And so id like to be a debt free girl....but....

Debtslayer

Lancashirelass1 wrote: »

Hello all,
well all I can say is OMG what have I done, reflecting on what I have done, a little panic and then I am not ready to put it all in writing with my plan.....


My income first and foremost and then you will see and I HAVE SEEN too what it is I am literally just wasting my money on. I have put it on my list that this week I need to get a spending diary going and I have to learn before I buy whether it is a need or a want - I have given all this a lot of thought, I have looked around my 'stuff'' and what I have wasted my money on and given a lot of thought about going forward.....I have no idea if this is what you need to see but this is how I have done it. I have also negotiated a cheaper deal with EON and I have also realised last night that I have come to the end of my mobile phone contract so that got cancelled this morning.
On my credit file, and then speaking to the credit card company I owe more than what is on the file, but I cant work this out why, but I owe way more than what is on Noodle to the Experian one and I am going off the one that seems more accurate, but all the same I owe slightly more than I first thought but as you have all said, this is a step towards a plan!
Here goes......


INCOME MONTHLY
Wages - £2587.00
Child Benefit - 83.00
= £2670.00


PRIORITIES all paid monthly
Mortgage - £300.00 m
Council - £125.00 m - Consider paying over 12 months rather than 10; otherwise you might end up wasting the money from the 2 free months
EON combined £98.00 m - Check comparison sites to see if you can get cheaper
Water £50.00 m - This seems very high. Check to see if meter would be cheaper
Car Ins - £41.67 m - Check comparison sites to see if you can get cheaper. Also use cashback sites like Quidco or Topcashback
Home Ins - £46.15m - Check comparison sites to see if you can get cheaper and use cashback sites
total - £660.82


Expenditure
Prescription - £8.30m
Mobile - £15.50m - one more month as cancelled today one more month - Are you going sim only or pay as you go? Put new figure in here
Home phone/internet - £46.00 - This is very high; check to see if you can get cheaper
Car Ins - £45.65m (includes breakdown cover) - You have already stated this once
Tax - £11.37m
Petrol - £50.00m - Do you really need a car?
Total - 176.82


Food shopping/sundries
Aldi - £75.00 WEEKLY - this includes some weeks have to buy toiletries/washing etc before this I was shopping at Sainsburys, Tesco and Asda and I was spending most of my money here
Total - 75.00 weekly - You should be able to do it for less than this; we spend £60 per week for two adults


Personal
Gym - £35.00m
Protein - £15.00m
Gym - £12.00m - child membership
school - £15.00w child meals
Lottery - 12.50m - Stop playing and put this towards the debts
Vitamins - 15.00m - Do you really need this and protein?
Total - 146.50
I make this total £104.50




DEBTS
Credit Union - £300.00m - directly out of wages - balance owed £6943.00
Barclaycard - £4,000.00 - £95.00m high APR
Cap one - £750.00 - £35.00m
Vanquis - £2063.00 - £23.00
Aqua - £1150.00 - £15.00
car loan - 6983.00 - £132.00
Catalogue - £2100.00 - not paying as didn't know about it - very strange on my credit file and no action taken - VERY STRANGE!!
Lowel - 210.00 - an old cat bill and spoke to them today


total - 600.00


Checked my bank statement and I have listed every direct debit and I have noted that last month before I was doing this I paid over 350.00 on rubbish, nipping into the supermarket for bread and milk and spending £86.00 on one trip!
Over the last two weeks I have shopped at Aldi and both trips I have spent £66.00 and on another £71.63.
But then went to Tesco in the week and spent £35.00 and then again another 19.68.
All this amounts up and also taking into account that some months have a 4 week/5 week month.
I cant cancel my gym membership this cannot be cancelled at all, myself and my daughter walk, we run, we walk the dogs, we do lots of free things, spending time with family etc and we love the gym.
I do not drink at all and I do not smoke....I also don't watch TV as you will note I have no TV licence!
Today I have brought in sandwiches and I have worked it out that not only saving money, but the health benefits of prepping my own lunch is better than a shop bought quick sandwich...


So guys this is a lot WORSE than I thought I was really upset this morning but I have cancelled the mobile phone and they did try to get me to take out another contract and I didn't do it!
I have also got EON to agree to change my prices as I was paying 140.00 and now they have agreed due to being in credit that I can pay off 98.00 per month.


So the Lowell, shall I pay this off this month? then snowball everything?


Go easy on me guys!


