Happy Life

BonfireBelle

Hi friends! I'm 30 years-old, live in London, and have a heck of a lot of debt to squash. £22,958.06 including the interest I'll pay on my loan. It has penalties for early repayment that mean it's not worth doing so.

I'm disabled with a rare genetic condition. It's multi-systemic which means it causes problems throughout my body and results in severe chronic pain and fatigue (among numerous other problems) but I look like a normal, healthy young woman. That can be very difficult at times.

I have a disabled travel card for London but I have to see a specialist physio privately as it's near impossible to find someone on the NHS who specialises in my condition. Right now my private medical insurance covers it but likely not for much longer so I wanted to factor it in.

The gym is stupidly expensive but swimming is one of the few exercises I can manage and vital to my health. This is the only gym near to me with a pool. Due to my mobility issues I can't travel further out to go somewhere cheaper.

I live with two flatmates in order to have enough money to pay my debts.

My debts were built before I was diagnosed when I was struggling. I bought things and food to try and comfort myself. When you feel like you're dying and doctors keep saying there's nothing wrong with you it's a horribly scary experience. I'm only grateful I was finally diagnosed!

I really want to sort out my finances and put myself in a more secure position. I love my job but I fear a decline in my health could ruin me if it stopped me working. There's so little control when you're disabled but this is one thing I can do to help myself.

Oh, and I don't receive any benefits because the process of applying for them is terrifying. I went through a mobility test for my travel card and that was horrible enough. I am thinking about it though.

I'm still figuring things out so a budget will come next month but here's my SOA.

Monthly After Tax Income: £1981.00
Total Spending = £1361.39
Debt Repayments: £460.00
REMAINING: £159.61

My pension and critical illness cover come out of my pay before tax. I also have free private medical and dental insurance.

Rent + most bills: £717.00
Top up for bills: £45.00
Phone: £22.20
Prescriptions: £10.40
Physiotherapy: £96.00
Contents Insurance: £9.08
Gym + swim: £88.35
Contact Lenses: £28.00
Netflix: £5.99
Spotify: £4.99
Listening Books (audiobook library): £1.67
Dropbox: £8.25
Dreamhost (website hosting): £10.95
Kew Gardens Membership: £5.17
Travel Insurance: £8.34
Groceries + household spends: £200.00
Spending Money (presents, clothes, toiletries, travel, etc.): £100.00

At least that's how it's supposed to go! I really need to do a detailed tracker of my spending for a couple of months to see where I'm going wrong. Spoiler alert: it's almost certainly food.

another_casualty

Sorry to hear about your situation.
Regarding prescriptions: it sounds that , you nay be able to get then for free. Have a word with your doctor. Its just a question of getting the form if sipuccessful, filling it in and posting it off to newcastle.

Somebody else will advise later on in the thread, but it may be an idea to contact stepchange, or payplan .
Sourcrates or fatbelly are great members to pm .
They may pitchup soon.
A dmp may be the way to go , but others will guide you soon.


Good luck

BonfireBelle

Hi another casualty, thanks for your post!

It all sounds pretty dire when you write things down but I'm in a great place mostly. I guess we all have our stories of how we got ourselves into these messes and mine probably isn't that unusual.

Prescriptions are a funny old business. Unless you're on a low-income (which I'm not considered to be) there are only a handful of conditions which allow you free prescriptions. You can have an equally or more debilitating illness but if it's not listed you won't be considered. But I have so many scripts that I got the pre-payment certificate so at least it's not a spiralling cost.

It's really comforting to know there are options like DMP and StepChange out there but for now because my payments are manageable I think it's important to tighten my belt and give it a good go. I have excellent credit at the moment - hah! - and as I don't own property I really don't want to ruin that. It's such a calming thought though, to know there's help out there if the worst happens. That's what has preyed on my mind the most this past year.

Hope you're having a good day!

I'm off to work, diary! Got an orange and some green tea as a snack. Contraband oranges! I'm on a low-carb diet as part of my treatment but every now and then you've got to splurge and have a treat, haha.

Until later!

copperman05

Hi there, just some thoughts... Do you really need all your subscriptions? Whilst nice to have perhaps not essential when you have 23k of debt to pay down. Is the £200 groceries for 1 person? I've cut mine down to £80 a month but £120 is perhaps more the norm for someone on a budget. You could also cut your spending money allocation by 50%.

I would still consider making additional payments to your loan as despite the charges being debt free sooner allows you more financial freedom.

BonfireBelle

Had to get some groceries in so £18.49 spent on food today. Happy I didn't spend on anything else today. Sadly quite unusual. I also didn't buy any junk food! Hurrah.

Did have a can of Coke Zero with breakfast and one for lunch though. Time to wean myself off the delicious caffeine again.

BonfireBelle

copperman05 wrote: »

Hi there, just some thoughts... Do you really need all your subscriptions? Whilst nice to have perhaps not essential when you have 23k of debt to pay down. Is the £200 groceries for 1 person? I've cut mine down to £80 a month but £120 is perhaps more the norm for someone on a budget. You could also cut your spending money allocation by 50%.

I would still consider making additional payments to your loan as despite the charges being debt free sooner allows you more financial freedom.

Hi copperman, thanks for dropping in. Certainly no one needs subscriptions but I spend a lot of time resting and having TV, music, and audiobooks available makes it bearable. Especially when I'm missing out on being somewhere fun. I've signed up for my library's online services but their digital collections are VERY limited. It's a shame. So for now they stay.

I spend a lot on food. Part of it is terrible planning (which I'm working on). Another part is eating low-carb. Without all the tasty, cheap fillers like pasta, rice and tatties I find it hard to eat cheaply. But I'm sure I'll eventually get the hang of it. The final part is that I probably eat a lot more prepared food than most people. I find cooking really tiring so often I buy shortcuts like pre-riced cauliflower and shop-bought soup that I'm sure many here would frown on.

I don't think I could realistically cover everything needed on £50 a month. I'm not really sure £100 will cover it if I'm honest. But I'm going to give it a go.

Not to say I won't pull the belt in tighter at a later date, once I'm into the swing of things, but doing too much at once is sure to throw me straight off the wagon.

On_a_Shoestring

Just wanted to pop in to say well done for coming here and I'll be following!

another_casualty

Regarding the debt: is it more than one debt, or various credit cards etc?
Most people advise on you completing the s o a form on here somewhere.
The only things I would point out , is that you need to pay off the debt and not just the interest every month . I think you should keep all of your memberships etc. However, if you could possibly pay £30-50 from what's left over each month towards the debt or an emergency fund then all the better.
Regarding food: m allergic to most veg and salad etc so my food bill is high. I would sound like a hypocrite if I questioned your food bill.
Best of luck

BonfireBelle

It's three debts. Two loans on low interest rates for the length of them and a credit card on 0% for the next 42 months. My repayments will clear the card before the 0% rate ends and the loans have about 50 months left.

I'll have a look at making extra payments to the loans, I was led to believe the penalties would make it negligible but definitely worth checking.

If I carry on as I am I'll be debt-free in under 5 years but I'd definitely like to do better if I can and absolutely change my ways so I don't charge anything else!

Sorry to hear about your allergies, food restrictions are so annoying.

Hope you're having a good day!

BonfireBelle

On_a_Shoestring wrote: »

Just wanted to pop in to say well done for coming here and I'll be following!

Thank you On a Shoestring! Everyone is so helpful and welcoming it really inspires me to keep plodding along with the debt-free journey.

Velvet_Glove

Have you got all the music you want on Spotify? You may as well just have it free in that case.