Debt Free by September 2014 - SOA included

wegle

MrsGSR wrote: »

I see where you are coming from. We too have family abroad and DH had to go over earlier in the year (again adding into the debt!) I guess every situation is different, ours is joint debt so we are focussing on that, we are still paying small amounts to the childrens accounts though.
Weddings are so expensive too, we were lucky that we didn't have much to pay from ours.
Graze boxes are a lovely treat but yeah buy a few bags of nuts and raisins and little pots and ou can prduce something similar

We did really well with the wedding spend wise, especially with help from this site. My wedding dress cost £200 and my bridesmaid's dress £16!!!! We got married overseas in Cyprus with just 13 guests. Our wedding and 2 week holiday/honeymoon cost less than the 1 day party back home we threw for 100 people!!! Admittedly my Mum and Dad chucked in a bit for the Cyprus wedding!:p it was all amazing and I wouldn't change anything but it's a lot of money really, even though we did do it pretty cheaply.

Well I've taken your advice and already cancelled the graze box. It is totally not a need, so it's gone!:A that's a few more pennies to go in the pot.

Got all my spreadsheets up to date now and I have £118.33 left until the end of the month. Only planned spends are for ciggies(naughty I know!) which should be about £34 and our usual Friday chips which is £4.80 each week and there's 3 Fridays left so £14.40. Need to get 2 bady cards which I will get from Tesco and not spend over £1.50 each and with postage that will be £4.20. I also start back at college (day release) on 24 September. I'm budgeting £5 for this each Tuesday for coffee, I will take my own lunch. So total expected spends of the rest of the month are £57.60. So if I stick to this I will have an extra £60.73 to chuck at debt!:j:j:j

Keep your fingers crossed for me guys!

Silly_Spender

wegle wrote: »

Well I've taken your advice and already cancelled the graze box. It is totally not a need, so it's gone!:A that's a few more pennies to go in the pot.

Congratulations on your marriage!

Regarding the graze boxes, I used to have these now and again but recently I buy bags of nuts from Asda and make my own 56g bags up. I mix raw almonds, hazelnuts, shelled pistachios and walnuts (would mix dried fruit in as well but I'm keeping as sugar-free as possible at the moment). As long as there are only 28g (or 10z) of nuts in there for a female, or 56g (2oz) for a male, you can graze on these without worrying about the calories / fats (which are healthy in them anyway).

Back to the point though! Each whole bag of nuts I buy works out at around £1.20-£1.30 *ish* per 100g. So separating this into smaller bags costs so much less than those graze boxes!

Fingers are crossed for you too!

wegle

Silly_Spender wrote: »

Congratulations on your marriage!

Regarding the graze boxes, I used to have these now and again but recently I buy bags of nuts from Asda and make my own 56g bags up. I mix raw almonds, hazelnuts, shelled pistachios and walnuts (would mix dried fruit in as well but I'm keeping as sugar-free as possible at the moment). As long as there are only 28g (or 10z) of nuts in there for a female, or 56g (2oz) for a male, you can graze on these without worrying about the calories / fats (which are healthy in them anyway).

Back to the point though! Each whole bag of nuts I buy works out at around £1.20-£1.30 *ish* per 100g. So separating this into smaller bags costs so much less than those graze boxes!

Fingers are crossed for you too!

Hey SS thanks for stopping by!

That's exactly what I'm going to do from now on. I love raisins and nuts and I know I can make my own little graze boxes for soooooo much less. Big thanks to MrsGSR for giving me the kick to do it. I could even be really sad and keep the current cardboard box I have and fill it back up again so at least it still feels like a special graze box! Haha!

wegle

Right, this post is probably going to be a long own but I think it will be worth it. A lot of people say that you will never be truly debt free until you address the reason you first got into debt, so the point of this post is to explore the reasons I took out credit and how I ended up here.

************

I was always brought up by my parents with the ethos that if you want something you save for it. Credit cards were very much the devil in our household, my parents having their own debt struggles when I was very little. In our house if you wanted something you saved up your pocket money so you could buy it. This always stuck with me and it wasn't until I was actually 23 that I ever took out any form of credit. I refused all credit cards, store cards, loans etc. I made it through uni with only my student loan and 2 jobs, not even an overdraft.

The first loan

I was 23 when I met R. I worked in a good job as an assistant manger of a public house. I lived above the pub rent free, had a food allowance and took home about £1000 a month. R was a regular customer and we soon started to see each other. He was shortly to move to another town a couple of hours away for a new job. We had decided to keep things casual but our relationship developed and every other weekend I would go down and visit him. Even this extra expense didn't affect my financials as my salary easily covered it.