Thank you
LL

Hi
I've made some comments above but if you can please try and do an SOA in the SOA calculator; its much easier to read and see how much you're paying out each month and have surplus.
Check to see if you can get lower APR credit cards that you could transfer the very high APR debts to. If you can't get 0% deals then try to get low life of balance APR cards
You can certainly sort this out and pay off these debts.
P.S I am not going to tell you to cancel your gym membership; although you have debts I personally don't think it would do you any good to cancel something you obviously enjoy so much and you don't spend money on other vices like smoking or drinking

enthusiasticsaver

You have a decent salary and no defaults so you should be able to get some 0% credit cards to balance transfer the Barclaycard and maybe the part of the Capital one and Vanquis or Aqua card. You need to sort out the catalogue debt if you don't know what it is. You do not want it to affect your credit rating as you need 0% deals to get rid of those high interest charging credit cards. The payments you are making on them at the moment will hardly cover the interest so they will never go down unless you get them on 0% or lower interest rate or up the payments considerably.

You should have lots of money left over but obviously you don't probably because of the little top up shops in Tescos and the unbudgeted spends. The lottery may as well be stopped as you stand little chance of winning anything. A spending diary is a good idea and maybe draw cash out weekly for essentials.

You have pets but you have not budgeted for them, presumably you have hair cuts, buy clothes for your daughter at least and buy presents for birthday/Christmas? No entertainment or school trips? Nothing put aside for maintenance for the car or car tax? Doing the mse soa would be more accurate and make you think about the things you need to put money aside for but don't.

fatbelly

Lowell is zero interest and probably ancient. It's not a priority. If you go on to their website you may find they are offering you a settlement deal on it. There's no downside in doing this though you may not want to give them a genuine phone number!

I wouldn't rush to pay the 'catalogue' either. Are you sure it's yours? You didn't seem to know much about it . What does the credit file entry say? When was it defaulted? When was it last updated? It couldn't be the one Lowell bought could it?

The cards need to go to 0% and then consider a voluntary termination on the car if it is on HP. If you do this at the halfway-point of your credit agreement there should be nothing further to pay.

Then it's a case of hitting every figure on your soa - using info on this site and cashback websites. We'll be able to see more clearly when you post a full soa but you're on a good wage and I can see you being debt free by April 2019.

System

Lancashirelass1 wrote: »

INCOME MONTHLY
Wages - £2587.00
Child Benefit - 83.00
= £2670.00


PRIORITIES all paid monthly
Mortgage - £300.00 m
Council - £125.00 m
EON combined £98.00 m - this is high - how many people are you paying for. For two adults it should be around £60
Water £50.00 m - this is also high, for two adults it should be around £30. Are you on rates or meter?
Car Ins - £41.67 m
Home Ins - £46.15m - this is high too - should be £20 - £30 for home AND contents with a decent amount of cover
total - £660.82


Expenditure
Prescription - £8.30m
Mobile - £15.50m - one more month as cancelled today one more month
Home phone/internet - £46.00 - you can get a better deal on this
Car Ins - £45.65m (includes breakdown cover)
Tax - £11.37m
Petrol - £50.00m
Total - 176.82


Food shopping/sundries
Aldi - £75.00 WEEKLY - this includes some weeks have to buy toiletries/washing etc before this I was shopping at Sainsburys, Tesco and Asda and I was spending most of my money here
Total - 75.00 weekly


Personal
Gym - £35.00m
Protein - £15.00m
Gym - £12.00m - child membership
school - £15.00w child meals
Lottery - 12.50m - not many people on here will understand this...
Vitamins - 15.00m - can't you get cheap ones from Bodycare/Aldi?
Total - 146.50




DEBTS
Credit Union - £300.00m - directly out of wages - balance owed £6943.00
Barclaycard - £4,000.00 - £95.00m high APR
Cap one - £750.00 - £35.00m
Vanquis - £2063.00 - £23.00
Aqua - £1150.00 - £15.00
car loan - 6983.00 - £132.00
Catalogue - £2100.00 - not paying as didn't know about it - very strange on my credit file and no action taken - VERY STRANGE!!
Lowel - 210.00 - an old cat bill and spoke to them today


total - 600.00


Checked my bank statement and I have listed every direct debit and I have noted that last month before I was doing this I paid over 350.00 on rubbish, nipping into the supermarket for bread and milk and spending £86.00 on one trip!
Over the last two weeks I have shopped at Aldi and both trips I have spent £66.00 and on another £71.63.
But then went to Tesco in the week and spent £35.00 and then again another 19.68.
All this amounts up and also taking into account that some months have a 4 week/5 week month.
I cant cancel my gym membership this cannot be cancelled at all, myself and my daughter walk, we run, we walk the dogs, we do lots of free things, spending time with family etc and we love the gym.
I do not drink at all and I do not smoke....I also don't watch TV as you will note I have no TV licence!
Today I have brought in sandwiches and I have worked it out that not only saving money, but the health benefits of prepping my own lunch is better than a shop bought quick sandwich...


