Overwhelmed and ashamed

Cheeseface

I'm so pleased that you had a good time over Christmas and New Year.

Good luck with Dry January. I have had any alcohol for 15 months now. I missed it at first and now I'm bothered at all. If only I could apply the same to junk food.

Kantankrus_Mare

Another one doing dry January here. Managed it last year and then continued drinking moderateley through the rest of the year.

Saved me a fortune as at least £10 a week is usually spent on wine:eek:

dprovan

Just over 3 weeks since our LBM and wow how things feel different already! DW and I continue to be adapting well and sharing responsibilities. DW is looking after the weekly money for spending and food and keeping a spending diary so we better understand what we spend! Meanwhile I have been organising cc's to better deals and saving where we can. Quick summary:

• 1/3 mobiles moved from£18.46 contract to £9 (+£9.46). The next of the 3 can be changed in March and will give another £20 savings.
• Phoned BT/Broadpand to leave and changed both which included BT sport from £61 a month to £32 (+£29). BT sport gone now and wont be missed
• Contacted sky and gave notice to leave. Might stay if they can give me a great deal. Maximum I am prepared to pay is £30 a month. Currently £66.72 (minimum savings +£36.72)
• Moved CC debts to better deals. Reducing interest on the repayments from £280 per month to £39!!. All of the savings here will go to repayments!
• Started an emergency fund now have £150 set aside!
• Two eldest kids are now receiving pocket money each week. I have took on advice here and realise I have been doing them no favours and they will have to budget and prioritise.
• We have been sticking to the food budget £75 per week and weekly spending money £175 depite some significant unique spends linked to christmas etc. So feeling really confident that we can stick to our budgets moving forward
• Lots of chats about our old ways!! and importantly about how we feel so much happier now feeling in control.
• Lots of N.S. days. I haven't had physical money or needed to spend anything in last 4-5 days!! I am taking lunch to work and preparing better.

The savings above will be used to build our emergency fund alongside anything we can find from petrol, food and weekly spending savings!

Also the savings of £241 per month in interest payments will go directly towards our significant debt!

So here is the cc debt and deals attached:

• cc 1: £6942 6.6% for life
• cc 2: £6000 0% Sept 17
• cc 3: £6657 0% April 2018
• cc 4: £4254 0% March 18
• cc 5 : £9134 0% April 2018
• cc 6: £7700 0% March 19
• cc 7: £6523 0% Nov 18
• cc 8: £5500 0% Jan 2019
• cc 9: £3610 0% Dec 2019
• cc 10: £7269 0% April 2020
• cc 11: £7554 0% June 2020

Quite a list I know!! So a total of £71,143

Our plan is to look to pay £953 a month - £39 interest so if we stay committed and strong we should see this come down....

I know we could tighten the belt even tighter and probably find another bit more to reduce the debt quicker. but we realise that this wont disappear over night. We feel the budget we have set allows us to sustain this longer term. I love the possibility that by living within a comfortable budget the debt decreases similarly to how it grew ie we find ourselves looking at it t some point in the future and feeling shocked at how much it has decreased without us noticing!

We are also both still doing the dry January. All in all we feel amazingly positive, given the numbers above, and keep reminding each other that there will be challenges and lows but this is important to us...

Thanks again to everyone who has offered support and advice, it means a lot..:T

Bobarella

What a great update. You are both working as a team so well.

LauraB89

Wow - you're making great progress x

Verbatim

Great teamwork and what a result getting all the ccs bar one on 0% deals. Are you targetting the onewith interest and/or the one which expires in September?
Fantastic progress in any event.

Little_Miss_Winner

Keep up the [STRIKE]good[/STRIKE] brilliant work!!!

dprovan

Thanks everyone,

Verbatim wrote: »

Great teamwork and what a result getting all the ccs bar one on 0% deals. Are you targetting the onewith interest and/or the one which expires in September?
Fantastic progress in any event.

I actually have a current 0% offer for 21 months on another cc (with my own bank) which has an available balance of 15k!!! This was a cc I was paying interest on so I moved the balance that was on it to a new 0% cc and left this open.

I thought about moving the cc with the 6% for life or the one which has balance until September. But my thinking was I have already paid a 3% handling fee on the 0% to September (still 9 months away) so not good value to move money again now and pay another 3% fee for extra 10 months... In terms of the 6% for life of balance, I feel it is a pretty decent deal and as I have a big balance across the others that I will have to move about with 3% fees from time fees from time to time it was maybe best to leave it as it is on decent deal rather than bringing it into the mix. Does that make sense?

In terms of our plans. For now any extra money will be going to building an emergency pot so we don't have to rely on ccs for any unexpected spends. Once we have a decent sum probably £1000 then yes any spare money will go to the 6% interest one and the other ccs with shorter 0% deals.

enthusiasticsaver

You have made great strides in less than a month.

It will be a marathon as you have a lot of debt so yes your budget needs to be sustainable long term. You will need to do a lot of prioritising and you have already made a start on that. You also need to exercise lots of willpower as people start talking about holidays and changing cars and if this has been your wont in the past then this needs to be faced head on. Saving for these treats in the future should be the way forward.

As you pay the cards off close them down to remove the temptation to spend on an empty credit card.

AlwaysWorking

How are things going OP?