Please Help.

Deep_In_Debt

AlexLK wrote: »

Before I start, I just want to say thank you very much for all your help. The debts had been weighing on my mind for such a long time and I thought I was in the worse position anyone could ever find themselves in. I realise this is not the case from reading some other posts on here and from my wife this evening explaining why she was so angry with me; she grew up in a family that were always in constant money trouble.

We are both sat here currently, trying to go through our finances and work out what we can do towards firstly clearing our debts and secondly getting on with our lives. Mrs. K has assured me her spending was more a reaction to mine than anything else and she seems a lot more clued up on how to live to a budget than I am. So, we can hopefully move forward.

We are truly grateful for every reply I have received on here thus far.

In response:

nicp - thank you, we will use the snowball calculator and Mrs K. says was surprised I actually wanted to do something about this!

tallyhoh - I thought about the house going as it needs quite a bit of work doing to it. However, Mrs K. pointed out that we'd probably struggle to get another mortgage now so that looks like another thing we've got to save up for - getting the house right. My collections will take a while to sell and my wife has agreed to sell some of her jewellery collection too.

wegle - I will look into the 1% challenge, thank you for your help.

Deep in Debt and theoretica - That certainly gives me something to think about and 30%?! That is less than I originally spent on the CCs, well no body ever got anywhere without trying, did they? Thank you for the advice re. not calling them. I will draft a letter tomorrow but not start sending them until some money is coming through.

Yes, I cleared a couple of debts with DCA's at around the 40-50% mark, told them that was my final offer and if they didn't want it, I'd offer it to another creditor and wouldn't be in a position to offer any money for a while...they soon bit my hand off for it! Like I say, they buy the debts for peanuts so even 30% is a huge profit for them.

I'm glad to read that things seem a lot more positive for you now and good luck with it.

gallygirl

Alex, glad things are sounding better all round, and I'm glad the credit cards were less than I guessed.

You've said you'll sell your collection - do you mean pens AND watches? Be honest - with yourself as well as us . How much will this really raise. I feel your estimate is low, dk why. I know you're attached to them, but now do some visualisation. Picture your bank balance on line with that extra money in it. Now picture transferring the money to pay off the loan. That's it. Cleared. Say 15 months early. Now how good does THAT feel :T. Now picture that extra income every month, plus all the savings you're making. All that extra money to chuck at debts - hopefully the snowball (wonderful invention :T:T:T) will motivate you.

Now I've got your attention........ please read all this next bit before you dismiss it - and get your wife to do the same . You said your child benefit is being saved for your son. How accessible is it? How much is there? Could you borrow that from your son - both the balance and future monthly payments. Hear me out.......
- That's say 2k to come off your debts straight away :T
- And a decent additional sum to add to the snowball every month :T (go on, bung it in and see what difference it makes )
- Let's say you borrow 2k from your son and £80 extra a month. Each month, as all your other debts decrease, your debt to your son will increase. Add interest so he's not losing out. Once all other debts are cleared then he is next on the list. He will be your final, and most important, creditor.

When I was really hard up I did the same thing with my direct debits to charity - cancelled them but kept a record and paid back every penny :T.

GG x

AlexLK

Mrs. K and I have decided to do a debt free diary on here to hopefully keep us on track. We are currently looking through the various challenges on here as well. She seems really up for this now and tells me what I thought she wanted was "all in my head" :roll eyes: ... I could be in for a hard time now, as she's pointed out we could try and clear the mortgage early after the debts have been paid, aaarghhh and I just wanted to get this £33k cleared so I could buy more pens and bits for my Triumph ... (joke, well kind of.) .

wegle - Fortunately, I don't mind a good argument most of the time.

nicp - Oh my, I thought our income was so low coping with any debt was going to be unmanageable. I hope you are out of the worst of it now.

readytobefree - Mrs. K has the tenacity to stick by any challenges we decide to sign up for on here. Not quite sure I do but I see myself having to do as I'm told!

AlexLK

wegle wrote: »

This is really important and probably one of your best realisations on this thread. Debt is hard, it is a struggle at times, but ultimately by addressing it and dealing with it you are on the path to a better life filled with new experiences and new opportunities. We can't change our pasts but we have every say in how our future unfolds. :beer:

My grandfather used to say that "today is the first day of the rest of your life", after I had done something naughty as a boy and had tearfully apologised. I never did realise what he meant until today.