R got poorly, depressed and lonely. He was signed off work by the doctor and after 2 months he couldn't take it anymore so I told him to quit his job and come move in with me.

Things were going well, but R was still out of work. He was struggling financially and I was trying my best to keep us both going. He decided to set up his own business and was out of the flat a lot drumming up business. It got to a point where we just didn't have the money to continue to live our lifestyles. I can now see that these lifestyles were far too extravagant for the money we had.

At this point R and I discussed getting a loan. Turns out his credit rating was trashed due to previous debt (can anyone say red flag!) so it would have to be me that took out the loan. This I did to the tune of £3000. This paid off R's overdraft, gave him some money for the "business" and bought us a weekend away.

I'm not going to go into too much detail about what happened next but the short story is R had been cheating on me for a long time and I found out. I kicked him out of the flat and got very depressed. I was still working really long hours (around 100 a week) and I decided I couldn't cope being in the pub trade anymore and needed to get out. I immediately started job hunting.

The loan top up

It didn't take me long to find a new job. I was willing to take the first one offered to me, I just wanted out of there. I was glad of a new job but now faced the challenge of needing somewhere to live as I would not be allowed to live above the pub when I was no longer working there. I frantically started flat hunting. Having found a nice 1 bedroom place I realised I needed at least £1000 to cover the first months rent and deposit, I would also have to work a month in hand at my new job meaning I would be another £1000 short.

So back to the bank I went and added £2000 to my £3000 loan.

The Overdraft

It wasn't long before I realised I could I'll afford to run my own flat when I was used to having £1000 all to myself each month. That coupled with my new job being commission based meant it wasn't long before I had to move out of there and into a house share.

Everything was going ok, I was getting used to living on a reduced income and tailoring my spending to suit, then 2008 happened and the recession hit. I lost my job and I had no emergency fund and no one to turn to. I went to bank to discuss my options as I would not be able to make my loan repayments and believe it or not the advisor said I was eligible for a £1000 overdraft and that I should take this to make sure I could meet the payments and have something to live on!!:eek:

I was out of work for around 10 weeks, after what felt like a million interviews I landed a temp job at the company I now work for, however this was at a vastly reduced pay to what I was used to.

The Credit card

The time between the top up loan and the credit card is 2 years. During that 2 years I had always made minimum payments and lived within my means, however never saved any money. I also secured a permanent job at my company and was living in a great house share with friends.

The only reason I even thought about a credit card is I had looked on my Internet banking and it said I could have a credit card, apply now online. I thought sod it and went for it.

I didn't need the money, I don't think I actually even used the card for a while. It wasn't long though until it was being used. My car was perpetually in the garage and I funded all it's work on the credit card. I racked up £600 in a few months.

The Second loan

In Oct 2009 I met my now husband. He had just left the army and was living at home with his parents. Our relationship developed very quickly and by March 2010 we had decided we wanted to live together.

Neither of us had any furniture or homewares to speak of. We managed to scrape together the first months rent and deposit between us but I wanted us to have some furniture so once again I approached the bank for a loan. I only wanted £1000, just enough to kit us out. However once in there the advisor suggested I take out £1600 so I could pay off my credit card as well. Brilliant I thought! But why oh why did I not cut up that credit card there and then!

The Credit Card - contd

Mine and hubby's first 2 years in our new home were hard. We were each bring home about £800 a month and had the same expenses we do now, bar any savings.

Foolishly I didn't want us to go without. I love to spoil my husband, and often would just pop into town to see what there was and just whack it on the card. It wasn't long until the credit card had gone from £0 to £3000 :eek::eek::eek:

I accidentally one month went over my limit by £10 and this prompted lloydstsb to write to me saying my rate would be going up unless I agreed to cancel the card. This was a mini light bulb moment for me and I immediately rang them up got it cancelled and cut it up!

That was last year, probably around this time. Luckily hubby and I had had both secured promotions at work and I had found this site so we had our financials under control. We also set a date for our wedding and were determined not to get into debt for it at all.

We budgeted hard and in a year managed to pull together £7000 and had the most beautiful wedding.

This was my real lightbulb moment. The realisation that together we could ferret away £7000 which would have easily cleared all my debt with plenty left over for savings. I knew it was time to get serious:T!

Where I am today

Well loan 1 is paid off, I never made an overpayment on that loan just slogged it out for 7 years paying the minimum. Loan 2 is half paid, the CC is about £400 paid and the overdraft is perpetually maxed out.

Bar the £3000 on the credit card most of my debt has been incurred through a lack of financial forethought, basically not having any savings or contingency fund for when changes in circumstance occur.

