Fat and in Debt to Slim and Solvent within 2 years…hmmmm

Katie185

Hi all,

I have thought long and hard about whether or not to record my journey in a diary, whether it would be of any help to me, and whether anyone else would actually be interested in what I have to say! But I think it would be nice to look back in a few years and re-read how I got on, and reflect on my (hopeful!) journey to debt-free-dom! I love reading about other people’s debt-free journeys and successes, and hope that mine will also be a success story.

My name is Katherine, I am 31 and I still live at home with my mum! I am approximately 40k in debt (I cant believe I am actually saying that K), I had a car loan and credit card but I went off the rails with spending when my lovely dad passed away in 2010. Apart from my car I have nothing to show for my debt, but at least I guess I can look back and say that I had some good holidays and experiences out of it! (That is my way of making myself feel better about spending it all!). I feel very left behind compared to my friends who (mostly) all have houses and mortgages! But onwards and upwards eh?!!

I have been inspired by the diaries of Dinah09, how she managed to pay off so much of her debts within 9 months in order to live with her boyfriend, I am in a slightly similar situation –I have a loan which is due to end in 24 months time, and myself and my boyfriend have agreed that this will be our date to aim for to get a place together because there is no way I could afford to pay my share of rent and bills with my outgoings as they are. I have also been following and loving ‘Scrimping behind the Scenes with a Debt of £31,000’ I think by ‘Seasidegal’ – my family and friends know about my debts, but I am not sure they realise quite how much, and quite frankly I am too embarrassed to tell them! I will if I need to/when the time is right, but because I don’t live with my boyfriend at the moment I guess he doesn’t feel the need to know/ask,and I don’t feel the need to tell him. When we do live together I will obviously be honest, and hopefully by then I will have made a significant dent in what I do owe!

I haven’t had a specific LBM, but I have woken up to the fact that at this rate I will live at home forever!! I never had much luck with the opposite sex and so I guess it was never really that much of an issue to me before, but then I met my lovely other half nearly 3 years ago, and I want to start living my life and not drowning in, and being held back by debt. He is also very anti-credit and really good with money, he can teach me at thing or two!! J.

I should also mention that I am, and have always been fat lol, I would love to get down to a healthy size and again start living my life –get married, have children etc. Although I know my boyfriend loves me any size I am just not as confident as I should be and feel my size holds me back. I need to lose about 6 stone in total and I am currently going to Slimming World. I have so far lost about 10lb ( I say ‘about’ because for the past few weeks I keep going up and down, I seem to have lost the initial motivation and will-power that I had when I first joined, I soooo want to lose 3.5lb and get that 1 stone award! My weigh day is Thursday and it isn’t going to happen this week because I have been rubbish haha!

My debts are as follows: (Approx – I will update to actual figures when I can)

Loan: £9144 (£381 a month, 24 months left to go)
CC1: Approx £10k (0% interest)
CC2: Approx £4k (0% interest)
CC3: Approx £2k (I have just been accepted for an M&S 0% for 15 months on balance transfers and shall be moving it over to this when it arrives)
Owe my mum: £15k

My best friend and I are going on holiday in July (we have been saving £70 a month in order to pay for it) so I have that coming up to look forward to (Spending money is all included in our savings). My boyfriend also wants to go to New York sometime next year. I have always wanted to go but I have told him that I may not be able to afford to and bless him he has said whatever I cant pay he will, because I don’t expect him (or want him) to have to pay for me I want to try and put some money aside for that, albeit not very much unfortunately!! Debt busting all the way.

I know realistically I will not be debt-free after 24 months but I am going to give it a blooming good shot!! My trouble is there seems to be too much month at the end of the money lol. I don’t pay bills so I wont do a SOA but my monthly take-home pay is approx. £1380 – my monthly payments comprise of:

Housekeep £500 (includes all food)
Contact lens and check up plan £20.70
Mobile £50 (runs out mid-July, I plan to keep phone and have basic package, £10-15ish a month)
Holiday payments £70 (will be reducing this to £20 after holiday, we like to have some money saved to do fun things every now and again!)

Loan £381
This leaves approx. £358 for credit card payments and a token payment to my mum – I am basically making the minimum payment every month at the moment, and hardly any spending money to cover the month, but I inevitably end up putting car tax,insurance etc on my credit card K. I plan to start ebaying like a crazy person and have signed up for online surveys and mystery shopping.