So guys this is a lot WORSE than I thought I was really upset this morning but I have cancelled the mobile phone and they did try to get me to take out another contract and I didn't do it!
I have also got EON to agree to change my prices as I was paying 140.00 and now they have agreed due to being in credit that I can pay off 98.00 per month.


So the Lowell, shall I pay this off this month? then snowball everything?


Go easy on me guys!


Thank you
LL

Keep going you'll get there!

pollyanna24

You mention dogs. Do you have pet insurance?

Angela84

Just wanted to say hello, your story sounds similar to mine, earlier this year I finally found the strength to start paying off my debts, and I can assure you it gets addictive!
I've paid off £3000 so far and apart from a couple of slip ups I've been really dedicated. You can do it.
The first things I did that helped:
Transfer all cards to 0% Interest, saved me hundreds a month and thousands in the long term.
Started shopping at Aldi and set myself a budget and made myself stick to it. Once a week visit and if we run out during the week, tough! You'll quickly learn how much milk etc you need so you're not having to nip back in midweek and be tempted. Meal plan so you know what's for lunch and dinner every night, and keep things simple.
Check through your house for things to sell, this is what I do for some pocket money.
I've viewed the whole process the same as my healthy eating and exercise regime, I've got addicted to seeing those numbers come down, if I slip up I don't just give up and stop repaying my cards I just have a word with myself and carry on.
Know that this will be a tight few months but think of the freedom you'll have next year, debt free, able to save for lovely holidays and treat yourself and your daughter like you deserve!

nikongirl

I went through a similar situation to yours about 10 years ago. Discovering how much you really owe is terrifying but you have enough expendable income to make it work.

I get the feeling that one of the keys to this is getting control of impulse spending. I'd recommend sorting through everything in your house and deciding whether it's really something you need/want any more. The Konmari method is one way of doing this (get Marie Kondo's 'The Lifechanging Magic of Tidying Up' from your local library or their free ebook service) or you can ask yourself "If I had a house fire and everything was destroyed, would I replace this?" It's really helped me confront all the things I've spent money on over the years. Previously I would have hung on to them because I felt guilty about spending so much money. Now, getting rid of stuff brings me more joy than buying them ever did. It will inform my buying decisions for the rest of my life. And of course once you sell them, that's a bit of extra cash towards the debt.

Oh, and Aldi's great but go there with a list and don't even look at what's in those wire racks down the middle of the aisles!

Lancashirelass1

Hi all
After searching for the SOA on my phone and then getting quite annoyed with it all, I took an emergency day off (this was an emergency) as my friend head of finance had a day off and agreed to give me free advice and to help me with the form on her computer - so it was a called for day off.
After tears and waiting in queues on telephone banking trying to get the exact figures and Apr we finally had something that looked like a plan.
I have it all saved in her computer which she will send to my work email but I have quickly jotted it all down.
so from there, and my friend is a tough woman!!!!! I was then sent....
Into a bank and opened up a separate bank account.
800.00 per month gets paid into this from my next pay day August, I have got to go in next week and get my new details as I didn't have enough ID and then go into my own bank and set up the standing order.
I have paid off Lowell and I have also set aside service money for my car, I also paid for the year my tax for the car as I was paying 11.37 per month, as its due next month and so is the MOT so its booked in for next week and I have the money to pay for it all and i have paid for a years insurance and saved money in the long run. The rest this month is for shopping and she has given me 50.00 per week, that is for lunches and home - honestly she really is a tough woman!

As for my plan, she said is really good, but easily broken, due to the fact that when she looked at my plan, I wasn't accounting for, my servicing of my boiler, fire, my alarm servicing, car etc, like you have all said, things like birthdays, Christmas.
Things like downsize, stop the gym etc were all argued about, but I am not looking now for a quick fix, selling or downsizing isn't what I want.
I have too much going on to have a house sale on my mind too and at the end of the day I can afford it, BUT if I hadn't have got this help, who knows I may have got myself into it all too deep. What I was trying to say to her, is that I cant afford because on paper I am over spending, stop the over spending and it will all be OK, so the gym stays and my house isn't in the equation.
The electric and gas combined is right, the size of my house and I do work at home too, but argued that I should get more towards to the cost of this from work, plus I do not claim mileage either....so I have to start to claim mileage as this will also help with the cost of the petrol as i am not paying 50.00 as I thought I am actually putting in 65.00, she worked it all out for me yesterday, she said every time I put in petrol I then go on a shopping spree so what is a 20.00 top up of petrol is a 60.00 shopping trip.
So on a positive note, I am very very happy with the plan :j
ACTION PLAN
new account 800.00 plus the direct debits and I then start the snowball tackling the first credit card etc AND in 20 months I am cleared in full.
Appointments booked in to see my friend in December, February and April and then book in again. She will monitor the accounts as I will give her the statements. In return, I do not have to pay her as she is my friend, but she does know people that come to her that might need housing advice or even court advice.
I am to keep a diary as you have advised and she said I have got to keep coming on here and getting lots of advice as she said that it does help,especially with advice on just keeping it all up as it can get a bit hard.

