Banishing the black cloud

maggiecon

So after months of following other diaries on here, I have decided to start a diary of my own. Its not so much a debt free diary but more a place for me to come and vent and get things off my chest as I feel like I am complaining all the time, to anyone who will listen, which is not good. I don't want to be known as a complainer and want to get back to being the old care free me.
So all my complaining will be scribbled down here and sent out onto the world wide web for all to read or ignore either way its off my chest.

I just tallied up my debt, breakdown is as follows

American Express £1,500.00
HMRC £930.00
Solicitor (house purchase) £430.00
Council Tax £1,800.00
Next £80.00
Argos £210.00
Credit Union loan £450.00
Credit Card husband £100.00
TOTAL £5,500.00

So not a big pile of debt given that I earn roughly £34k a year and my husband has just started a new job (he just finished college) on £300 per week. But what is getting to me is I just seem to stubble from one crisis to the next and I just need to stop feeling sorry for myself and go deal with them. I am so unlucky, my husband says I am like the man in the flu advert with the black cloud following him around, hence the name of the thread

My latest crisis is my previous tenant who I had to evict for non payment of rent has just sent me a solicitors letter saying she fell at my house back in October and is now claiming for losses and injuries. After stressing out for the last few days I have decided to take the bull by the horns and fight fire with fire.

I did a bit of investigating and found out who her previous landlord was and when I contacted them they used some very nice language to describe her. They have just informed me that she tried to take them to court as well. Any how I think I will pursue her through small claims court for non payment of rent and damage to property, Just to give her a taste of her own medicine.

The old me would have just curled up in a ball and taken it, but not anymore!!


As well as dealing with all this crap I want to get finances under control, I never have money and it needs to stop, I just seem to be firefighting all the time, as soon as I get one bill paid I am on to the next, my husband is crap with money and he never seems to have any wages left to help with the bills. So once again I have put my foot down and demanded he gives me his wages to help get rid of this debt. The plan is to be free from it in the next 4 months, then we can start treating ourselves.


We never go out, we never go on holidays, we never buy clothes but we are always broke. THIS WILL CHANGE!!


I feel even more positive after writing this post. I can see why people keep these dairies.

roadtodebtfree

great start, good luck

beanielou

Shiny new diary~keep posting!

Nintud

Yayyy! No ball curling :-)
You get one shot at this life; whip hubby into shape, plan a holiday and book a 'date night'. Blow that black cloud out of the sky :-)

maggiecon

Nintud wrote: »

Yayyy! No ball curling :-)
You get one shot at this life; whip hubby into shape, plan a holiday and book a 'date night'. Blow that black cloud out of the sky :-)

Would love to book a holiday, but I have a major issue with panic attacks. Started suffering from them about five years ago, managed to beat them but they came back with a vengeance around sept/oct last year. I used to fly to London one day per week for work and was driving to the airport and just couldn't get on the plane. So have been going for counselling etc but still have not plucked up the courage to try again. The worst thing about panic attacks is you start to develop all these fears. I used to be fearless and jump feet first into everything. It is really getting me down and I would love to conquer it again.


So day 2 of my new live life to the full plan and I have already fallen down, I couldn't get to sleep last night and so ended up sleeping in this morning, missed breakfast and was an hour late for work!!


So to make up for it I am going to go shopping this evening after work for groceries. I have been buying my shopping on a daily basis for the last 4 weeks due to lazyness and looking over my receipts I have been spending way too much on food. So I have my meal plans done and grocery list prepared. I am going to Asda not Tesco as I find it a lot cheaper. Plus M&S food is next door to Tesco and I always be tempted to drop in for a few treats and end up spending £20+ on half a bag of groceries. Not very MSE.


I get paid tomorrow YEAH. I work in the construction industry and in Northern Ireland we generally take a standard 2 weeks holiday period in July which means I got paid 1 week plus my 2 holiday weeks on the 7th July and I have been trying to manage it to make sure it stretched for the 3 weeks. I was doing well until my bro rang me from his holidays to say he needed me to transfer him £300 which has put me in my overdraft by £40. But cant complain as its normally me who is borrowing of him.


