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The 300k debt-free diary!!!
pandapaws
Posts: 2,119 Forumite
Title is a sign of my optimism!!! 
I've been reading other people's stories for ages, and found their debt diaries really inspirational. I've always fancied putting everything down in one place, but been too shy to post my own in case nobody is interested, or I do it all wrong! Because of the big sums and complicated scenarios, there is quite a lot to it, so I'm really sorry if there's too much info.
I've had a huge shock this morning in discovering that I'm pregnant!!! :j
(***Edit for April 08: Baby Gregory was born on 12th March 08, 8lbs 14ozs. Photos are in post no 647!***)
I've already got a 2 year old, and hadn't really expected another, so while we're delighted, it has given me a bit of a shock and I've decided that I really want to be in a much better position financially by the time the baby is born, probably next spring (TBC...!)
We got into debt after the birth of our first (although we probably had about 20k before that - a car and a couple of credit cards) and I stopped working. We had also just moved, and our mortgage had doubled. Rather than being sensible, we went into denial and carried on spending as much, possibly more, than we had before. Lightbulb moment for me was a few months ago, so I went back to work. Unfortunately this seemed to make us think things were ok, and we didn't change lifestyle at all. Hubby's lightbulb moment was a month ago when he got refused for a credit card, something that had never happened before. We got stuck in and re-organised things as best we can as shown below. Mega-lightbulb moment, which made me decide that we MUST stick to it was about 10.30 this morning when the second line appeared on the dip-strip!!!
:eek: I can't believe that including the mortgage we owe over £300,000 :eek:
Here's our SOA:
***LATEST UPDATED SOA FOR OCTOBER 2007 ON PAGE 7!***
Figures below have changed quite a bit as we've now moved. Fully revised SOA to follow soon!
Monthly income:
My wages...............2200.00 (this can vary slightly from month-to-month)
Hubby wages...........2300.00 (" ")
Child benefit...............72.40
Ebay shop (*1)........Between 0 and 1,500
Total (excl Ebay)...4,572.40 (give or take £50 or so)
Outgoings:
Mortgage (*2).........1485.02 (£231k remaining over 20yrs, fixed 4.79% till 2012)
Life Insurance.............25.05
Loans/Credit:
HSBC 'big loan'...........396.09 (£24,953 incl interest owed, 63 payments remaining, 7.9% APR)
Citi Bank Loan(*3)......310.52 (£18,700 owed incl interest, 9.3%APR. 60 payments to make)
Northern Rock loan.......99.90 (£4,800 owed plus interest, 4.5 yrs remaining, APR 10.2%)
Barclayloan 0% loan....295.34 (£5993 still owed, 0%, 20 payments remaining.)
1st Direct Visa (*4)....100.00 (£2987.80 owed plus interest at 17.9%)
Nat West C/Card..........75.00 (£2,900 owed approx, just reached end of 0% - see *2 below)
Virgin C/Card (*5)........15.00 (£10,200 owed, 0% for 6 months)
Citi Bank C/Card...........46.55 (£500ish owed at 0%, paying it off in full over 1yr by SO to clear)
Argos Store Card........109.99 (Buy-now-pay-later, 0%, to be paid off in full in Aug)
Sofas 0% credit...........28.30 (can't find details, but >2yrs remaining 0%)
Sub-total..................1366.70 (plus an extra 109.99 in August for Argos)
Utilities/household:
Council Tax ................207.00
Gas/Electric ...............127.00 (Just switched again so this should go down to £105 sometime soon)
Water.........................37.00 (metered)
Broadband...................14.99 (Just switched to Orange to get my free laptop for same cost!)
Sky TV & Phone............25.00 (approx. Basic TV package plus £5 for free landline calls 24hrs)
Mobile Phones (*6).......10.00 (max, for calls between 2 contracts after cashback)
BT Line Rental..............14.50 (no cable/other line suppliers available in our area)
TV Licence..................11.41
Storage (*7)..............120.00
Sub-total...................566.90
Spending:
Food & stuff (*8)........500.00
Petrol/car (*9)...........400.00
Nursery......................60.00
HSA..........................15.74 (Due to cancel as we're not benefitting from it)
Sub-total..................975.74
Total outgoings:.....4419.41:eek:
Notes (for those who are sufficiently interested!):
*1 - I have an Ebay shop selling things I buy on high street really cheap in sales and make huge mark-ups on! The income from this depends hugely on what's been sold that month and whether Ebay have any good cheap listing days or not! I also have quite high expenditure for this, which means that some months I take nothing out of the business at all. I therefore treat anything that do make as a bonus and don't rely on the income at all. Anything I can make will be put straight towards a credit card!
*2 - We have had our house on the market for a few months, few interested but have to sell their own first so nothing iminent. Our house is on for £280k, and we're hoping to move closer to work, pay off a couple of the debts (after expenses, partial redemption, deposit for new house and any work we need to do on new house if we get something cheap because it's a state we'll have between 10-30k in hand) and buy something a bit smaller/cheaper, perhaps around £200k. Would have considered even smaller until today's news!
*3 - This has just been taken out to clear 2 big credit cards which were both charging 18%ish interest and would have taken forever to pay off. Paying the same amount as the minimum payments were, but at least it is getting paid off in 5yrs this way! We still have the 2 credit cards, empty with limits of £7,700 and £6,500 so will leave it a little while and then try to get a 0% on those to try a balance transfer shuffle!)
*4 - Hubby & I both just been offered new Egg cards with 0% for a year, 2,500 and 3,500 credit limits, so just waiting on these to come through and we'll transfer the First Direct and Nat West balances to this (and claim our £10 each for joining money manager!). We'll keep these open for now, but empty as with the other 2, to get best 0% deal in the future.
*5 - Virgin don't take any repayments on balance transfers while you're in 0% so only small repayment being taken on spending. This will obviously jump up loads at end of 0% period, and hope then to use the empty cards above to try and cut this down.
*6 - We pay £37.50 each for line rental but get it back every 2 months through casback deal, so only pay a couple of quid for non-inclusive calls and Recorded Del claim post! When this deal expires in Sept, will be looking for something similar again!
*7 - I know this is a lot, and we're looking to deal with it! We store all the Ebay shop stock, which we can't have lying aroud the house while it is up for sale, as well as the baby stuff from my 1st which we were going to sell, but suppose we should keep given today's revelations! Also old furniture and general 'stuff' which we will get rid of after we have moved. Before anyone asks, there isn't anything else cheaper available in the area!
*8 - Until our lightbulb moment, we were spending 2/3/4+ times this amount by buying luxury stuff and eating out at every opportunity (see credit cards, above!). We're now transferring £500 a month to a different current account to live on completely, so this covers food, clothing, household items, presents/Xmas, holidays etc and probably wouldn't look so bad if I divided it up. Because we haven't really worked to a budget before, I'm not sure how well it is going to work, but I'd rather work with one lot of money to begin with than try and divide into lots of little categories.
*9 - Hubby and I each do 70 miles a day to work. Fuel will be £100s less if/when we move. This amount is currently transferred to a different account, which we use to pay for fuel, and save up the surplus for insurances, road tax, repairs etc. Cars themselves worth very little so not really worth selling/replacing as they're both really reliable.
Income (4572.40) less outgoings (4419.41) = 152.99.
Thank God it ended up with a positive figure - when we did this a few months ago it was minus many hundreds! The idea is to leave this extra £153 in the bank for now, to try and pay off our overdraft. Because of the constant ins and outs, it's hard to say exactly how much overdrawn we are, but it is around £2000.
Have entered it all on the snowball calculator (excpet the mortgage. We'll pay the rest off and then throw everything at that), and been given a debt-free date of Nov 2012:D. If we move, we should be able to throw about £1000 extra at it a month, which would bring it back to Nov 2010. Being realistic (or am I?!), I'll go with the first date as our target, and any improvement is a bonus!
Sorry there's too much info here, but I suppose we have so much debt and I thought it best to be exact and detailled than have loads of people trying to give advice based on half the info.
All suggestions will be most gratefully received and considered, and I do very much appreciate your help.
Thanks!
x
I've been reading other people's stories for ages, and found their debt diaries really inspirational. I've always fancied putting everything down in one place, but been too shy to post my own in case nobody is interested, or I do it all wrong! Because of the big sums and complicated scenarios, there is quite a lot to it, so I'm really sorry if there's too much info.
I've had a huge shock this morning in discovering that I'm pregnant!!! :j
(***Edit for April 08: Baby Gregory was born on 12th March 08, 8lbs 14ozs. Photos are in post no 647!***)
I've already got a 2 year old, and hadn't really expected another, so while we're delighted, it has given me a bit of a shock and I've decided that I really want to be in a much better position financially by the time the baby is born, probably next spring (TBC...!)
We got into debt after the birth of our first (although we probably had about 20k before that - a car and a couple of credit cards) and I stopped working. We had also just moved, and our mortgage had doubled. Rather than being sensible, we went into denial and carried on spending as much, possibly more, than we had before. Lightbulb moment for me was a few months ago, so I went back to work. Unfortunately this seemed to make us think things were ok, and we didn't change lifestyle at all. Hubby's lightbulb moment was a month ago when he got refused for a credit card, something that had never happened before. We got stuck in and re-organised things as best we can as shown below. Mega-lightbulb moment, which made me decide that we MUST stick to it was about 10.30 this morning when the second line appeared on the dip-strip!!!
:eek: I can't believe that including the mortgage we owe over £300,000 :eek:
Here's our SOA:
***LATEST UPDATED SOA FOR OCTOBER 2007 ON PAGE 7!***
Figures below have changed quite a bit as we've now moved. Fully revised SOA to follow soon!
Monthly income:
My wages...............2200.00 (this can vary slightly from month-to-month)
Hubby wages...........2300.00 (" ")
Child benefit...............72.40
Ebay shop (*1)........Between 0 and 1,500
Total (excl Ebay)...4,572.40 (give or take £50 or so)
Outgoings:
Mortgage (*2).........1485.02 (£231k remaining over 20yrs, fixed 4.79% till 2012)
Life Insurance.............25.05
Loans/Credit:
HSBC 'big loan'...........396.09 (£24,953 incl interest owed, 63 payments remaining, 7.9% APR)
Citi Bank Loan(*3)......310.52 (£18,700 owed incl interest, 9.3%APR. 60 payments to make)
Northern Rock loan.......99.90 (£4,800 owed plus interest, 4.5 yrs remaining, APR 10.2%)
Barclayloan 0% loan....295.34 (£5993 still owed, 0%, 20 payments remaining.)
1st Direct Visa (*4)....100.00 (£2987.80 owed plus interest at 17.9%)
Nat West C/Card..........75.00 (£2,900 owed approx, just reached end of 0% - see *2 below)
Virgin C/Card (*5)........15.00 (£10,200 owed, 0% for 6 months)
Citi Bank C/Card...........46.55 (£500ish owed at 0%, paying it off in full over 1yr by SO to clear)
Argos Store Card........109.99 (Buy-now-pay-later, 0%, to be paid off in full in Aug)
Sofas 0% credit...........28.30 (can't find details, but >2yrs remaining 0%)
Sub-total..................1366.70 (plus an extra 109.99 in August for Argos)
Utilities/household:
Council Tax ................207.00
Gas/Electric ...............127.00 (Just switched again so this should go down to £105 sometime soon)
Water.........................37.00 (metered)
Broadband...................14.99 (Just switched to Orange to get my free laptop for same cost!)
Sky TV & Phone............25.00 (approx. Basic TV package plus £5 for free landline calls 24hrs)
Mobile Phones (*6).......10.00 (max, for calls between 2 contracts after cashback)
BT Line Rental..............14.50 (no cable/other line suppliers available in our area)
TV Licence..................11.41
Storage (*7)..............120.00
Sub-total...................566.90
Spending:
Food & stuff (*8)........500.00
Petrol/car (*9)...........400.00
Nursery......................60.00
HSA..........................15.74 (Due to cancel as we're not benefitting from it)
Sub-total..................975.74
Total outgoings:.....4419.41:eek:
Notes (for those who are sufficiently interested!):
*1 - I have an Ebay shop selling things I buy on high street really cheap in sales and make huge mark-ups on! The income from this depends hugely on what's been sold that month and whether Ebay have any good cheap listing days or not! I also have quite high expenditure for this, which means that some months I take nothing out of the business at all. I therefore treat anything that do make as a bonus and don't rely on the income at all. Anything I can make will be put straight towards a credit card!
