The long haul supporters thread...

penguin83

I'll add mine too. First got into debt at 18, then met my partner who is older than me so already had debts of his own. Had my first baby at 19, bought a house at 20 and had second baby at 21. This hit us hard financially as although we have a good income, we had never had to worry about budgetting before so we ended up with a joint debt of just under 50k. At the grand old age of 23 I had my lightbulb moment and although I spent only 5 years accumulating debt, I have learnt enough to know I will never go back there! Hope to be debt free by 2011 (when I will be 28) and mortgage free before 40 by which time my kids will be 21 and 19. x x x

In_Search_Of_Me

Thanks for those pepys - its good to know on a slightly deeper level while people are here. Penguin at least you learned the lesson early on in life - I wont even pay the debt until I'm about 45 (front loaded interest!) so doubt I'll be mort free too early! Wendy know what you mean about spending diary & lunches - its the little bits that make the budget go awry & thankfully with just me dont have to reign an oh in! Plus when you see how much those lunches cost its definate eek land but hard sometimes - I seem to go through phases!

Numpty_Monkey

Hi folks

guess this is the time and place to give mydebt life story and how and why, if i write it it might make sense to me, but probably won't

ok
went on holiday with my then girlfriend and her mam and dad, her dad took ill on holiday, we had enough to pay what we had to between us, when i got back i thought about getting a credit card for such emergancies, this was about 1991, credit limit of £400 i think.
that relationship ended and never thought about using the card until i got forced to go from weekly pay to monthly(not a well paid job)so to live in the transittion period started using the card and the card limit had gone up , so in the space of a few months the card went to about £1500,
Then I got made redundant i got the minimal government payout about £3000 for 14 years at the same place. paid card off but couldn't get a job for 3 months. When i did get a job i was just paying minimum payments and a few higher payments, It was going down i think about £900 balance

until my now ex came along
We got a flat together, got a few things on card, then we got a loan £5000 in my name (she said her credit record wasn't good) better to get it in my name, which i did thinking that we would live happily ever after, paid of card, new pc for me a car for her things for the flat, and a holiday.

The holiday is where i messed up i let her have the card and number as we couldn't get any money from my bank abroad.

I'd had a few problems getting statements for bank and card sent to new adress and after a few months theres the card staement for over £3000 mostly cash withdrawls highest apr you can get, also missed payments for card,rent,council tax elec,gas and then she dissappears (or so she thinks) 7 holidays in a year)
leaving me with all the debt in my name.

I found this site after searching for bankrupt on google, went to another site and found a link to MSE thank God i did. you lot have saved my life, and a year or 2 after i'm debt free I'm gonna have a holiday

a

prophecy_grrl

Hi all

I haven't posted for ages, but have been on the wagon nonetheless, just don't seem to get time to log on...

We got into debt over the last few years as a result of taking out loans and using CCs to supplemnet the single income we were living on. DH has now started working (in Sept last year), meaning we now have a good deal of extra money, for the first time ever.

Anyway, I'm celebrating a small victory at the minute, and wanted to share it with fellow DFW's... We have paid off our last CC this week :T

We originally started saving for a holiday last september - ish, but decided to use the money for our CC instead.

Anyway, the CC is now paid off, just waiting for 0 balance staement before cancelling :T

We still have our loans to pay off. I looked into settling them early as we have some spare cash, but the early settlement fees were ridiculous. So we've put the money into a seperate bank account, out of temptation's way, and set up the loan DDs to come out of there. This means that we don't have to worry about the monthly £400 - ish payemnts we were making, we just need to put £50-£100 into that accounteach month to make sure we have money in there to pay off the whole loan term, due to end in September 2010....

As I've typed that I've just realised that by paying off the CC we've reduced our DFD from Dec 2010 to Sept 2010 WOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOO:T :T :T :T

anyway sorry to ramble, hope all you lovely longhaulers are doing ok - just off to update my sig now!

Numpty_Monkey

from small acorns do oak trees grow

prophecy_grrl

I keep telling myself that!

In_Search_Of_Me

aww numpty sounds like you had some bad girlie luck there Hopefully you've learned the lesson and will be more reluctant to hand out cash next time - if they love you they love you - not whats in your wallet (phnar phnar!). Great that you found us though!
Fab news phrophecy_grrl!! Am chuffed for you as know for me at least its the CC's that cause the stress - knowing youre paying interest! Just make sure you dont do what I did before & go yahoooo & spend on them again! Really am chuffed for you & wish there was a smiley with someone doing cartwheels! Do keep coming on though - lets see if we can get that DFD down even more & get shot of the loans! Psychologically it would be a huge boost, even if you didnt save money - are they front loaded loans?

Numpty_Monkey

lol.. :rotfl:

:eek: just claimed my first bingo winnings £20 up:j :T

Numpty_Monkey

Thanks ISOM i thought me and her would be together forever, This is gonna sound stupid but i think she is my soulmate, just not meant to be , and i have learned my lesson but why do they have to be so expensive :rotfl:

I wish i had found this site before i got into debt, but that is life

thank you all

andy xx

Keeping_Positive

Aww Numpty why is it always the nice ones that get walked over? I am a complete wally found this site and still racked up debt.

Been brave and finally started my own diary, Im in overspend already EEK. Warning its a long fist post.