Getting out of this debt sharknado

EmmaMicawber

Wow, that thread's incredible. Thanks for posting it motivated, I can look back for inspiration when it things are getting tough.

I've been looking at the Stepchange numbers - I'm still getting my head around everything. The total they give for "contractual payments" is £940 a month more than we're actually paying in minimum payments every month at the moment. I assume this is because they take the total and apply the full interest that will be charged when all the 0% deals end. So unless we can keep getting 0% and moving balances around we are going to be stuffed even if I find a job earning £940 a month, unless I'm missing something.
OH is dead against the DMP but I would like the certainty of knowing we're making progress and not just hoping we can renew the 0% deals in September. I'm worried that if we don't do it we'll get to September and suddenly have a massive shortfall in meeting our payments, whereas if we sort something out now I'll feel we can manage.

Today's jobs:
-Try and understand more about DMP vs managing this ourselves. If we go on the DMP will the cards on 0% be frozen on 0% until we pay it all off?
-Update my CV
-Don't spend anything
-Crack on with clearing the attic room and list 5 things on eBay- no valuable stuff up there but the usual clothes/ toys/ books which might help a bit.

EmmaMicawber

Just checking in to keep myself on the straight and narrow.
I understand a lot more about the DMP option- we actually owe £72800, a bit less than I thought now all Feb payments included - yay so definitely meet the definition of being in "debt crisis". I've agreed with OH to throw absolutely everything we can at the debt, sell anything we can, look at extra income etc. for 3 months and have a big review on 1 June.If it looks like there is no other option by that point, OH will sign up to a DMP.
We checked the new credit report option on MSE credit club - his is still "very poor" which in a weird way I'm relieved about- it means he can't try to solve this by borrowing more, which is what has got us into this situation.
Ebay isn't going particularly well- how does anyone make money from their normal old stuff? (we don't have any valuable antiques or electronic stuff). I've been sending things by tracked Royal Mail but end up losing part of my sale price in postage charges as they're too high to pass on the full cost. And it's so time-consuming, I reckon my hourly rate must be around 50p!
At least it is slowly freeing up some space for other stuff.

CV- tinkered with it a bit but I'm not sure how best to address the gap. That is this morning's job.
It's a beautiful sunny morning here, our (old decrepit) house survived the gales and I'm feeling really optimistic

motivated

Hi Emma

I think you have an excellent plan in place to give it a go together and then make a decision on where to go in June.
As for eBay I'm not an expert as I too have ended up only making a little money due to postage etc.

Also the funny thing is we too have exhausted our options of borrowing more and are quite relieved about it. A few months ago I would have been :eek: but not now. The money we spend, save, pay towards debts and live our lives will be our money from now on and not someone elses.

Good luck on your journey
M

EmmaMicawber

That's just how we feel Motivated.

OH's payday today- yay! And my monthly total for ebay was £60, better than nothing.

I've already budgeted the lot down to zero in our YNAB budget. Whilst we have a lot of our credit card debt on 0% we can pay a total of around £600 above the minimums at the moment, so that's now budgeted in for this month. I'm not sure which card to put it to yet- the smallest balance for motivation (on 0%) or the highest interest (big balance card with a big chunk on 18.9%) for the Maths.

This will all change in September/ October when the three biggest deals end but the plan is to have an extra £800 per month coming in by then so we can cover them even if we can't get any more offers on our existing cards (we definitely won't EVER be applying for another one).

EmmaMicawber

So far I've been looking at the balances on our credit cards. OH also has a personal loan which I'm going to include here as well. I was planning to kind of ignore it and let it run its course with OH dealing with it separately but it makes sense to look at everything together.

The current outstanding balance is £23,400, which when added to the (current) balance of the credit cards (£72,400 across 9 cards) makes a grand total of £95,800. That is absolutely everything but the mortgage.

I'm going to do everything I can to make sure our children aren't ever foolish enough to fall into the traps of the debt industry as we did.

I can very belatedly see now that debt is just another profitable product to flog the unsuspecting consumer. Though "credit" sounds so much less threatening.

GeorgianaCavendish

Hi Emma, sounds like you are in a great place to start tackling your debt sharknado (I love your tread title, it makes me every time I see it!)
I've been selling a few things on ebay recently but it's stuff like clothes and shoes so I haven't had that problem with the postage. Have you tried using Facebook Selling for larger items? I've not tried it myself but some of my parents friends recently moved house after 30 years in the same place (so they had loads of random stuff to shift) they've been raving about Facebook Selling so much that my dad has asked me how to "do the Facebook" so he can have a go too :rotfl:

I'm sure there is advice on one of the forums here about the different online selling techniques

motivated

Hi again Emma

Just think the £60 you made from ebay is £60 you never had before obvious I know but you are doing ok. Keep going and we WILL get there in the end.
M

Treadingonplaymobil

EmmaMicawber wrote: »

I'm going to do everything I can to make sure our children aren't ever foolish enough to fall into the traps of the debt industry as we did.

I can very belatedly see now that debt is just another profitable product to flog the unsuspecting consumer. Though "credit" sounds so much less threatening.

I agree entirely with both of these sentiments! My parents are financially savvy, but never actually sat me down and talked about money and budgeting and HOW they manage their money, so i just blithely assumed it sort of happened by itself. And while I would never try to pass off responsibility for the debt to anyone else, I think the credit/debt industry is very powerful and we need to make sure that our children are educated enough to resist it.

Drawingaline

I agree with passing on good budgeting skills to the kids. I have an appointment to open bank accounts for the big two on Friday (12&11) and they are going to be sat down and given some lessons :rotfl:

motivated

Hi Emma

just popping in to see how you're doing. Hope you are still upbeat and positive
M