Skint Dad's Debt Diary

BEAT_THE_DEBT

Hi I would advise you put something down for medical and dentist. I learnt this the hard way last week when I needed 2 fillings which cost £42. And your groceries seem a bit low not a criticism just wondering?:) I would maybe consider going on step for change web site and doing the debt remedy for advice.

Calling14

Well done for getting this far, baby steps and some helpful guys on here who will examine yr SOA. Are you looked into a contract for Satellite/cable tv as you can exist without it. Need to budget for dental bills surely. Could you reduce yr mobile phone costs? Food bills lots of ace receipes I have found on here.
Good luck will peek at yr blogg later

SkintDadUK

BEAT_THE_DEBT wrote: »

Hi I would advise you put something down for medical and dentist. I learnt this the hard way last week when I needed 2 fillings which cost £42. And your groceries seem a bit low not a criticism just wondering?:) I would maybe consider a dmp?

You are most probably right about the medical/dentist. The reason I put £0 was based on the last 6 months in which we have not had any outgoings for these.

In regards to groceries I actually think we could reduce this by even more. Just yesterday we eat for under £3.50 for the whole day just by purchasing supermarket own brands and cooking from scratch with everything.

We have briefly discussed going into a DMP but I feel we have the tools to sort it out ourselves and the only reason we havent before now is because we were both in complete denial!

SkintDadUK

Calling14 wrote: »

Well done for getting this far, baby steps and some helpful guys on here who will examine yr SOA. Are you looked into a contract for Satellite/cable tv as you can exist without it. Need to budget for dental bills surely. Could you reduce yr mobile phone costs? Food bills lots of ace receipes I have found on here.
Good luck will peek at yr blogg later

Thank you. I am going look at our Satellite/cable situation over the next couple of days. I am more than happy to completely get rid of it & sell the TV if need be!

Mobile phones - OH has until April 2014 for her contact to run, I have until July 2015 :eek:

I will speak to them and see what our options are. If we can get rid of both contracts somehow that would be an extra £71 per month we can use towards debts!

BEAT_THE_DEBT

I totally understand what you are saying the only thing I have found is it is a long journey I started with over 56k so now when I do my budget for creditors I leave slack in the system as I got quite miserable on my low budgets. Hope this comes across ok?:D
We are on payg mobiles we buy phones and top up £10 per mth and we get free unlimited texts with that which is all we need really?

Calling14

I am on a contract phone and only pay tenner a month, good deal with Carphone warehouse.
Wouldn't go as far as selling your tv lol, but since I am rid of Sky can't say I miss it.
I thought you were on a DMP as how come all yr debts on 0% and yr payments are so low - or me being thick here?

SkintDadUK

BEAT_THE_DEBT wrote: »

I totally understand what you are saying the only thing I have found is it is a long journey I started with over 56k so now when I do my budget for creditors I leave slack in the system as I got quite miserable on my low budgets. Hope this comes across ok?:D
We are on payg mobiles we buy phones and top up £10 per mth and we get free unlimited texts with that which is all we need really?

You are correct. I'm enthusiastic now but not sure how I will feel in 6 months time living on the minimum amounts.

Maybe I can set a side a V small amount each month for a little treat? I need to give it some more thought.

We don't need contact phones - payg will be just fine, just need to either pay-off remainder of contracts or speak to providers about ending early?

SkintDadUK

Calling14 wrote: »

I am on a contract phone and only pay tenner a month, good deal with Carphone warehouse.
Wouldn't go as far as selling your tv lol, but since I am rid of Sky can't say I miss it.
I thought you were on a DMP as how come all yr debts on 0% and yr payments are so low - or me being thick here?

If I'm honest I don't watch much TV anyway apart from the news and a few American exports. The children like the cartoons and OH is pretty much the same as me. - Will cancel it if I can.

We are not on a DMP. All the debts you see with 0% are cancelled accounts which have been passed onto a debt recovery company -
fees/charges have been added already and these amounts are the total they are chasing for.

As I mentioned above. We have been paying bits and pieces off of random debts who are chasing us but nothing set in stone. Bit of a messy situation hey!

I intend to offer a regular payment of a £1 per month on each debt until we can afford to pay more. I will be doing this week.

They can say no but I cannot see what other option they have other than take us to court which will not get them their money any quicker.

As I have said before, we have been in complete denial how bad the situation really is and all we have been doing it running away from the problems

BEAT_THE_DEBT

Because you have defaulted already I would be inclined to let step for change help as opposed to self management the least they can offer is £5 per creditor but you don't have the hassle of ringing every 6 months to reset arrangement. Just some food for thought for you not pushing

MallyGirl

TV license 29.1 ? Mine is 12.12 pcm

I would ditch Sky asap

Good luck in your journey