Becoming obsessed....

EssexOstrich

So, as it's a diary I must remember to use it as such. It's day 8 and still feeling very motivated! It's been a real relief to have taken my head out of the sand and taken stock of the figures. It seems much more doable now I've actually addressed it and written it all down.

I'm going to note down the reasons (briefly) why the debt accrued to remind myself of my stupidity each time I look at this!

• Built an extension courtesy of credit cards and loans, marvellous, but didn't consider prioritising paying off the debt. Instead continued to live entirely normally. In fairness I have probably paid off a good £25k since the extension was finished but as time went on I got lazy with the transfers and paid interest that practically matched the minimum payment.
• No emergency fund - much of the balance is made up from failing to save anything over the years despite earning a decent salary, meaning anything expensive or unexpected was put on the credit card. This included a major car repair bill, my youngest daughters braces (private), my eldest son's car insurance for 3 years running (honestly, no need to tell me I'm stupid here but he needs the car at uni due to the nature of the course), my 2 eldest children's uni accommodation deposits (this is a scandalous industry!!) and a hefty school trip to Russia for my middle daughter when she was in year 11 (now 1st year uni). 
• My husband is self-employed and when work is good, we live it up, when work is not good.... we live off a credit card! About 5 years ago he started suffering from poor health and didn't work for several months which was crippling. We robbed Peter to pay Paul for a fair while until he was back on his feet. Thankfully things are much more stable now.
• Over-compensating. This one is probably the thing that most needs addressing and I find difficult to explain. I had a great childhood, my parents didn't have much but were always generous and my grandparents and aunts and uncles were all very close. Special occasions were just amazing. My grandparents died when I was 12/13 and then my parents died a few years apart years apart when I was in my teens (15 and 18). By the age of 22, all of my relatives had gone except my siblings. I have 2 brothers quite a bit older than me (53 and 56) whom I don't see very often as both have lived overseas for over 25 years. One has struggled financially himself. The other is incredibly frugal. My husband has a tiny family, just his parents and brother, but they aren't 'big' on family, special occasions, etc and that's inherent in the hubby too. So as my children were growing up, and wishing they had more people around them (probably in my head), I was forever trying to puff myself up to be an entire family to them. I've spoiled them at Christmas and birthdays, taken them on some great trips, some fantastic holidays and made some brilliant memories. I don't regret this, it's a very important part of me, but I do regret not saving for it properly and going about things the right way. A combination of wanting my children to still have the same special occasions as I did and also my having the mentality of 'life is too short' has seen me be fairly reckless with money. My husband doesn't understand this outlook (there's black, there's white....nothing in between), as many won't, but it's one of those things that only affect you when you've walked in those particular shoes. I've no idea if that makes any sense, seems crazy writing it down for strangers to read as they really are my most inner thoughts and the vast majority of people who know me would not believe I think like that. Classic case of still waters run deep. 

That's everything diary! I now want this debt paid off so I can enjoy the next phase of my life, kids graduating, getting married, grandchildren, retirement etc without it hanging over me like a bad cloud. 

joedenise

It made perfect sense to me!  I think we always want even more for our children than we had as children.  I had a good childhood and my children to have even more than I had!  We also used credit cards, robbed Peter to pay Paul etc etc.

We are now retired with grown up grandchildren (grandson 22 next month and granddaughter 22 in November) and we managed to sort ourselves out in our late 40s/early 50s so that we didn't live on CCs any more.  I started using YNAB (the older version which you bought outright) and have so many different pots covering everything which needs to be saved for.

I've recently added a couple of extra pots to it as we want to do up our bedroom, not just decorate but new carpet and possibly new furniture but sure about that yet but we're nowhere where we need to be yet so something to think about once we have reasonable amount there.  We're also doing a bit of work in the garden but that's relatively cheap, probably about £500 but we're doing that bit by bit as we get the money together.  First stage just started which was for a skip to clear the rubbish!

You seem to have thought things through and now choosing to get rid of the debt so that you can concentrate on the next stage in your life.

Oops sorry for the waffle!

EssexOstrich

No I love waffle!! It’s good to hear about others stories you did well to sort yourself out and the fact you’ve stayed on track since gives me lots of hope! 

I’m rubbish in the garden 😂 way too impatient to wait for things to grow and I haven’t got a clue about plants! Good luck with all your plans, I have no doubt you’ll get there

another_casualty

You have been through a lot ea, and have become a great mother to your family .
sounds like your husband has been through a fair bit also on the health issues etc.

Hope he is ok now . I do feel for you on the " black and white " side of things . 

You've done a lot , but thankfully realised that things need to be reigned in so to speak.
It can be daunting and off putting when doing these diaries , but hopefully you can see that you are doing everything to put everything right and don't be too hard on yourself  . You seem in control , and on top of things and over time you'll be on top of things .
Keep going ..

FootyFanDan

Amazing start! Well done on getting the emergency fund in place, that should put you in a strong place going forward and hopefully will stop eventually then need for any extra credit. Another fan of Dave Ramsey here too, although I think you can adjust slightly on some of the figures due to the £/$ thing,

EssexOstrich

Thanks for the lovely replies I've had a look at Dave Ramsay, feeling happy that i will only have 5 baby steps rather than 7 as I have no mortgage already and I'm well on my way through putting the kids through uni. Luckily my youngest doesn't seem remotely interested in going!
I've re-ordered my shiny new spreadsheet in order of debt size and must admit it feels good to see the zero's in the columns of the small debts that I've managed to pay off. Bit worried this is going to get addictive and I'll end up with no salary and will have sold the children and a kidney in a bid to update the spreadsheet 

joedenise

It can get a bit addictive paying off debt!  I still had a mortgage when I finally cleared the debt so I just carried on by paying extra off the mortgage.  I used to round down all my accounts and pay off the bits to the mortgage, sometimes daily!  The annual payment sheets from the mortgage company often ran to 7 or 8 pages with all the 23p, 7p, 92p etc that I was paying off!  It certainly felt good getting the figure down as we were on an interest only mortgage so wanted to pay off as much as possible so that there would be something left out of the endowment when we paid it off.

I have to admit I made sure I'd taken off everything which needed to come off that month before I started with the overpayments as I didn't want to end up with not enough money to pay the bills, do the shopping etc.  I still do this and the bits get moved mid month and end of month as our state pensions are weekly and work pensions monthly.  All the bits now get moved into the holiday category as we really enjoy getting away in our motorhome or caravan.

savingholmes

I think it is important to understand why you are in debt. Thank you for sharing. Great that you are off to a flying start now in clearing the debt.

EssexOstrich

Today I’m celebrating a realllllly small thing! I took the money off someone for something I’d got for them when I went shopping. I’m rubbish at this, I feel weirdly uncomfortable taking money off people, especially those who I know don’t have much so I always, always say don’t worry about it and it’s probably cost me a fortune over the years. It’s only £22 but I did it. 

joedenise

£22 is quite a lot really.  Think how much food you could buy for yourself with that.