Keep getting in debt

Working_Mum

Years_of_debt wrote: »

Anyone can sit here and point out the flaws in this lady’s life.
Why don’t we do something constructive..
Ring StepChange Charity be honest with them, it may be that a DMP or similar might work do you, freezing all interest and just paying 1 lump sum a month. Give them a ring today if you have an hour. It’s the best thing I did. Anyone can sit here and tel you to “do this and do that” but they aren’t in your position.
Best bet is to ring the experts and let the keyboard warriors make themselves feel good whilst trying to give you “constructive” advice.

I think you have to be very careful as this seems to be your only piece of advice to posters Years of Debt. You are going bankrupt. Your life may have been different if you'd taken a different approach to your debts.

There are consequences to each choice made and every poster on her simply wants to suggest ways of making things work for the OP, challenge her thinking and spending with a view to making her life better.

I paid off over £90k worth of debt (ex-husband an them up in my name) but I was a company director and couldn't go bankrupt so my choices were seriously limited.

Whatever the OP decision she could still make the changes suggested with a view to budgetting correctly so she doesn't repeat the same mistakes and end up in the same position a few years down the line.

People post here for help, support and guidance at really difficult times and there is not a one solution to all money problems - which is the beauty of the amazing Forum - you calling members "keyboard warriors" is rude and judgmental and totally against the vibe and ethos of this Forum.

sheepy21

Ok I guess I should have specified, we definitely don’t need a dmp.
The £13000 “loan” is money I owe my parents that they leant towards buying our house, so no interest on that.
Overdraft of £200 is also interest free (for a year)
And the £1629 on the Tesco card is also interest free (for a year)

I don’t really consider the 13k to be a debt, but more like an add on to our mortgage. If the worse ever happened, then my parents wouldn’t be after the money back.
So the real debt as it were is the £1800 we owe. £300 is the fridge/freezer, the other £1500 is the result of things we had to sort for the house. I want to stress, we’re honestly not extravagant in our lifestyle. We do everything as cheap as poss, I figured a diy way of cat proofing our fence, which cost £100 as opposed to the £600 a kit would’ve cost. My fuel pump broke on my car out of the blue, managed to get it fixed cheapies in the end bit still cost £250. So it’s sort of been a series of things that have caught up with us before we’ve had a chance to save for them.

Some of the bits are blank on the SOA as I didn’t know what to put in. Obviously we buy presents through the year but not sure what a realistic amount is to set aside each month. Holiday is currently blank, but we normally go on a sun holiday which costs about £300 all in with food etc, that said we prob won’t go this year.
The amount of council tax each month is as it stand now, it will be marginally more from around March because things got messed up when we moved house.
Water is over 12 months so can’t go any lower
Electricity can’t get lower, our heating is also electricity based and I’m home pretty much 24/7
Our Sky package is already discounted, so there again no lower
The emergency fund we’ve just started last month, we’d been planning on saving for the new fridge but when it broke we had to put it on the 0% credit card.
My husband gets paid on 27th, so fresh start and we’re going to closely track everything to see where it’s all going, because we should obviously have funds to clear our debts and cover everything else.
Went shopping in Aldi today and got a huge shop for £57 which I was very pleased with, also sold some stuff at the weekend which paid for aforementioned shop. So we still have enough to get my husbands Petrol without creating debt, which I guess is a small victory!

sheepy21

Dobbibill wrote: »

A few things highlighted in red from me.

A spending diary is a must to find out where you are losing over £300 a month. Once you've found it, a few tweaks to your SOA should see you debt busting.

All the best.

I’ve posted a somewhat rambling reply above tried to touch on the points you made and those of others. Come the 27th with a fresh start we’ll 100% track what we spend, I did keep a diary a few years ago and found it effective, so will do it again!

Oh and meant to say, the other insurance bit is critical illness on my husband, we have both that and life insurance.

Dobbibill

sheepy21 wrote: »

I’ve posted a somewhat rambling reply above tried to touch on the points you made and those of others. Come the 27th with a fresh start we’ll 100% track what we spend, I did keep a diary a few years ago and found it effective, so will do it again!

Oh and meant to say, the other insurance bit is critical illness on my husband, we have both that and life insurance.

I've had a read of the other post and you really are trying to live frugally. Well done for selling things to create money for a shop this week and getting good value for your money in Aldi.


The plan of action to create a spending diary along with the amounts you are paying towards the OD and Tesco CC are a good plan and the figures will see you debt free before the interest kicks in so that's brilliant.


For the figures for Xmas and birthdays take the amount you spent last year as a ball park figure (divide it by 3 for this years Xmas amount, and 12 going forward from Dec). As a guide I put £50 aside for car maintenance every month for one car - depending on the ages of the cars/mileage you may want to up that a little for 2.

I think you know deep down you can do this I wish you all the best for your debt busting and fresh start on the 27th.


Dobbi

enthusiasticsaver

It sounds as if you are living as frugally as you can given your income. If the loan is at 0% and your parents are happy with the repayment schedule I would ignore that. You have £331 left to allocate in your soa and are saving £100 a month towards emergency savings. I would use maybe £30 of that spare money to bring the overdraft down quicker and that will then be gone in 4 months. You can then use the £50 from that to go to the Tesco card. In the meantime you have the £300 to cover presents, entertainment etc and any unused could go in emergency savings. This will help you break the cycle of getting in debt, getting out of it then getting back in again. You need savings pots and emergency savings and as your debt is 0% and manageable you have the luxury of being able to sort this out slowly and make it a lifetime change of not using credit.

enthusiasticsaver

Obviously my post above depends on you finding out where the missing £331 is going so a spending diary is a great idea. I suspect it probably is entertainment, presents etc.