Anyway I shall shut up now!! Nice to meet you all and see you again soon!

dimestorediamond

Good luck, Katie, I have subscribed!

I know what it's like to feel 'left behind', as I am still at home at 27. It sucks. Admittedly, my debt is not as much as yours, but more down to not having enough income to live independently.

You seem to have a good plan though, so I bet those 24 months will whizz by!

t2rry

Katie185 wrote: »

My trouble is there seems to be too much month at the end of the money

That is so true I think for all of us here!!

Otherwise, Hi Katie :wave:

welcome and good luck..I have subscribed!:T

Being_Frugal

Good luck with the debt busting and SW Katie.

Mummy+2

Good luck!

I have also just started my diary although my debt busting started a long time ago. I'm trying to lose weight too 76lbs and finding it tough!

Katie185

Hi CRT86 and t2rry, thanks for subscribing , thanks also to Being Frugal and Mummy+2! Fellow dieters and debt busters . All 4 of you are very kind.

I have (probably a silly) question. - is there any way to view someones diary by clicking on their name? I can view CRT86's and Being Frugal's diaries but not t2rry and Mummy+2's because I can't find a way to search for them? (Being thick!). Thanks again x

t2rry

Katie185 wrote: »

Hi CRT86 and t2rry, thanks for subscribing , thanks also to Being Frugal and Mummy+2! Fellow dieters and debt busters . All 4 of you are very kind.

I have (probably a silly) question. - is there any way to view someones diary by clicking on their name? I can view CRT86's and Being Frugal's diaries but not t2rry and Mummy+2's because I can't find a way to search for them? (Being thick!). Thanks again x

There is indeed, although this might not be the quickest way to do it - click on their name, view public profile then under 'statistics' you can view threads started by that person. If there's a better way I'm sure someone with more MSE know how will let you know!

Angry_Bear

If you click on someone's name then "view public profile", you can then go to statistics -> "all threads started by ..."

You should be able to get to people's diaries that way, but to help:

Mummy+2's

t2rry's

I started off here very fat and in a lot of debt, I'm now just a little bit fat and with no debt and some savings (although I never had a diary), and I still love to read other people's success stories .

Good luck!

ETA: Too slow with the instructions!

Katie185

Ah great, thanks so much t2rry and Angry Bear! Angry Bear you have just become my inspiration

shinner

Good luck Katie I am currently half following swim first week fab 2nd ok last should of put on this week have to be fab although had wine and marketers lol. X

Katie185

Thanks Shinner! Good luck with SW, it is the best ‘diet’ or should I Say Healthy Eating Plan that I have tried as I hate having to weigh and measure everything!

Happy Wednesday to everyone! I don’t mind Wednesdays, I like to get to lunch time and then I can tell myself that there is less of the working week to go than what I have already worked! (little things eh!).

Well yesterday was good on the pocket but not so good on the waistline, I managed a NSD but SW went out the window because boyfriend took me out for a meal and insisted on paying bless him because he is off to the IOW festival and I think is feeling a bit guilty! (although he has no reason to and he did ask me if I fancied it but the toilet situation really puts me off! I went to a one day festival a few years ago and the state of the toilets at the end of day 1 were bad enough! Yuck!) We shared a combo starter thing (breaded mushrooms, garlic bread etc) and then I tried to be relatively good and have chicken and jacket potato, but when I asked they said they didn’t do jacket potato anymore so I of course had to have the skinny fries that came with it! Lol. I think the chicken was fried too as very tasty. Managed to resist pudding though so that has got to work in my favour at weigh in on Thursday right?.......cough cough. Back to it today though, as this is getting silly now, it costs £4.95 a week and I cant afford to faff about not sticking to it! I am hoping today will also be a NSD.

I still need to write out and post the exact figures of what I owe on what card, I have decided though to wait until I have my m&s 0% card so I can transfer the balance from the interest paying one and then have everything worked out and in front of me and go from there. Hopefully this will be in the next few days.

I put a pair of shoes on ebay last night which I actually picked up from a carboot for about £1 yonks ago and didn’t wear because they hurt my feet, someone has bid already, £3 so I have made a small start. I intend to have a bit of a sort out over the next few days and see if there is anything else I can put on. I found out last night that you can now list 15 items for free every month so that is good. I have quite a few dvds,has anyone ever used musicmagpie? Would you recommend?

Hope everyone is having a good day x