I have also applied for a balance transfer cc from Lloyds hope to hear about it shortly, I am going to cancel my Amex it is roughly 20% APR and there is £150 annual fee with it. I signed up to so I could collect Avios mile, I now have 117k but I am too afraid to fly !!! so no point paying for it anymore.

parsniphead

Maggiecon. You sound like you have had enough and have decided to really tackle the problem.

I think that your husband needs to start giving you the bill money as soon as he is paid and BEFORE he spends it elsewhere. I'm the one in our relationship with money problems but would never expect my hubby to have to take the whole hit with the bills.

I hope you achieve everything you want. Good luck.

National_Debtline

Hello there,

Best of luck with the diary and the old tenant, really hope that you get a good outcome.

Plus M&S food is next door to Tesco and I always be tempted to drop in for a few treats and end up spending £20+ on half a bag of groceries. Not very MSE.

I've done that a few times too - although sometimes the £10 dine ins are pretty good value!

All the best,

David.

maggiecon

It's Payday WOO HOO!!


I have been very good today, with regards spending, and cupboards are all stocked up from my grocery shop last night and the house is clean, just need to do the ironing


I have a football match tonight, which I am dreading, I am 36 in September and I am really struggling to keep up with all the younger girls (average age about 21!!). I keep thinking about retiring but then I say to myself, once you finish you will never be able to play again, so milk every last drop out of it.


Hoping hubby gives me his pay cheque tomorrow, which is £360, I have agreed to give him £60 to sort his own bills out like petrol etc and then I will pay off some of my HMRC bill this weekend.


I keep dreaming off all the stuff I will do when I get my debts paid, some of them are quite silly, like buy make-up as I lost my makeup bag a year ago at a wedding and have never been able to afford to replace it.
I graduated 2 weeks ago with a Masters in Construction Law with distinction but couldn't afford to go to the graduation ceremony so I would love to do something to celebrate it as well. My dream is a lovely spa weekend with lots of facials and massages ooohh heaven.


I am really glad I started this diary, it seems to keep me more focused on my goals and is a really good form of self counselling LOL

Olivia-Louise_2

*Subscribes*

maggiecon

Went and played my football match last night, I had a great game and even scored! There's life in these old legs yet LOL. We won and are now in the semi-finals which required an impromptu trip to the pub for a few after the game. Had a great nights craic with the girls but forgot to let hubby know so got a bit of a telling off when I got home Well as the saying goes what's good for the goose... LOL


Sitting at work with a bit of sore head to day, but don't care, starting to do fun things again and loving life WOO HOO!!


As for money we'll not talk about that this morning

maggiecon

Just Thought I would have play around with the SOA calculator, my results are shocking. However in my defence, my husband has been at college for the last 2 years so we only have a second income this last couple of weeks, but it has opened my eyes to how much we could be saving every month.


Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 2
Monthly Income Details[/b]
Monthly income after tax................ 1906
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1300
Benefits................................ 149.5
Other income............................ 1040
Total monthly income.................... 4395.5


Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1148
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 112
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 150
Electricity............................. 80
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 80
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 30
Mobile phone............................ 30
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 480
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 240
Road tax................................ 31
Car Insurance........................... 90
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 20
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 20
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 15
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 30
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 57
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 20
Entertainment........................... 40
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 2725


Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 245000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 2000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 247000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 216000...(1148).....4
Hire Purchase (HP) debt ...... 3500.....(112)......4
Total secured & HP debts...... 219500....-.........-


Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Amex...........................1550......40........20
HMRC...........................900.......100.......0
Total unsecured debts..........2450......140.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 4,395.5
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 2,725
Available for debt repayments........... 1,670.5
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 140
Amount left after debt repayments....... 1,530.5


Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 247,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -219,500
Total Unsecured debt.................... -2,450
Net Assets.............................. 25,050