Small Steps Out Of Massive Debt!

GeorgianaCavendish

Hiddenidenity wrote: »

So another 12 months before it would increase?

A lot can change in 12 months if so Who knows where you'll be

That is true, just have to keep plugging away at it and remember that all changes happen slowly

GeorgianaCavendish

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

My pension planning largely consists of sticking my fingers in my ears and going 'la la la la la', so you're doing better than I am. DH pays into a company pension, but not nearly enough. It's something that we have on the long term To Do list, as finances improve.

My husband doesn't even have a pension, I really need to nag him about this because I think it is just a reluctance to act like a grown up that is stopping him. I don't like nagging about finances though, it makes me feel really, really awful and guilty. Which is a stupid emotional reaction based on my upbringing, there was a definite "don't talk about money!" rule in my childhood home no matter how bad things got and I still find it awkward to discuss.

Maybe I will frame it in my mind as gently suggesting, rather than nagging

Treadingonplaymobil

GeorgianaCavendish wrote: »

My husband doesn't even have a pension, I really need to nag him about this because I think it is just a reluctance to act like a grown up that is stopping him. I don't like nagging about finances though, it makes me feel really, really awful and guilty. Which is a stupid emotional reaction based on my upbringing, there was a definite "don't talk about money!" rule in my childhood home no matter how bad things got and I still find it awkward to discuss.

Maybe I will frame it in my mind as gently suggesting, rather than nagging

We never talked about money growing up - we weren't poor, but it was just never discussed at all. My parents (divorced) are polar opposites - one saver, one spender, but neither discusses money at all. I am convinced that this is part of my budgeting problem, as I always drifted between the frugal one and the spending one with no idea of the reality (I am aware now that the frugal one is miles richer than the spender, despite a much smaller income). I am determined to equip my children with more budgeting skills than I was given!

GeorgianaCavendish

Treadingonplaymobil wrote: »

We never talked about money growing up - we weren't poor, but it was just never discussed at all. My parents (divorced) are polar opposites - one saver, one spender, but neither discusses money at all. I am convinced that this is part of my budgeting problem, as I always drifted between the frugal one and the spending one with no idea of the reality (I am aware now that the frugal one is miles richer than the spender, despite a much smaller income). I am determined to equip my children with more budgeting skills than I was given!

Yes, I'm convinced this is the case for me too. My situation was "odd" to say the least. Even though I can now appreciate that we were poor, very poor in fact!, it absolutely wasn't spoken about and any suggestion of being unable to afford something was shushed up. My dad was good at sweeping in with the big gestures, like a flashy xmas present or making a big deal about buying new winter coats, but he didn't provide anything for the day-to-day and my mum basically struggled along in silence trying to stretch one income to support a whole family.

Right, I think that is enough delving into my childhood money demons for now I need to formulate my plan of attack for the pension [STRIKE]nagging[/STRIKE] suggesting

db2016

hi, im reading your diary from scratch, as ive found myself doing to a few these past couple weeks.

apologies if its been mentioned, in the meantime, but i wanted to say paying for any anti virus is needless, i get it that it may come with free trial on new kit though, but honestly, many many free ones.

i've been an IT student and gotten some big name brands free through uni, but they are often clunky and not as good as they are made out. theres free software for anything you can think of, MS word, costs, excel costs, Openoffice is good and doesnt. ive paid for MS of course like most people do, but the money saved on the smaller programs helps, AVG is usually regarded as one of the best anti virus / malware out there and has a free version! and im sure would be less than £90 even if you had a small home office set up with a couple of devices needing to be covered. but speaking from an IT point of view, all anti virus etc does it help you if you do get infected, education on safe surfing and general online security common sense goes for more than 80% of the risk imo.

good luck, im off to carry on reading your journey! see you at the up-to-date bits soon!

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

I make that spending for January £2967 so a shortfall of £118 and I think that groceries bill is probably higher than £140 if it is for 2 people unless your partner pays some too.

A few things - with that amount of debt will you be doing holidays and if not why pay £79 travel insurance?

I don't think we have ever paid £90 for anti virus software. You can often get it cheaper in PC world or on amazon then just renewing automatically even if you get cover for more than 1 pc.

£200 for 3 birthday presents also seems like a lot when you have so much debt outstanding. Paying almost £100 a month for subscriptions (£1200 per year) seems like a lot too. Can any of those be ditched? Is the counselling weekly and if so, can it be reduced to fortnightly?