Readytobefree

I see you have no choice but to do as you are told. I anticipate you and Mrs K actually going far beyond your debt clearance and into saving! I admire her tenacity and your (finally) honesty. :T

I will be looking forward to following your journey.

AlexLK

Deep_In_Debt wrote: »

Yes, I cleared a couple of debts with DCA's at around the 40-50% mark, told them that was my final offer and if they didn't want it, I'd offer it to another creditor and wouldn't be in a position to offer any money for a while...they soon bit my hand off for it! Like I say, they buy the debts for peanuts so even 30% is a huge profit for them.

I'm glad to read that things seem a lot more positive for you now and good luck with it.

Thank you so much for this advice. I did not realise this could be done nor that these collection places buy the debts for pennies. :mad: If that is really true I've a good mind to offer them a starting settlement of 25%.

Goldiegirl

hi Alex, I very rarely read anything on the Debt Free board, but your post caught my eye, and I've just read the entire thread

Just wanted to say that you've covered a lot of ground since yesterday, and you're doing fantastically well.

If you've achieved so much in day, just imagine what you'll achieve after a few months.

I'm really glad you've confronted your credit card bills - I thought that was actually a brave thing to do.

If you do a debt free diary, I'll read along - I have confidence in you.

AlexLK

gallygirl wrote: »

Alex, glad things are sounding better all round, and I'm glad the credit cards were less than I guessed.

You've said you'll sell your collection - do you mean pens AND watches? Be honest - with yourself as well as us . How much will this really raise. I feel your estimate is low, dk why. I know you're attached to them, but now do some visualisation. Picture your bank balance on line with that extra money in it. Now picture transferring the money to pay off the loan. That's it. Cleared. Say 15 months early. Now how good does THAT feel :T. Now picture that extra income every month, plus all the savings you're making. All that extra money to chuck at debts - hopefully the snowball (wonderful invention :T:T:T) will motivate you.

Now I've got your attention........ please read all this next bit before you dismiss it - and get your wife to do the same . You said your child benefit is being saved for your son. How accessible is it? How much is there? Could you borrow that from your son - both the balance and future monthly payments. Hear me out.......
- That's say 2k to come off your debts straight away :T
- And a decent additional sum to add to the snowball every month :T (go on, bung it in and see what difference it makes )
- Let's say you borrow 2k from your son and £80 extra a month. Each month, as all your other debts decrease, your debt to your son will increase. Add interest so he's not losing out. Once all other debts are cleared then he is next on the list. He will be your final, and most important, creditor.

When I was really hard up I did the same thing with my direct debits to charity - cancelled them but kept a record and paid back every penny :T.

GG x

Wow, not sure what to say to this as there's so much for me to work through.

As for the pens and watches. The pens (all apart from three) are going: some are only worth about £50, most are in the £200-600 bracket and I have a few which are worth about a thousand each. I plan to sell about half my watch collection (6 watches) again some are worth more than others but even the cheapest watches are worth about £2,000. If they all go, £14,000 is a very conservative estimate, as now my wife wants me to sell a couple more than I planned in the first place.

We have saved quite a bit of money for our son as my wife has paid the child benefit plus tax credits into an account for him since birth and also the £100 per month we have been saving went into his account too. In total he has £12,500 in his account. I'm afraid I don't really understand how we could pay back the money we have potentially borrowed from our son's account?

AlexLK

Goldiegirl wrote: »

hi Alex, I very rarely read anything on the Debt Free board, but your post caught my eye, and I've just read the entire thread

Just wanted to say that you've covered a lot of ground since yesterday, and you're doing fantastically well.

If you've achieved so much in day, just imagine what you'll achieve after a few months.

I'm really glad you've confronted your credit card bills - I thought that was actually a brave thing to do.

If you do a debt free diary, I'll read along - I have confidence in you.

Thank you, your post means a lot to me. I don't have much confidence in myself so hoping that Mrs. K. will manage to keep me on track as will the diary.

LannieDuck

Wow, you've come a really long way in a very short space of time - from stuffing the unopened bills in your drawer so you don't have to deal with them, to working out how to deal with the debt and looking forward to a positive future.

...and lets not forget Mrs K! I have huge respect for her going through all the emotions of not even realising she was in debt to being ready to tackle it with you so quickly.

It sounds like you make a strong team. Well done both of you