she wants me to sustain this, she said that it is extremely hard going if I went with my plan, hence why I have got a bit of a starter as i haven't over spent in my July wage so been able to get all my big things sorted out, so in August I start the plan. That I have come to her and started my thread at the best time before it got worse. Plus everything with my dad is a stressful time for us all.
I also do a have default, it is 4 years old and it is the catalogue, what is very interesting though is that they have not taken any action on it, when I rang them yesterday they have frozen it. They have also said that I can put it on a plan and so its all in the snowball, so basically everything got sorted out yesterday, as I couldn't do it on my phone and I will be honest i was getting upset and struggling.

Its funny though, because what I do for a living I am very good at it, and very assertive but when it comes to money I am afraid I am a little over my head with it all - but soon I will be more in control over it.

She said I have got to stop giving to the charities, and stop buying food for the food bank, homelessness, housing is my thing and she said that if I wanted to do anything maybe give my time or even come on here and offer advice but whilst I am in this, I have got to stop giving money.

I now feel much better, I will update you, and I will also come on here and see if i can offer any advice too, as I am not allowed to give money, so advice and time is all I have. I have got my diary, which you will be very proud, from the pound shop and that is all I bought, because I only had 2.00 anyway, and needed a pound for the parking, because I am now on a mission with this!! I have got an excel spreadsheet open with each debt which she did for me and will send to me.
She said that once I have done this, i can start paying off my mortgage!!

Thank you to everyone, it has got to be one of the most weird weeks i have ever had, fear, worry, regret, more worry and then finally, positive feelings of finally getting somewhere and I am feeling better about it all. Its literally taken most of my time from when I first emailed and I will say this, your advice has been brilliant, its hard on my phone, I am at work now catching up from yesterday but you have all helped me get the ball rolling and sorted so i have done the hard bit now and got some actions to follow so thank you so so much.
I am on the road to being debt free and more in control and living my life.....will keep coming on mithering......and for some lifting up, because I realise it will be hard going and hopefully this plan is sustainable!!
Thank you again.....I cant thank you enough.....
to be continued......
LL

Lancashirelass1

pollyanna24 wrote: »

You mention dogs. Do you have pet insurance?

no but I do now!!!!
Thank you x

Lancashirelass1

Angela84 wrote: »

Just wanted to say hello, your story sounds similar to mine, earlier this year I finally found the strength to start paying off my debts, and I can assure you it gets addictive!
I've paid off £3000 so far and apart from a couple of slip ups I've been really dedicated. You can do it.
The first things I did that helped:
Transfer all cards to 0% Interest, saved me hundreds a month and thousands in the long term.
Started shopping at Aldi and set myself a budget and made myself stick to it. Once a week visit and if we run out during the week, tough! You'll quickly learn how much milk etc you need so you're not having to nip back in midweek and be tempted. Meal plan so you know what's for lunch and dinner every night, and keep things simple.
Check through your house for things to sell, this is what I do for some pocket money.
I've viewed the whole process the same as my healthy eating and exercise regime, I've got addicted to seeing those numbers come down, if I slip up I don't just give up and stop repaying my cards I just have a word with myself and carry on.
Know that this will be a tight few months but think of the freedom you'll have next year, debt free, able to save for lovely holidays and treat yourself and your daughter like you deserve!

Hi there, and thank you for sharing with me, I get all this I really do, especially the meal planning, what is the gym saying fail to prepare, prepare to fail! to be honest, looking after my dad, my mum, and being the eldest child is hard sometimes and prepping my meals has fallen off the table, because I used to do this all the time, but I am armed now, because financial advisor has given me a budget. However, I Love Aldi, I have no idea why I have never been in before, I have done my shopping all healthy, I have also prepped some meat meals and they are in the fridge for the next few days. Not only will my debts get slim I think I will lose some weight too!
I am not thinking too much about the holidays just yet, but how nice will that be for us, just not having the worry if I can afford it or not, now that would be lovely!!!, my short term goals for now, as I do believe that short term goals are achievable at first, and form better habits, these are just getting used to the diary keeping, the monitoring of it all and I do feel slightly nervous about it so the short term goal is getting into this habit, then I will look at longer term goals like, maybe looking towards a holiday for us....its making me think of it and perhaps do a wish list/bucket list!
Thank you x