Got here by luck, intending to stay by judgement.

ourcornercottage

MrBloater wrote: »

Have decided that my initial scepticism about putting up SOAs was well founded - I shan't be sharing any more of the spends on here as I fear it will cause a seismic breakdown of moral indignation, and I don't want Roger Cook knocking on my doors or the press rifling through my bins etc looking for evidence of my irresponsibility and recklessness. I'm personally well chuffed with my reductions so far, and happily today cut up the Amex card which was not initially on my list of things to do.

Off now to squander some money on things of dubious value. Peace out.

Having not read your other posts on the DFW forum I really believed that you really truly needed help and support and that you were really serious about not being in debt and reducing your mortgage.

It appears that you perhaps take a different approach, I wish you the best with it and hope you achieve your goals, although I fear that unless you are a really high earner and have money to burn you it will be unlikely.

getmore4less

Try this simple calculation.

Go back to the day you started in 2011 nearly 4 year ago(or go back to end of May 2011)

Using the house value at that time what was your net worth with the £301k debt.

Using the same house value

What's the net worth now.

Goldiegirl

MrBloater wrote: »

I shan't be sharing any more of the spends on here as I fear it will cause a seismic breakdown of moral indignation,

Seriously, nobody cares where you spend your money


But it appears you wanted some help and ideas, so people tried to help.


Seriously, do the SOA. No need to post it, no need to tell us about it.


With the SOA you get the full picture of your finances, and can make proper plans for things like paying off the consolidated debt, getting an emergency fund in place, getting a proper monthly budget in place, reducing the mortgage etc, etc.


Without it, you will continue in a state of inertia, just making piecemeal efforts which are lost as you are not in control of your finances.


I am sorry if this is difficult to read, but it's how I see it. You seem like a nice guy, and I would like to think you would take on board what we are trying to say, as we are only trying to help.


Anyway, I wish you well.

getmore4less

solentsusie wrote: »

I agree. From reading MrB's posts I have come to the conclusion that he does not want to change his or his family's lifestyle...........

Where people go wrong is they fail to realise that reducing the debt gives you MORE money for your lifestyle, just takes a bit of time.

MrBloater

Massively successful day today - cancelled and cut up another 4 credit cards, paid off the balance on the last loan and will be cancelling two store cards once the zero balance goes through. Plucked up the courage to look at Noddle and am on a surprisingly high 3/5 - this'll only get higher as I continue shutting down all the extraneous accounts. Got much into the cutting that an old Waterstones Points Card got sliced up as well - for no reason other than it looked too credit cardy and I'm severing my addiction to them.

Also found out that my secondment is ending earlier than planned, which is brilliant news for me as it'll halve my gas costs and also mean that I get three extra days summer holiday. Win win.

And it's looking like it'll be my fourth consecutive AFD. Looking at the stats, I think it'll be more like a £500 overpayment I can make at the start of July but I'll make up for it in later months.

MrBloater

Annoyed and Delighted Simultaneously. Annoyed because I can't make a payment to my new mortgage because despite me ringing up on Monday and asking where the letter is with the payment details on, cos I want to set up the DD and the overpayment asap, I still don't have this information. At the same time I'm delighted, because it's only a few weeks ago I was moving things from account to account to hit payment deadlines, incurring overlimit fee after overlimit fee in order to avoid the dreaded late payment status (so hence everything on my Noddle report is a nice shade of green with regard to payments). But now I'm trying to be proactive and the little blighters won't let me give them my money.

Every Bloater now has a savings account, although I'm thinking of switching the littlies' CTFs over to ISAs, and whilst mine and Mrs B together only comprise a tenner, it's a start. And another paradigm shift.

And the final bit of sensibleness for today is getting the Pensions sorted, working out the estimates for myself and Mrs B on State and Employer, plus my little Nest one. Will be definitely worth paying some extra into Employer and Nest one once we get into the swing of things.

Couldn't make it day 5 of AFD as this kind of weather was designed for Stella on the patio. (A patio which I hasten to add the old Mr Bloater would have already spent a grand on getting decked out. The new, sensible MFW Bloater realises that the decking can wait.)

pavlovs_dog

they sound like positive steps in a positive direction Mr B.

