Time to wake up and smell the free work provided coffee...

Ianise

Hi all,

Long time reader, first time poster to the DFW area.

Basically I am one of life's laid back types...

I have allowed our finances to spiral away from me, and my wife's are ours as well given that I always put everything in my name, until august last year when I was declined on a CC app for a balance transfer card.

So panic set in and we were on holiday at the time. Sufficient to say we soldiered on to make sure the kids had as great a time as possible, at as little cost as possible. Luckily our kids take after me and can happily play on a beach all day, building sand castles and playing in the sea.

So LBM was August 2012. I decided, as anyone embarrassed by their own inefficiency probably does, to go it alone and work it out.

However, like an alcoholic without support, I fell off the wagon and I finally decided to post here and say hi.

I know my problem. I am lazy. There is no other way of putting it. I am also one of life's will powerless.

I see something and I want it and I struggle, and I mean STRUGGLE, to fight the craving to buy it!

I really want to get sorted and will try and get an SOA done later.

So a rough amount as far as debt goes including our overdraft, credit cards and loan is £21'000, monthly outgoings to cards and loans is currently £430.00, or there about.

We have a mortgage for £92'00 and thanks to a recent valuation our house is now in negative equity, down from £115'000 to £85'000 thanks to a number of ex council houses being sold very cheap to annoying landlord types....

So all in all this last year has been a serious wake up call for me, starting off from a simple credit card declining and finishing with my house having all of its equity written off.

Anyhoo I am babbling for the sake of it now.

I will hopefully get that SOA up later and look forward to you guys picking apart my issues and pointing them in the right direction.

Thanks in advance to anyone who is kind enough to comment.

Tixy

Hi and welcome Ian

Well done for posting and asking for advice/support. For many people having the support on here does make it easier to stick to a budget and commit to getting debt free.

In terms of your mortgage - are you actually needing to sell/move? if not then try not to think about the negative equity and hopefully you can ride it out and it will in time get back to positve equity.

Ianise

Hi Tixy,

thank you for taking the time to reply

We are not having to move, it was just an annoyance. We have no intention of moving just yet, although we were toying with getting a larger house until this valuation.

ShanShan_2

Hi Ianise Good for you for taking the time to post.

Sounds like you're in a bit of a crappy situation, but nothing that a bit of hard work can't fix Shame about the house valuation but what can you do?

Tell us, do you have a plan of any sort? What are you planning to pay down first? How much money do you have to work with? etc. etc.

Ianise

Hi ShanShan,

The plan at first is to try and get all CC's on to interest free. At the minute I am paying interest, however I have already started the ball rolling on this.

I applied earlier and was able to get a 24month interest free card, all be it not for the total amount on the card I will transfer from. I am of the opinion, some is better than none!

Then whatever I do not get on interest free will be the 2nd port of call. The first is the overdraft. I hate the thing and it needs to go.

The way I see it is that anything interest free can kind of stagnate at just above the minimum, then when the overdraft is gone I can plow that money in to a card.

I am 99% sure that my SOA will have people screaming, in text, at how wasteful we/I am.

And the worst thing is that I know I am to blame as I have "looked after" the finances.

Lurker1972

Ianise wrote: »

Hi

I am 99% sure that my SOA will have people screaming, in text, at how wasteful we/I am.

And the worst thing is that I know I am to blame as I have "looked after" the finances.[/

Ahh, but now you have had the LBM, that can change to how wasteful you were. Not are.

You've started to make a plan to reduce debts, but if the SOA highlights areas where savings could be made, then that gets the debt gone quicker. And it will help focus the brain

I know that our Sky package and mobile bills would have people screaming. But there are reasons for it and while we are comfortably paying more than minimum on our cards, they wouldn't be areas to cut back in. Energy bills are a different matter!!

Anyway, enough rambling...good luck

foxgloves

Hi, Just a little psychological thing: Instead of 'willpower', think of what you need to do in terms of making different choices. I always thought of myself as having no will power, particularly concerning financial & weight management, but I am now debt-free & I budget every month without fail. I have also lost 6 stones. The choices you are making have led you into debt, so make different choices. There is an old saying along the line of "The definition of insanity is doing everything the same, but expecting different results'. I used to use having no willpower as a bit of a get out clause, to be honest. Once I started thinking in terms of making different choices, I felt a greater sense of control & personal responsibilty. Successful debt-busting requires a lot of planning & generally being more organised, but from our experience, I can tell you that it"s definitely worth it to get debts paid off & household finances back on track.

Ianise

Ok so here goes....

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

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

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1690.23
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1103.25
Benefits................................ 134.8
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2928.28

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 338
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 125
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 89.01
Electricity............................. 60
Gas..................................... 50
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 28.49
Telephone (land line)................... 0
Mobile phone............................ 96
TV Licence.............................. 12.12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 58
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 500
Clothing................................ 50
Petrol/diesel........................... 60
Road tax................................ 10.42
Car Insurance........................... 33.01
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 25.4
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 23.32
Buildings insurance..................... 9
Contents insurance...................... 10
Life assurance ......................... 32.32
Other insurance......................... 39.38
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 15
Entertainment........................... 30
Holiday................................. 100
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Lottery (syndicates at work and ours)... 80
My money................................ 65
Wifes Money............................. 130
Childrens savings....................... 150
Total monthly expenses.................. 2219.47


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 85000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 88000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 91500....(338)......2.25
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 2700.....(125)......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 94200.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Barclaycard....................3571.89...86.56.....17.9
Barclaycard (Egg)..............498.04....10........17.9
Capital One....................5343.07...127.5.....17.9
Loan...........................6900......129.......8.6
Overdraft......................3200......43.03.....0
Tesco..........................3500......35........0

Total For Unsecured is £431.09 Per month.

According to my spreadsheet we "Should" have £354.36 per month left, but this is rarely the case.

In a little tot up last night, we had spent £578.91 wastefully this month, so far, and £370.61 on food.

This puts us £95.00 over our income this month, so we have transferred money to avoid bank charges.

The wasteful spending does include some christmas presents for the kids, about £120.00, so we have still been woefully wasteful, granted we have had a busy month, we were down at our friends at the start of the month and had a trip to the theatre with them and the kids for Peppa Pig live and a few other things, then my wife had a load of friends up so made cakes and a buffet for them.

reading it on the SOA it is very upsetting to see just how terrible we are with our money.

But a step forward is the start of change and I am hoping to make this right

R_P_W

80 a month on the lottery! Wow. Stop it and that's 80 saved already!

Ianise

R_P_W wrote: »

80 a month on the lottery! Wow. Stop it and that's 80 saved already!

I know.... I looked at it last night. It used to be £40 a month but they obviously doubled the price recently....

It is hard to cancel it as it would be just our luck for the blooming numbers to come up the following week!

We are discussing that at the moment though as until we tallied up our work syndicates we had no idea we were spending so much.

flubberyzing

Yes, the first one to jump out at me was the lottery. £80 a month?! I'd stop that right away.
What is the "Other insurance" you're paying? If it's for something like a mobile phone, stop it and take your chances. Ask your self "have I made a claim on this in the past 5 years?" If you haven't, chances are you won't miss it for a year.
And your food bill. That could probably be halved and you'd never know the difference. Do you waste a lot of food? Or spend a lot on takeaways? There are some useful boards further down the forum, like "Old style" and "food and groceries" that are full of good ideas for cutting the food spending.


Good luck!