The long haul supporters thread...

NellyM029

Hi

Thanks for that - well I suppose I have come quite far. Faced my debts head on and stopped spending on credit cards, live within a budget, checked my cedit file. Paid off about £7K in a year (£32K to go!!!) and dramatically reduced my outgoings.

My long term aim is to be debt free by Feb 2015 which will be the last payment of a loan but I may be able to overpay and do it sooner. But short term is to get rid of those credit cards one by one. They're very slowly reducing.

I'm gonna get fit and start running too.

Congratulations on the growing family and wedding. What's the plan for the wedding?

Thanks again for the reply

climbintheladderouttadebt

Lol, the 'plan' for the wedding (it's about as stressful as all this debt fighting!)

OH and I chose a purple and black theme with roses and gemstones. I'm making all the stationery and everything has a bit of a gothic theme to it. The venue we want looks like a castle and we can have the whole day there. Even better - it's round the corner from my place so my mum will look after the kids in the evening while we enjoy ourselves! :beer:

My future MIL wants us to have a big sit-down meal and all the rest, costing thousands. She has offered to pay for loads of it too! But it's not what we want, which is a late afternoon wedding, followed by some photos, speeches, cake cutting then reception. With a nice buffet from M&S with food we actually want to eat!

FMIL keeps tellin me I can't do this and that and the other and I am really enjoying proving her wrong. Lol we don't sound close but actually we really are!

I've loved buying bargains online, from wedding site sales to auction site bargains, my OH is very impressed! :j

Thanks for the good wishes. It's great to read how well you've done, I'm amazed! The 7k figure is brilliant! I'm trying to get my friend to have her lightbulb moment - any tips you could share?

The running will surely boost endorphins and fresh air will lift you up too. I'd love to get my bum into gear and jog along the seafront every, or even most, evenings once baby's here, but unless OH position changes so he can come home from work every night, it's no option

NellyM029

Wedding sounds fab. I not married but if I was I would like something informal, even without my debt I can't believe what some people spend on weddings. But I suppose it is the dream most girls have had since they were tiny.

Tips for the lightbulb moment??? Hmmm I guess with me i was really understanding how much it costs to put something on a credit card. So if I bought something for £50 on a credit card - I was probably paying an extra £10 a year and the minimum payment I wa spaying was paying the interest and not e £50. If that makes sense??

I just never budgeted - buy now worry later attitude. I had to realise that I wasn't going to suddenly double my salary so i had to half my outgoings. It's amamzing how in a year my minimum payments built up to unmanageble levels. What I did was finally open he statements and understand where my money was going.

I've ealised that I have had years of spending wrecklessley so its only fair that I have a few years of spending very wisely. Ying and yang. I also cut up the cards. And now think as simple as if I can't afford it don't buy it. Simples. It is hard though and I still have the odd bottle of wine or two a month as a treat. But that is such an improvement to spending £70 on a night out. I could cry when I think of how much money I wasted.

As soon as I am outta debt I plan to save and never go back to those wastefl days. I just wish I had had my lightbulb moment years and £££ sooner.

Is your pal still hammerring the credit cards?

Soma

Nelly sounds like you are actually doing really well. A free hobby like running sounds perfect - maybe you could run with a buddy?

I'd like a simple wedding too, don't go in for big meals and load of attention. Hoping to do that in the next few years as well as have kids so my debt free date is gonna be skewed. I didn't realise maternity pay was so pants too!

climbintheladderouttadebt

NellyM029 wrote: »

Wedding sounds fab. I not married but if I was I would like something informal, even without my debt I can't believe what some people spend on weddings. But I suppose it is the dream most girls have had since they were tiny. We plan to do the whole thing on less than 4k. Fingers crossed but I really think we can!

I could cry when I think of how much money I wasted. Ditto.

As soon as I am outta debt I plan to save and never go back to those wastefl days. I just wish I had had my lightbulb moment years and £££ sooner. Same! If I could find £100 a month to pay for 2 new sofas fo so long, why didn't I use £100 just one month to buy 2nd hand?!

Is your pal still hammerring the credit cards?

No, she has had them all revoked now. But I notice both Vanquis & Cap 1 gave her 2nd cards when she had defaulted on the first lot! Utter stupidity...

I like your advice, thank you so much for it. I was hoping friend would take a leaf out of my book but my circumstances are so different to hers - in a way I have everything she wants. I can't get her to see that if she sorts herself out now she can have the nice place n a decent lifestyle instead of debt & stress etc. She has seen me live on £2 a week to feed my daughter & become very ill in the process. I hope to have a more frank discussion with her soon, face to face, but fear the upset & directness of it may upset her mental health (she seems a lot more unstable than anybody first thought but I don;t know who else has picked up on this).

NellyM029

Thanks ! I think I just have to remind myself how far I have come instead of thinking how far I have to go. Yes I maybe wanna get married have kids etc so that is all the more reason not to spend now isn't it???

The running will happen when I move closer to work and cut out the travelling time.

this forum is so good to help you realise you're not alone!!

Happytogetdebtfree

Evening :-) lovely pep talk :-). Ahh wedding planning :-) yipeee x I'm shattered productive day though :-) x

climbintheladderouttadebt

Happytogetdebtfree wrote: »

Evening :-) lovely pep talk :-). Ahh wedding planning :-) yipeee x I'm shattered productive day though :-) x

Hi Happy! Tell us about your day, if you will..!

And yay! More weddings and babies! Hehe something I could talk about for hours! lol

Soma

good luck with your friend climbingladder, maybe she'll come round. People need to have their own lightbulb moments.

good for you Nelly! I think we all curse the money we wasted. Some of mine were needing to have the latest videogames and hardly using them, hoarding craft stash, not wanting to cook...I guess the way to redeem myself is sell or use all the uneccessary stuff.

Soma

its nice to know that I can talk wedding and babies with so much debt and not get cussed would like to elope to avoid having too much family there but that may not happen as parents would get too peed off.