Have you thought of any targets or goals to spur you on with your MF journey?

newgirly

Hi mr bloater , I think I read some of your diary on the Dfw and I just wanted to say welcome. You've had a lot of input from the mfw's already by the looks of it! but they are usually right

I have been in a similar situation to you, we bought our house 14 yrs ago for £120k with a £93k mortgage then got into debt and consistently added the debt to the remortgages over time 10k here £30K there and I can remember the feelings of relief at "wiping out " those cards. Our debts (and I include the mortgage in this ) rose to not far off £180k all in. A stupid situation for a family of five on an average wage with only one of us working.

The tipping point was when I realised we could lose our house if something went wrong of dh lost his overtime, I joined this site five years ago and it changed our lives ( sounding a bit like one of those crazy preachers on American TV sorry!) but it's true.

I guess what I'm trying to say is replace spending with challenges, the kids will not suffer if you say no to a few things, this is easier when they are younger I think - train them up I say :rotfl: I did well with the financial training but rubbish with getting them to help around the house.

I also did the accounts every day to see how much was "available " to spend, I still do that but I've already paid for everything including any overpayments first at the start of the month. I always run out of money by the end of the month and sometimes even have to borrow from next months money, but never from money set aside for the mortgage /bills/savings.

Sorry for this early morning ramble, I just think if you are on the brink of making this a total success, but do take notice of the detail. I have Sky TV and now TV, my eldest pays for now TV and I pay £15 pm for a basic sky package, in October every year I haggle for half price movies and add it for £8 pm as there are good movies on over Xmas , January it's cancelled again. When it's always there they get bored with it anyway.

Cinema tickets can be bogof with a cheap travel policy from compare the market (£1.55 I paid ) so it's possible for them to,feel normal whilst you are doing your mse thing :money:

I wish you all the best, if you are the one who is sorting the finances you need to run a tight ship and be ready to be the bad guy sometimes, but I guarantee you will sleep better at night!

Ps. If the family are a little reluctant can they be bribed with treats like a day out at a theme park in a few months if you stick to targets paying stuff off? Using vouchers of course

MrBloater

Top Friday night spent in front of the online account for the new mortgage and playing with the overpayment calculators. Should have gone out to drown my sorrows/count my blessings after the end of the secondment - I'm going to miss the place, but on the plus (and MSE) side I'll be halving my fuel costs/journey time and getting three extra days holiday.

The most important pledge I can do for myself is to stop thinking there are any schemes or plans in place to augment my income - it's reasonable, not as much as it used to be, but I have to budget within what we have coming into the house now - not looking for some pie-in-the-sky ideas that will likely end up backfiring. I just need to exude agreeability and stop checking how much greener the grass is elsewhere, as the main prize isn't career advancement, it's getting this paid down whilst maintaining myself as a decent father, husband and son.

So now I'm going to put the work woes away in a box , the other thing that always is present is the weight. But even that isn't anywhere as bad as it used to be - I know what methods work for me, and within a couple of pounds of accuracy, I can pretty much predict that doing x for y days will lead to me being z. And maintaining regime S for two weeks will maintain the weight at that. So really, it's not a big issue, it's under control and I shouldn't be expending much time or worry on it. Twenty minutes of work in the Shed of Redemption tomorrow and I can set up the free Youview box I got off a friend on Wednesday to the old TV/VCR unit in there and then will be able to get my copious TV channel fix whilst merrily strutting my stuff on the cross-trainer. I could even chuck the spare Wii in there so I could do the Wii Fit ting.

Nice cup of tea and off to bed by 10.15pm. Am feeling modestly smug with myself. Tomorrow's tasks will include tidying up the paperwork and setting some figures in stone so I have something to aim at - I can overpay up to £24k in the next year - which is probably a little out of my reach.

Angry_Bear

I've kept up with all your threads, although I think it's been a few years since I posted on one! Great to see the finances going so well (although tut tut for doing this by adding to your mortgage )

MrBloater wrote: »

... the other thing that always is present is the weight.

As far as the weight goes, while I'd never knock exercising for improving your health losing weight is much more down to diet.
I recall from previous diary entries that you have a boom and bust approach to weight loss - which is exactly what I've always had. The 5:2 diet has worked really well for me (and costs nothing :money:), I really recommend you give it a go.

ETA: http://thefastdiet.co.uk/