Climbing Out Of This £45,000 debt

Jophi2b

Smashingitnow said:

Hiya
So gutted to hear about your job loss but you sound to be taking it positively! Is there no redundancy payment at all? Raising 150 pounds from selling should be possible if you really go at it as you've said you've got quite a few things...could you call your creditors and tell them you have lost your job due to Covid and ask that they freeze the interest? It's worth a try!

Thanks Smashingitnow, no redundancy pay unfortunately. I've been looking at all of my options, including requesting an interest freeze. I have managed to get onto a training course next week and the closing dates for 4 jobs I have applied for are coming up next week too, hoping next week will be my lucky week, so will see what happens there first I think.  Really keen to not damage my credit rating in any way at the moment, though realise that it may have to come to that at some point if I am going to be out of work for longer than a few months. Will keep on slogging away at the job search in the meantime!

Jophi2b

IrishSean said:

Jophi2b said: 

Ok, so having sat down and looked at my current situation (hopefully a very temporary one!), taking everything back to bare bones, I should be able to cover rent and all bills (phew!). I will, however, if I want to cover my minimum credit card payments, have a shortfall of £151 a month. So, my monthly extra earnings goal will be to make at least £151 (£5 a day) to cover this so that my credit rating does not nosedive. Failing that, with the knowledge that this is a temporary situation, I think I would rather go into my overdraft if necessary (rather than default on my payments), though I will be aiming to cover it with my extra money making activities.  In the meantime, I have been applying for quite a few jobs and have lots of people on the look out for me!

September food spend so far = £15.95

Good luck on your journey!
I had been lurking and meaning to ask if you had security in your job but events have overtaken that; it might be best to apply for everything & anything to cover bills; i'm a former employment officer & careers advisor so recruitment agencies & an up to date CV will be key. 

You will need a number of things; a realistic time-frame (from here, 7 years imo),  you should be on 0% OD regardless of who you bank with, as you've lost your job due to covid. Seek forbearance, at least from your most expensive lenders: call them and do 'door in the face technique'.. tell them you're unable to pay and can they freeze payments for the foreseeable until you find employment. If / when they say no, offer a peppercorn amount, maybe less than minimum. This is often much better than default. 

You do need to consider all options such as debt management solutions up to and including bankruptcy should you fail to find employment quickly. It might be better to have these options researched & in the wings rather than tread water and throw money at debts you 'might' default on. 

Those are worst case scenarios of course; but none of them mean losing where you live or not being able to afford to live; they deal with the debt, but do restrict you to new credit for 6 years.
On the hierarchy of needs others are right: pay rent, bills & eat. Mortgage can't be on your radar at the minute, that's a longer term goal.

I think you should talk to one of the free debt charities for tailored advice.

Good luck; with the right plan in place you'll come through it all OK, just keep all options open 
💪😉

Thanks very much for your advice IrishSean, it's much appreciated. I've had a good look at all of my options and will be keeping an open mind towards all of them so that if I have to go down any of those paths, I will do so with my eyes open.  For the moment though, I am keeping optimistic and throwing everything I have got at getting another job and raising extra monies in the hope that it is all going to come good soon. 

Jophi2b

mark55man said:

Sounds like a good plan.  Even if you can't pay back in your current circumstance, working hard to stay level if possibly even more important.  So good luck

Have you looked at all the paid surveys (plenty of threads) - I don't do them  myself but lots on here are making £50 a month with some effort.  But time is on your side.

Finally when you get back to work,  can I suggest a debt free date target - for me it was a key motivator after many years going the scenic route (plenty of detours) with the date - I am now even more determined to get to 0    

Thanks again for your support mark55man. I have joined a couple of the survey sites, but am going to join a few more this weekend.  I really like the idea of a debt free date target, that sounds like something that would really motivate me too, so will definitely do that once I am working again.

Jophi2b

Both of my children have just finished their first full week at school. One of them attends a school which is over 10 miles from home and used to be transported by taxi, but given the current circumstances, I have been doing the school run for both the kids, which has been taking about 3 hours of the day. Not ideal, but I can claim a travel allowance for the 10 mile journey, so that is something at least.