The frivolous spending that I did on the credit card has been curbed massively through this site and through saving for the wedding. Needs and wants are a daily focus for me, and I'm pretty good at identifying them. I do every now and again need a little reminding though!

I'm confident that once this debt is paid off I will not be taking credit again. Hubby and I have made an agreement that the only debt we will ever accept in our life is a mortgage and our car lease as these are absolute necessities for us. The mortgage is going to be a long way off at the moment, but we're hopeful that we will get there one day. And if we don't as long as we have each other that's all that really matters.

So there you have it, bones and all. I hope it wasn't too boring for you all but I think that was a good exercise for me. It certainly felt pretty therapeutic!

MrsGSR

wegle wrote: »

We did really well with the wedding spend wise, especially with help from this site. My wedding dress cost £200 and my bridesmaid's dress £16!!!! We got married overseas in Cyprus with just 13 guests. Our wedding and 2 week holiday/honeymoon cost less than the 1 day party back home we threw for 100 people!!! Admittedly my Mum and Dad chucked in a bit for the Cyprus wedding!:p it was all amazing and I wouldn't change anything but it's a lot of money really, even though we did do it pretty cheaply.

Well I've taken your advice and already cancelled the graze box. It is totally not a need, so it's gone!:A that's a few more pennies to go in the pot.

Got all my spreadsheets up to date now and I have £118.33 left until the end of the month. Only planned spends are for ciggies(naughty I know!) which should be about £34 and our usual Friday chips which is £4.80 each week and there's 3 Fridays left so £14.40. Need to get 2 bady cards which I will get from Tesco and not spend over £1.50 each and with postage that will be £4.20. I also start back at college (day release) on 24 September. I'm budgeting £5 for this each Tuesday for coffee, I will take my own lunch. So total expected spends of the rest of the month are £57.60. So if I stick to this I will have an extra £60.73 to chuck at debt!:j:j:j

Keep your fingers crossed for me guys!

Wow! Thats brilliant spreadsheet work. Must admit I am rubbish at spreadsheets, must get DH to sort them out, he loves a spread sheet!
I am going to take your advice and have another go at comping :beer:


Your wedding sounds like it was amazing! I do think it's important to have the day you want but at the same time you don't have to spend a fortune on it. Our wedding cost £4k in total but that was 6 years ago now.

MrsGSR

Wow! Amazing post, you are very similar to me!

HOK3Y

Damn proud of you, wegle. Would give you a huge hug if you were here so sending one to you in cyber space instead. I read the whole thing and it all makes such perfect sense. It's so easy to fall into the trap when the banks are happy to throw credit at you knowing they are roping you into paying them handsomely for a very long time. Well done, wegle. x

wegle

Right I've done my SOA again!! :rotfl:

This time taking account of the axed Graze box and I'm going to throw a bit more at my OD each month than originally planned. So here it is. This is the final, definitive addition! I hope!

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 0
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1400
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1400

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 285
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 51
Electricity............................. 17.5
Gas..................................... 17.5
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 22.75
Telephone (land line)................... 15
Mobile phone............................ 40
TV Licence.............................. 6.06
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 5.99
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 75
Clothing................................ 30
Petrol/diesel........................... 60
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 19.09
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 8
Car parking............................. 5
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 10
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 4.58
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 3.84
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 17
Haircuts................................ 30
Entertainment........................... 80
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 25
Savings................................. 50
Car Lease............................... 100
Work Lottery............................ 2.17
Work Tea Fund........................... 2.17
Tobbaco................................. 73.7
Total monthly expenses.................. 1056.35


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 500

No Secured nor Hire Purchase Debts

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Credit Card....................2681.19...54........16
Loan...........................766.74....44.63.....16
Overdraft......................1000......27.88.....7.8

Good news is I now have another £16 to chuck at the debt! Thank you MrsGSR for giving me the nudge to get rid of those yummy little snacks!:j

So I've moved the extra £16 odd into my spare holding account which leaves me with £101.47 to last until the end of the month. I already know this is manageable as I've calculated all my essential spends and I still have a good buffer after these are gone.

wegle

Hmm for some reason it isn't formatting correctly and showing all the information. I'll try again later. But you get the idea!

wegle

MrsGSR wrote: »

Your wedding sounds like it was amazing! I do think it's important to have the day you want but at the same time you don't have to spend a fortune on it. Our wedding cost £4k in total but that was 6 years ago now.

You're so right. All that really matters is the people you love are there and you and your husband are there, everything else is just decoration. I hated reading all the wedding magazines as you got the impression that you HAD to have all these different things and if you weren't spending £25K on your wedding it would be rubbish. I ended up selling them all on eBay for £1 each!! :beer: