Overwhelmed and ashamed

Scott_Weiland_2

dprovan wrote: »

Thanks everyone, after my emotional spell this morning, I had a really productive period between 10am-3pm and had a number of work meetings and was fully functioning. Then I had to collect my ds youngest of three from school. I took him to his grans and really struggled to keep it together. Rushed home and burst into floods of tears again. This isn't me- I am the tough fella who always has a joke. After a long period of drinking alcohol pretty much every night Ive not had a drink in 4 days and think my emotions are all over the place coupled with this I am struggling just now.

I keep drifting into the catastrophic thinking. It is as if ive lived this life for years care free spending at will and all of a sudden I have realised what if I loose my job, what if something happens to me, what if??? But ive never thought this before.....

In truth my debt is probably 50% more than what we have had for sometime and been relaxed about but now its overwhelming.

Thanks for the links I will read these, I am struggling to read anything just now as my total just feels so much worse than everyone else's so I feel more overwhelmed.

You have taken the first step thats the main thing from here your journey begins!

Step 2 as people have said is do an SOA dont publish it if you wish too keep it private but thats fine, but be 100 percent honest with yourself. But really take a good look at it and think do i as an example need too spend say as an example 100 pounds on a sky package,, do i really need the latest iphone 6 or 7 etc find ways too may savings.

re what your saying re emotions its too be expected they will be off whack if you have drank 4 days off the belt. Alcohol is the greatest sertonin and tryptophan supressor going all of which when supressed will make you feel all over the shop.

Step 3 will help re the job concerns ie step up a small savings account and budget for putting in say 20-30 quid a month more if your budget allows for it. Call the savings emergency fund and build it up slow and remember its there for the unexpected ie job losses, housr issues etc

Step 4 Chillax it will get easier i promise you!

MrsTinks

Firstly I want you to take a really deep breath... Then I want you to repeat: It's only money! It can be fixed!

Rinse and repeat until you believe it

It truly IS only money. And it CAN be fixed.

Yes it will in all likelihood not be a 5 minute fix, but that's ok too.

Post up your SOA - what's to be ashamed of? We don't know you, and you don't know us Even if we judged you, so what? What could we possibly do? (Not that we would! just trying to put it into perspective)

You sound like you're on a roller-coaster, the question is can you get off it by yourself, do you think it's going to calm down once all the toxins are out of your system? Or do you need to discuss with your wife going to see a GP? Please don't neglect yourself in all of this.

The catastrophe thinking probably happens to us all at some point in life, especially as parents. What triggers it will be individual, start by putting together a plan and try to include things that might alleviate what scares you the most. If it's how to provide for your children if you were gone then a life insurance policy?

MrsTinks

OK... there is LOTS of areas you can cut back here - but for this to really give you the information you need then either you need to go back over the bank statements OR you need to do a spending diary for the next few weeks...

£700 on spending money is... well... uhmmm ok it's high

Given that this doesn't include your grocery spends (which is probably higher thank you think) and you are paying £25 a week for school meals too then you can cut this back and make some real inroads into these debts.

Try chucking all the numbers into the SOA calculator and formatting it for MSE - it's easier to comment on as we know where everything should be on that

Electricity is also frightfully high - have you checked this is not estimated and you're in credit? Shop around and swap suppliers! Oil - never buy without getting 2 or 3 quotes - there are several co-ops out there where you can get a deal or club together with neighbours and get a bulk discount

You can do this!

dprovan

Thanks Scott_Weiland and Mrs Tinks and Essek Hebridean, truth is life insurance is probably my best asset outside my home so no fears there

I am on a rollercoaster just now, I know it will spin less in a few days.

Off to take my oldest son to football training. It will do me good to be distracted for a couple of hours.. Thank you guys your posts mean a lot..

MrsTinks

dprovan wrote: »

I am on a rollercoaster just now, I know it will spin less in a few days.

OK- so you KNOW it will calm down, knowing that will actually help you get there quicker You know this is temporary! Just remind yourself every time you get a small panic attack and soon they will start to reduce in length and strength, then they'll !!!!!! off altogether!

MrsTinks

dprovan wrote: »

truth is life insurance is probably my best asset outside my home so no fears there

Well there you go! So should anything serious happen then you have done your job as a partner and father

SO worth case catastrophe scenario fixed already! It was never even an issue

Scott_Weiland_2

Bruce Lee quote below read it remember it, its relevant too you

"The key too immortality is first living a life worth remembering"

Fact the debt is there but dont let it control you, second its only money it can be fixed, third dont let it spoil your life.

Enjoy the footy training

natsplatnat

dprovan wrote: »

Shame is a powerful emotion. I have cried more these last three days than I have in years combined.

I think everyone has a different emotion at that moment in time when you think "oh s##t!" Mine was anger - I was truly peeved at myself for getting myself into such a situation with money. And it was pretty much my anger that got me through the next 7 years of fixing it. You have many reasons to be greatful too... you have realised you need to do something about it; you want to do something about it; and looking at your SOA I think there is good scope to make it happen.