I have been using the 4 hours of child free time exclusively on employment related activities and am still feeling positive and optimistic that something is going to come up soon (I have been keeping a very open mind regarding what I am applying for. Employment is employment at this moment during these very strange and uncertain times). I am also starting to work on my self employment plans, as I am feeling like I have nothing to lose at the moment!

I have been busy listing stuff for sale in the evenings and currently have just over 50 current listings, with lots more to still get on there. I just wish it didn't take so long to do each listing. Maybe I will get quicker at it (doesn't feel like it yet!)

I spotted a Lidl on the new school run route this week, so decided to give it a try. Was impressed, especially as I got £5 off and a few other discounts by using the Lidl Plus app on my phone. I will be popping in on the way past again next week to see if I can get one of their £1.50 veg boxes. I found the area where they put them instore (past the checkouts) but it was empty, so will see if I can be lucky next time.

We went to collect a Too Good To Go box from Morrisons this evening. Despite an extremely long wait (52 minutes!), the box was quite good. We had 17 items, a good mix of bread, cakes and veg, though that did include 3 big lettuces! They are looking okay at the moment, but not sure we will be able to eat them all in salads before they go over. I think I might have to do a bit of Googling to see if I can come up with something so they don't go to waste.

September food spend so far = £50.40

IrishSean

Jophi2b said:

IrishSean said:

Jophi2b said: 

Ok, so having sat down and looked at my current situation (hopefully a very temporary one!), taking everything back to bare bones, I should be able to cover rent and all bills (phew!). I will, however, if I want to cover my minimum credit card payments, have a shortfall of £151 a month. So, my monthly extra earnings goal will be to make at least £151 (£5 a day) to cover this so that my credit rating does not nosedive. Failing that, with the knowledge that this is a temporary situation, I think I would rather go into my overdraft if necessary (rather than default on my payments), though I will be aiming to cover it with my extra money making activities.  In the meantime, I have been applying for quite a few jobs and have lots of people on the look out for me!

September food spend so far = £15.95

Good luck on your journey!
I had been lurking and meaning to ask if you had security in your job but events have overtaken that; it might be best to apply for everything & anything to cover bills; i'm a former employment officer & careers advisor so recruitment agencies & an up to date CV will be key. 

You will need a number of things; a realistic time-frame (from here, 7 years imo),  you should be on 0% OD regardless of who you bank with, as you've lost your job due to covid. Seek forbearance, at least from your most expensive lenders: call them and do 'door in the face technique'.. tell them you're unable to pay and can they freeze payments for the foreseeable until you find employment. If / when they say no, offer a peppercorn amount, maybe less than minimum. This is often much better than default. 

You do need to consider all options such as debt management solutions up to and including bankruptcy should you fail to find employment quickly. It might be better to have these options researched & in the wings rather than tread water and throw money at debts you 'might' default on. 

Those are worst case scenarios of course; but none of them mean losing where you live or not being able to afford to live; they deal with the debt, but do restrict you to new credit for 6 years.
On the hierarchy of needs others are right: pay rent, bills & eat. Mortgage can't be on your radar at the minute, that's a longer term goal.

I think you should talk to one of the free debt charities for tailored advice.

Good luck; with the right plan in place you'll come through it all OK, just keep all options open 
💪😉

Thanks very much for your advice IrishSean, it's much appreciated. I've had a good look at all of my options and will be keeping an open mind towards all of them so that if I have to go down any of those paths, I will do so with my eyes open.  For the moment though, I am keeping optimistic and throwing everything I have got at getting another job and raising extra monies in the hope that it is all going to come good soon. 

💪😀awesome!
I'm hoping you can put a 'stay' in place til you get back into work. Most ppl definitely find it's preferable to do the repayments & budgeting without debt management plans.
There are some who post they want to got straight to bankruptcy and forumites are like "woah, hang on, explore all the options"!!