All of your debt is on really high interest rates so if you only pay minimum payments it is really expensive and will take you years if not decades to repay. Can any be moved on to 0%?

As you have discovered in the past debt consolidation does not work. The only way to reduce debt is to spend less than your income. A spending diary is a good idea and thinking about every penny you spend and whether it is really needed. I would recommend you start an emergency fund and cut the credit cards up.

Hiddenidenity

Hope all is well x

GeorgianaCavendish

db2016 wrote: »

hi, im reading your diary from scratch, as ive found myself doing to a few these past couple weeks.

apologies if its been mentioned, in the meantime, but i wanted to say paying for any anti virus is needless, i get it that it may come with free trial on new kit though, but honestly, many many free ones.

i've been an IT student and gotten some big name brands free through uni, but they are often clunky and not as good as they are made out. theres free software for anything you can think of, MS word, costs, excel costs, Openoffice is good and doesnt. ive paid for MS of course like most people do, but the money saved on the smaller programs helps, AVG is usually regarded as one of the best anti virus / malware out there and has a free version! and im sure would be less than £90 even if you had a small home office set up with a couple of devices needing to be covered. but speaking from an IT point of view, all anti virus etc does it help you if you do get infected, education on safe surfing and general online security common sense goes for more than 80% of the risk imo.

good luck, im off to carry on reading your journey! see you at the up-to-date bits soon!

Hi db, thanks for reading along and thank you for your input on the anti virus stuff. I definitely paid the price for not being on top of my renewal date (or even being on top of what I'm paying for)! It is even worse because my husband has anti virus software on his laptop too, not under the same policy. We need to look into it and align our policies, same with travel insurance too :eek:

GeorgianaCavendish

I know I've been quiet over the last few days, bit of a crazy time with work etc but I'm still here, still quietly slogging away
I'll be back properly soon!

GeorgianaCavendish

Final debt totals for July (slightly higher than my interim debt total but let me explain ...)

Total debt (excluding Student Loan) is £25,832.68

HSBC Personal Loan : £11,362.14
Interest rate 8.9%, 30 payments left

Credit Card Balances

MBNA £3318.34
Breakdown as follows
£648.31 @ 6.9% (rate ends July 2019) money transfer to clear catalogue debt
£2670.03 @ 6.9% (rate ends July 2019) balance transfer from Barclaycard

Barclaycard £6360.70
Interest rate 6.9% until paid off

TLloyds £3560
Interest rate 0%, promo rate ends September 2019

Tesco £972.50
Interest rate 0%, promo rate ends September 2019

Furniture Finance £259
Interest rate 0%, 2 payments left

I have paid off 28.1% of my total debt :T

Sooo, the Lloyds balance transfer went through but I paid a fee which pushed my balance up again. I was able to do some transfers between my Barclaycard and MBNA accounts to get my debt on the lowest rates for longer. The highest rate I'm paying is now 6.9% (vs 18.9% from before!)

MBNA is the #1 priority debt, as same interest rate as BC but lower balance so should be quicker to pay off. I'm going to give the credit applications a rest for a few months as I'm aware that I've had a lot of activity (and two brand new accounts) in the space of a couple of months. I'll keep my eyes peeled for offers with my existing lenders but won't apply for more until the new year.

GeorgianaCavendish

Other priorities for us at the moment are replacing the sofa and TV. Both are on their last legs and we'll be lucky to get 6-12 months out of them. I don't want to be in a position where one, or both, are completely kaput and we have to make a rush decision because we're sitting on the floor watching a blank TV screen. But I also don't want to surge forwards spending money we don't have and add to our debts.

We've done a lot of window shopping and have decided on the sofa we'd like, and have a shortlist of TVs. The plan is to save up the money for the TV (my husband has agreed to do this with the money saved from the gym membership) but to wait until Black Friday to see if we can get it any cheaper in the sales. We're looking at TVs in the £280 - £350 price range, any reduction or cashback that we can get on this will be a great bonus.

The sofa is much more expensive, the one we want is £1000 so that's £500 each. We looked at lots and lots of different sofas (and spent more time in IKEA than is healthy for anyone's relationship!) but this is the best price we've found for what we want. We're going to save up as much as possible for the next 3 months and then take a 0% credit deal for the balance.
We agreed that we have to get rid of the furniture finance for the bed before we take on another credit agreement, so we're looking at October at the earliest. I'll then be able to put the £85 a month I was paying for the bed towards the sofa repayments for 6 months.