*2 - We have had our house on the market for a few months, few interested but have to sell their own first so nothing iminent. Our house is on for £280k, and we're hoping to move closer to work, pay off a couple of the debts (after expenses, partial redemption, deposit for new house and any work we need to do on new house if we get something cheap because it's a state we'll have between 10-30k in hand) and buy something a bit smaller/cheaper, perhaps around £200k. Would have considered even smaller until today's news!
*3 - This has just been taken out to clear 2 big credit cards which were both charging 18%ish interest and would have taken forever to pay off. Paying the same amount as the minimum payments were, but at least it is getting paid off in 5yrs this way! We still have the 2 credit cards, empty with limits of £7,700 and £6,500 so will leave it a little while and then try to get a 0% on those to try a balance transfer shuffle!)
*4 - Hubby & I both just been offered new Egg cards with 0% for a year, 2,500 and 3,500 credit limits, so just waiting on these to come through and we'll transfer the First Direct and Nat West balances to this (and claim our £10 each for joining money manager!). We'll keep these open for now, but empty as with the other 2, to get best 0% deal in the future.
*5 - Virgin don't take any repayments on balance transfers while you're in 0% so only small repayment being taken on spending. This will obviously jump up loads at end of 0% period, and hope then to use the empty cards above to try and cut this down.
*6 - We pay £37.50 each for line rental but get it back every 2 months through casback deal, so only pay a couple of quid for non-inclusive calls and Recorded Del claim post! When this deal expires in Sept, will be looking for something similar again!
*7 - I know this is a lot, and we're looking to deal with it! We store all the Ebay shop stock, which we can't have lying aroud the house while it is up for sale, as well as the baby stuff from my 1st which we were going to sell, but suppose we should keep given today's revelations! Also old furniture and general 'stuff' which we will get rid of after we have moved. Before anyone asks, there isn't anything else cheaper available in the area!
*8 - Until our lightbulb moment, we were spending 2/3/4+ times this amount by buying luxury stuff and eating out at every opportunity (see credit cards, above!). We're now transferring £500 a month to a different current account to live on completely, so this covers food, clothing, household items, presents/Xmas, holidays etc and probably wouldn't look so bad if I divided it up. Because we haven't really worked to a budget before, I'm not sure how well it is going to work, but I'd rather work with one lot of money to begin with than try and divide into lots of little categories.
*9 - Hubby and I each do 70 miles a day to work. Fuel will be £100s less if/when we move. This amount is currently transferred to a different account, which we use to pay for fuel, and save up the surplus for insurances, road tax, repairs etc. Cars themselves worth very little so not really worth selling/replacing as they're both really reliable.
Income (4572.40) less outgoings (4419.41) = 152.99.
Thank God it ended up with a positive figure - when we did this a few months ago it was minus many hundreds! The idea is to leave this extra £153 in the bank for now, to try and pay off our overdraft. Because of the constant ins and outs, it's hard to say exactly how much overdrawn we are, but it is around £2000.
Have entered it all on the snowball calculator (excpet the mortgage. We'll pay the rest off and then throw everything at that), and been given a debt-free date of Nov 2012:D. If we move, we should be able to throw about £1000 extra at it a month, which would bring it back to Nov 2010. Being realistic (or am I?!), I'll go with the first date as our target, and any improvement is a bonus!
Sorry there's too much info here, but I suppose we have so much debt and I thought it best to be exact and detailled than have loads of people trying to give advice based on half the info.
All suggestions will be most gratefully received and considered, and I do very much appreciate your help.
Thanks!
x
0
Comments
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Hi there and welcome, and congratulations on the baby news!!
I am sure many will be along to pull apart the SOA, but I just wanted to say stick with the snowball - it is a really good motivator and you will be bringing the debt free dates forward before you know it!
Will your salary change at all when baby arrives? This is obviously something you will need to take into consideration.
Good luck, and keep posting, you will get loads of support from the good DFW peeps here.Successful women can still have their feet on the ground. They just wear better shoes. (Maud Van de Venne)Life begins at the end of your comfort zone (Neale Donald Walsch)0 -
Hi and welcome :wave:
Really shouldn't be on there this evening but just wanted to say hi and good luck for the next 8+ months I'm so jealous!!
