Overwhelmed and ashamed

enthusiasticsaver

Loads of good advice given which I won't repeat.

My advice is stop using credit cards and start using a spending diary, separate pots (envelopes or accounts) for food, petrol and car expenses, days out, birthdays and kids activities, clothes etc.

Start up emergency savings account for car and house repairs etc.

You have not said how much the debt is and whether it is all on 0% but do a spreadsheet showing when 0% deals finish and tackle most expensive first or if all on 0% the one which starts charging interest first. The snowball calculator is popular.

dprovan

Thanks everyone. It has been a busy two days:

• Friday is our day 1 of weekly income so my dw withdrew £75 for food and £175 for any expenses.
• Hopefully we wont spend all of this and anything left over will go into an emergency fund so we wont have to use cc for any unexpected expenses in the future.
• My DW is in charge of our spending diary so we can keep track of what we are spending where.
• We recognise the need to be clear about needs and wants.
• I reviewed all our cc which was a task on its own due to poor administration on my part. I now have all the info with details of 0% deals etc. listed
• Realised we were paying close to £250 of the £1000 on interest as 0% deals had ended! I have managed to move things around but there is still £80 being paid on interest from 2 cc which no longer have 0%.
• On the cc front again I was delighted to see that a number of our cc have 0% deals tied in between 18-38 months giving us time to address this!!
• Checked to see likely eligibility for new 0% cc and it doesn't look great. I will look into this further in next few days but we might have to wait a little while. If so at least £920 of the £1000 repayments will be going on cc debt.
• Got ds a trampoine for christmas for £20!! the one I have been watching on tesco was reduced from £120 to £80 and we used Tesco vouchers to bring this down to £20 which felt great..
• Decided we would use up the food in the freezer (there is loads) before buying more
  

Thanks again to everyone for your advice and support I really value it. I will get a proper SOA up when we understand better what our budget actually is....

EssexHebridean

Great work there already - and it sounds as though you're starting to get things in hand. Remember that the next couple of weeks aren't representative of what you will usually spend on food - I'd start reining things in now and then focus even more after christmas. See if you can make good use of all the great offers on fruit and veg around at the moment too - Lidl have various bits for 29p, Tesco have 39p offers and Aldi are leading the charge with 6 different things for 19p each - that's certainly the cheapest you will find potatoes at the moment!

dprovan

Thank you EssexHebridean, my dw and I had this exact conversation, it is my dd 16th birthday tomorrow and she is having a party tonight with 20 kids in our house who need fed. That is k because we have a freezer full of stuff but we are all going out for a meal tomorrow to celebrate her birthday.

Already I can see a massive change in our behaviour as we are thinking about what we are spending. I bought a coffee for £1 at my lads football today and even contemplated it first. Normally I would be wasting £40-£50 on a Saturday on rubbish I would have nothing to show for it. I know the key is for us to rebalance our thinking and behaviour for longer term change.

I am still having bouts of anxiety and feeling overwhelmed when I look forward and look back!!! As someone said looking back causes depression and looking forward anxiety!! Thankfully the bouts are shorter lived and I am sure it is linked to my alcohol withdrawal.

Posting in here is therapeutic as I get the thoughts out....

Have a nice Saturday everyone.

Scott_Weiland_2

it will get better re stress and anxiety

as i said start an emergency fund build it dead slow if needs be i have a couple of hundred in mine and i top it up from survey earnings and topcashback.co.uk payments

dprovan

Thanks Scott_Weiland, the next few weeks is going to be different what with all the expense of Christmas but we are confident if we start budgeting properly we should be able to turn this truck around and instead of overspending we should be able to underspend and build that emergency fund to give us confidence and ease the nerves.

What kind of income can be made from the survey earnings?

EssexHebridean

You know there's a thread on here for support for those who are cutting down/cutting out alcohol? Might give you a bit more backup on that front.

Fully agree with Scott about making your emergency fund a priority - the sooner it starts building, the sooner that's one less thing to make you anxious, and if you can fund it via "extra" income then even better.

Swash

Good luck on your journey x

Scott_Weiland_2

dprovan wrote: »

Thanks Scott_Weiland, the next few weeks is going to be different what with all the expense of Christmas but we are confident if we start budgeting properly we should be able to turn this truck around and instead of overspending we should be able to underspend and build that emergency fund to give us confidence and ease the nerves.

What kind of income can be made from the survey earnings?

Its all relative too what you can put into it ie free time i have had around £1100 this year and i have a few accounts that are nearly at there payout point. I have the benefit of my working shift pattern is 4 on 3 off night shift so during the 3 hour quiet lull at work i see what surveys are avaliable, then on my days off i will stick a movie on and do an hour or two.

you gov i need another 300 points that will be 50 pounds when it drops

opinium research i am on 98 pounds 100 pounds i get get 25 pounds sent via bank transfer and i am waiting on a 50 pound check from a survey site called populus.

When i was off work earlier in the year i hammered uktoluna.com 4-5 surveys a day and had say 35 coming in every 3-4 weeks its not big money but it is when your on statutory sick pay as i was back then with depression.

Cheeseface

Welcome!

Like you we have a very good household income, but also have the expenses to match. Only when I did my SOA did I see that I had a £600 surplus which was being spent on nothing!

Decembers job has been to keep a spending diary. My biggest expense is eating out and takeaways. In January I'm going tackle this.

Good luck.