about finances - she doesn't sound as if she has had her lightbulb moment yet. Holiday to SA to see her friends and family and buying a car when her husband is getting off the tube early to save pennies suggest that she has not truely accepted your financial position.

You need to have a good talk about what your aspirations as a couple are, because the usual things like buying a house and having a family are currently out of the question because of your reckless spending. You need to stop the spending and start paying off your debt.

Please listen this time to all the good advice on here - otherwise this will be disasterous for you and your wife and your future. Best of luck

scoot65

This has got to be one big wind-up by the OP, 'weebit'.
Surely no one could be so stupid on so many levels.

weebit

Ok, so I suppose I better update you all.

First of all, this isn't a wind-up, this is real and it is really concerning me and causing me sleepless nights.

Secondly, I have sat down with my wife today and have gone through our finances with projected costs for the next 12 months, taking into account things we have planned. Bottom line is, we currently have money left over each month to pay extra onto our debt, but after our housemate moves out, we'll be short each month by £250, therefore something has to be done about this. We have made a number of decisions. Some plans have been cancelled, others have been scaled back and others will be postponed until we're in a better financial situation.

Cancelled plans include:
- Buying a car. I know what will happen if did buy one though. We'd agree a budget, say £2000, then my wife will end up buying one for twice the price! Therefore we can't afford it and we'll have to get by on public transport alone.

- Ibiza Holiday. We simply can't afford this. My wife is still insistent that we go though, but in my mind it's cancelled. I'm sure she'll be convinced in a months' time though when we're eating beans on toast every night. (I'm actually mad at myself for buying the tickets in the first place, it was an early bird "special" reduced rate and I think I was a bit tipsy at the time )

Scaled back plans include:
- Holiday to Dubai and Cape Town. There is no point cancelling the holiday. The flights, car hire and accommodation has already been paid and is non-refundable plus we have money put aside as spending money (and also received some dirham as a Christmas present). In Cape Town, we'll be staying at my wife's mums house so no accommodation costs will be incurred, aside from one night at the wedding venue for £35/night. We have reduced what we were going to do in Dubai and will spend less money. I also have a book of 2-for-1 vouchers which will reduce costs.

The biggest bug-bear with my wife is when I suggested that we move house. She loves our house and doesn't want to move. I may need to work on this over the next few months to convince her that it's necessary. We really want to live on our own now and not share with other people, so we need to find a cheaper flat to live in instead.

Someone mentioned that I've been looking after the pennies but not the pounds and that is exactly it! In retrospect, my mindset has been "I've saved £5 on A, so I can spend £20 on B". This has to stop and change to "I've saved £5 on A, so that's an extra £5 I can pay to a creditor". I have already written to Barclaycard by online message to cancel my account and also to request that interest is frozen. I have also written letters to cancel 3 more accounts and these will be posted tomorrow morning. I'll wait and see what their reply will be.

I've already done the small money-saving things such as getting the cheapest gas and electric, down-shifting our grocery shopping, getting the best bank accounts which pay interest and cashback etc. so we now need to tackle the big stuff. My wife is also going to work extra shifts at weekends at least once a month, possibly 2 per month depending on availability (at around £150 a day after tax) and I'm going to sell all our unwanted stuff to make extra money. Unfortunately with the job I do, there is no opportunity for paid overtime, so I need to make extra money in other ways.

I must say, posting this "confession", shall we call it, has really helped me to see the light and in turn I have opened my wife's eyes to the problems we're facing. It's going to take us a long time to pay this debt down, but I'm determined to do it.

One final thing though... my wife's brother has just got engaged. He lives in South Africa and intends to get married there within the next 6 to 12 months. Obviously, my wife's family is going to expect her to fly out and be there on his big day, but with our money problems, I just don't know how we're going to do it. Flights are a minimum of £600, rising to over £1000 for direct flights. This is something I have to think about, but can't do anything about until a date has been set. I'm secretly hoping that the wedding is delayed for at least 2 years.