You have obviously been reading the boards and have all the info available for people to help you! Just one quick question, where do you live cos that council tax is HUGE!!!
Look forward to seeing your replies and watching you become debt free
Good luck!
Jo.xDFW Nerd no. 496 - Proud to be dealing with my debts!!0 -
Thanks Hypno!
I was so scared nobody at all would read any of it, I know there are loads of diaries on here.
I'm really fortunate in that hubby and I work together but never at same time, so I'll be able to go straight back to work and miss very little at home. Think I'll only get SMP, but that means 6 weeks off on 90% pay, so not much of a loss, then back to work.Will your salary change at all when baby arrives? This is obviously something you will need to take into consideration.
Thanks for the words of encouragement!0 -
Thanks Jo! It's gradually sinking in, and we're getting a bit more excited. My 2 year old keeps telling me that baby will take him to the park!
Tell me about it! But it's put to good use: they even collect our bins once a fortnight, and there's a streetlamp on the next road that often works...!You have obviously been reading the boards and have all the info available for people to help you! Just one quick question, where do you live cos that council tax is HUGE!!!0 -
Hi pandapaws
Congratulations on the baby - must have been a lovely surprise! - and congrats also on dealing with your debts. You seem really on top of things and have taken lots of positive steps already.
Lots of more qualified people will be along to help, I just wanted to send good vibes and say keep posting, you will get lots of support on here.Total debt: 1 January 2007 £[strike]49,387.79[/strike] 1 January 2012 £[STRIKE]19,312.85[/STRIKE] 1 August 2012 £11,517.620 -
I'm no good with the outgoings, but are you eligible for Tax credits and what about childcare vouchers?0
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Unfortunately not. Between us we earn more than the upper limit for the tax credits (we did get about £60/mth until I went back to work), and we're lucky that we normally work opposite shifts and so don't use any formal childcare - the nursery that we have in outgoings is one session a week for my little boy's benefit, socialising etc, rather than proper childcare. He'll get that free after Xmas when he's 3, but then we'll have the other one to think about soon after that!I'm no good with the outgoings, but are you eligible for Tax credits and what about childcare vouchers?
Thanks anyway for the advice - it might be worth looking into after No2 is born as I think you get more when they're under a year old, and there'll be exrta child benefit too (plus loads of extra spending on nappies - aargh!).0 -
Hello Pandapaws:hello: Congrats on starting your debt diary :T You'll get loads of good advice here. Am looking fwd to hearing your progress.Jan 1st 07 Car loan £4830.46@12% Personal Loan £11,517@8% variable Overdraft £1500 July 2009Halifax-£0Debt free date 14th July 2009 :j0
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Good luck Pandapaws
We are starting on our debt free journey's at around the same time, so I'll be following your dairy. I got 4 mini debt mountains of my own (kids, not credit cards) and I love the tussle of a busy (and happy) family, I am sure you will too.
I'll try to post too, but in a bit of a busy place at the moment - work and family duties. But happy to be looking forward, and happy with all the e-company I will haveI think I saw you in an ice cream parlour
Drinking milk shakes, cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine0 -
Hello and welcome! :wave:
Congratulations on your pregnancy, it's such an exciting time, and whilst it's difficult to budget and not overspend with a new baby on the way, it can be done (I've recently had a baby, and we have managed to not increase our debt at all despite me having/going to have at least 9 months off work).
My tip would be to have a look through what you've still got from having your first baby (cot/highchair/car seat etc), and make a list of what you still NEED. Then also make a list of what you would also LIKE. Then start to come up with ways of bringing in a bit extra money each month (there are loads of ideas on this site), so you can start to buy the things on the 'needs' list, and if you manage that, then you can start on the 'wants' list.
Look out for sales, money-off vouchers, join every possible baby club (the Boots one is particularly good - loads of free/cheap stuff), accept offers of stuff from friends who have had babies, use Freecycle etc etc.
Good luck and can't wait to read how you get on....oh, and you do know that you're expected to post whilst in labour*, to let us know your progress, don't you...:rotfl:
*(I didn't manage this, my labour was too quick at 1 hour 24 mins.....so be prepared!!)"I wasn't wrong, I just wasn't right enough.":smileyhea97800072589250
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