It's great your able to budget & tackle it yourself so far but keeping an open mind; we've all had to change tack on the DFW journey at some point.
The advice you've received from others has been fantastic.
 i've bookmarked your diary and am keeping everything crossed for you 👌😉

darrannah

Just come accross your diary and caught up, you look like you're making a good start with the food bill (my biggest downfall/spend) I swear sometimes im shopping for next door aswell!! I have never been lucky enough to get a morrisons box, I assume they dont have that many in our area  
Survey sites are good if you have the time, I'm on a few also and make a few £££ a month
Sorry to hear about your job and fingers crossed you find something soon,
Finally, can I have a few tips on entering a supermarket, with kids, and only buying the 1 thing you went in for....thats an accomplishment in itself!!!
Keep going on your journey, you will get there!

Jophi2b

Thanks @IrishSean. And thanks @darrannah, though I am not sure I can offer too many tips on shopping with kids! I reckon I can only manage to come out with exactly what I went for about 60% of the time, and some of those feel like a bit of a fluke.

Jophi2b

Time seems to be speeding by now the kids are back at school (or maybe the last 6 months have been going slowly?!) but it is feeling good to finally be getting back into a different kind of routine, and to see the kids so happy that they can finally interact with their classmates. Though, having said that, they do seem really happy to be reunited after being apart during the school day, which is rather sweet and unexpected. We will see how long it lasts.

On the food front, it feels like we are doing rather well this month so far. We collected another Too Good To Go box last night from Morrisons which was full of goodies. Our fridge is now overflowing and I am going to need to rearrange our (smallish) freezer this morning as last nights box included packets of teacakes x 2, rolls x 3, bagels and a loaf of bread. We had toasted teacakes for breakfast this morning and will use some of the rolls at lunchtime, but the rest is destined for the freezer and will get used up over the next couple of weeks.  Today will also include making batches of veg curry, veg soup and preparing any other veg than needs to be used up asap for the freezer too. Keeping my fingers crossed everything fits in there!

I did manage to get talked into going through the drive through at KFC on the way back from Morrisons, which, although an unplanned detour/addition to the food budget, wasn't too bad as the kids shared a popcorn chicken bucket on the way home and were happy as they felt like they'd had a treat. And it only cost £5.99, so it could've been worse I guess.

The budget cookbooks on my bookshelf have been dusted off and I have earmarked a couple of recipes to try out soon and I have also been reading through Jack Monroe's website 'Cooking on a Bootstrap' which I am finding quite inspirational. So many delicious sounding recipes available on there. Having tried a few recipes from one of Jack's books in the past (Chickpea and Peach curry is a firm favourite in our house), I am looking forward to trying out some more to see if they are just as good. Sadly, I don't overly enjoy making food (I really can't say the same about eating it, hence my continuing intermittent fasting weight loss efforts!) but I am really hoping to try and change that so we can reap the obvious benefits of potentially cheaper, healthier and unprocessed meals.

Time to go and sort the freezer out!

September food spend so far = £56.39

mark55man

can never resist dinner/lunch with the Colonel - and you did well at £6 - my favorite is the flaming wrap £1.49 but they are not doing that currently - At work, I also volunteer for one client visit as we finish at 11:30 and they have a KFC bang outside - plus I get credit for being keen

Jophi2b

Gosh it is a long time since I last posted! Mostly due to having laptop issues, which have finally been resolved, so I need to get back to it and also catch up with everyone else's diaries to see if I can pick up any more invaluable tips.
I have managed to find some work. It is not permanent and not as much money as I would like (is it ever?), but obviously, it will do for now! And the most important thing is that I have managed to cover all of my debts and bills without defaulting which is important to me. My credit score has not started to improve yet though!
Really pleased that my overall debt today stands at £38.995, having been £45,362 when I first wrote on here on 10 July. I have found that focussing on the progress I am making, rather than how much further I have got to go helps me to keep moving in the right direction.  Breaking through from the 40s to the 30s felt great, my next goal is to get below 35 asap (by March I am hoping), then I will start focusing on getting below 30.
Our local Starbucks has just joined Too Good To Go and I managed to win a bag earlier, to collect tomorrow, so I will be very interested to see what is in it! Fingers crossed for some nice goodies.