You can't change what has happened or how you got to where you are. You can change what happens from now on - you can take control.


Wishing you all the best, Nats x

EssexHebridean

OK - I'll note things in red.

dprovan wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4,798.00
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 190.00
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
travel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200.00 This is showing under income? Is this correct?

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home


We don't actually spend £700 in day outs but this is the money for week to week living expenses. Money for kids activities, clothes, haircuts etc etc. You're going to need to start working those things out. For now, just an estimate will do, but ideally go back through bank statements to see what goes where - that's a huge amount of money to not have a grip on, and from now, it's all about having a grip on your money and making it work for you - after all, YOU have to work for IT, no?

In the past it is wasted on rubbish and the cc is used for big purchases ie buying tyres for car, a new whatever. You get my drift.


Mobile phones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70.00 How many phones? Any chance of driving contract costs down? If there are phones for any of the kids are they at an age where they should be contributing towards phone costs from their allowances/saturday job money?
TV licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.00 12.12 - I know, picky, but like I say, all about getting a grasp on thing.
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70.00 Does this include internet? It strikes me as expensive - have you shopped about?
Cleaning products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Garden maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110.00 Your heating is oil-fired, yes? This is a massive spend on electric - if I were you, I'd suspend reading for a few moinutes while you wander round the house turning things off. From here on - things are only on if they have to be, or if they are physically in use. Also join the MSE energy club to see if you're on the best tariff
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 In Scotland by any chance?
Council tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200.00Are you still set up on the old system of paying this over 10 months? If so request a switch to 12 to help with budgeting
Overdraft cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Bank account fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00 Buildings and contents combined? Have you checked you're on the best value policy you could be?
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,262.00
Plumbing/Boiler cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22.00
Mortgage payment protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Life insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Food and household shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350.002 adults, 3 kids? You can trim this a bit. Cooking from scratch, Lidl, Aldi (if you have them close by), dropping branded for own label, dropping standard own label to value/basics etc
Drinks for home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
childrens club. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70.00
BIOS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.00 Professional membership? Or something else?

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400.00 Is this amount of driving 100% necessary? If there are times when you can walk rather than drive, start doing it. Also have a read of Martin's guide to driving economically.
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00Being paid on monthly Direct Debit?
Car insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00 Being paid on monthly Direct Debit?
Car maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00 I take it this is an amount you're saying you set aside? Is it actually being set aside or is that what you'd like to do?
Rail/Buses/Taxis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Breakdown cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Is this included in insurance?

Debt Repayments

Credit card repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 962.00
Hire purchase repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Personal loan repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282.00
Car loan repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Savings & Investments

Pension payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180.00
Buying shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Cash ISAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump sum saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Family

Pet food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00 Shop around - it's amazing what a saving can be made by ordering online, in some cases
School trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00Might it work out more cost effective to do packed lunches, at least a couple of days a week?
Pocket money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Nappies/Baby extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Children's travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Baby-sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Playgroups. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Travel insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Entertainment

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55.00
Family days out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700.00 You need to break this down, honestly. I suspect the key to your situation is held in this figure
Cinema/Theatre trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big days out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Shopping for fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Pet insurance?
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (antivirus, etc) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
DVD rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Drinking out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Eating out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Complementary therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 Need a figure here, taken from that £700
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Beauty treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Healthcare cash plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private medical insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Work clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New children's clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 As haircuts, above. Decide what seems reasonable (mainly for the kids, until such time as the debt is under control) and stick to that budget.

Education & Courses

University tuition fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Big One-Offs

Funeral expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Winter holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers and magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular charity donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,188.00


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5,117.00

Some great posts from Mrs Tinks,. Scott, and others already. A spending diary I think is the way forward for you - you HAVE to establish where the money is going, that's vital.

As Mrs T has said, formatting the SOA for MSE makes it easy to follow and also is less complex - the one we link to categorises a lot of things together where they are separate above - but cuts to the chase of the essential stuff.

The massive positive is that actually - you already have a surplus. I'm betting that with some belt tightening, and budget trimming, you can increase that surplus hugely, too - you can make an impact on this faster than you think!

You realise also, by taking this in hand now, and starting to make a plan, you've just given your family the best Christmas present they will ever have. Well done for that!

dprovan

Just home from the football training and sat down to read the posts. They are bang on the money. Yes, the £700 monthly spending money is a massive issue. I know its crazy... we don't know what that goes on- but seen as I cant define it, its fair to say it is largely frittered away on wants and not needs.

But I also realise that if we were only spending that £700 a month we wouldn't be in debt as we can budget from that. The crazy thing is our debt comes from all the other spends on cards etc...

We are definitely going to keep a spending diary and also work with cash wherever possible and not cards.

It is poor given that I am 44 that I wasn't even sure posting this if £300 a month for food was reasonable and £700 a month for day to day family things was ok. I know this shows the complete disregard we have had for the value of money. Really reassuring to know that with lots of learning and moderating there is room to turn this around.

Thank you everyone