Determined and a little ashamed

amysb86

So i have taken the plunge and decided to start a diary on here in the hope that it will keep me on tract and have the support of others doing the same thing. My story is probably familiar  me and my husband managed to get debt free years ago after getting into serious debt and having to consolidate everything and get it paid off. Due to a long term illness i was unable to work very much fora good few years but i eventually got back in to work part time and then full time. So we started looking to fix our bad credit taking out cards to just use and pay off.. But the better our credit got the higher the limits and because we had lived with out things for so long we got into the habit of 'treating ourselves' which is wonderful at the time not so wonderful when hou wreck up debt. We also got accepted for fiance on things.. Sooo new sofa, new floors a new bed you name it after having all second hand furniture for years we was over excited. But now we are living in the house we want to buy and our landlord is happy to sell to us. But i want to be debt free before we buy the house. We have gone through our outgoings and cancelled everything we could only extra we kept was netflix and ps4 membership as it renewed for a year last month. Have cancelled beauty boxes, magazines, amazon prime (this one also helps with the spending) we have £150 allowence for 'fun' but this is to included petrol to get to anywhere, any food that is not made at home and alcohol. We have a £200 a month food and toiletries allowence which I have set myself a target to lower by min of £20 this month and hopefully by more next month. I also do ironing for a friend once a week for for £20 this is going into a jar for xmas, and as i am working from home i am saving £30 a month on my dog walker so that is going in a pet jar until im back at work so any vet  excess will hopefully be covered. (i have a dog and 3 rabbits, no non furry children) i have ordered prepaid cards to load the food & fun money on to with the look to leave my bank card at home. Credit cards are in a locked box. And we are aiming to do 15 no spend days a month. Tomorrow i am taking inventory of all the food, toiletries and cleaning products and keeping a list on my phone to stop me buying duplicates of things. We are also on a mission to waste no more food, the amount we throw away makes me sick. So all in all we are looking at paying £900 a month off our debts. I have savings of £2000 which we are keeping for any unforseen circumstances, car, appliance breaking etc.
We currently owe : 
Barcley card £7450
Capital one £960
Overdraft £1600
Flooring (0%) £540
Sofa (0%) £320
Total £12470

That number truely horrified me, that is on so much stuff we didnt need, and holidays and other oh we will worry about it later spending, well i now loose sleep worrying about it, i am so unwell i need to drop my work hours but until this is clear and the house is brought that cant happen so that is my incentive. That and changing our spending habits for good and learning to enjoy life with out spending money! 

Any tips or advice is more than welcome. (i am aware we could not have any fun money, but we both agreed we are going to be at This for a couple of years and it will be easier to break with no spending money at all... Oh im also not buying clothes..(this rule will kill me) unless i sell something to oay for the item first. 

Wish me luck I am actually quite excited! 
🍀😊💕

Kakiste

Good luck! You sound really determined.

RobM99

Make sure you prioritise the payments!

amysb86

RobM99 said:

Make sure you prioritise the payments!

How do you mean? We are planning on clearing the highest intrest things first... 

amysb86

Managed our first nsd yesterday felt so proud, but omg the temptation to flick through shops online in the evening.. Really need to find something to distract myself! 

Honeysucklelou2

Reading other diaries is both distracting from online shopping and inspiring. Have you seen the No Spend Day challenges on the Debt free Wannabe challenge board?

Toni'sfriend

I just wanted to say don't feel ashamed We've all been there. You can sort this out. And I would certainly recommend the  Debt free Wannabe challenge board. Lots of help and support on there. Good luck.

dfwprincess

What others have said don’t feel ashamed, we’ve all done it and you’re now trying to do things to correct it which is a good place to start

[Deleted User]

Don't feel ashamed. A lot of us have been where you are now. Back in 2014 we got married and used our wedding money to pay off my credit card. The master plan was to then really save for a house deposit. Baby no1 came, I gave up work, DH retrained through an apprenticeship, baby number 2 came along. We earned too little and used credit cards to plug the hole (I may have spent too much on coffees and baby clothes too). The result was £13k on credit cards and finances. The point I'm trying to make is we've all done stupid things things that we would change if we could. We can't though, do we need move foward and use a different strategy. Good luck on your journey. Subscribed. Also, we've just bought our house from the landlord too. 

lantanna

amysb86 said:

Managed our first nsd yesterday felt so proud, but omg the temptation to flick through shops online in the evening.. Really need to find something to distract myself! 

Overdose on reading the forum and watch you tube videos on saving/being frugal/ cheap grocery hauls. That’s what I do lol

Bizzywizard

Hi,
It might be worth reading Martin Lewis main site post about savings verse debt. He suggests using your savings to pay the debt as you are earning next to no interest in savings but the debt interest can be huge (unless the debt is on 0% interest). Overdrafts were going up to 40% interest (this may be different while covid is still going on). So it might be worth paying that off with your savings. Your post does not say how much interest you are paying. The interest is what was killing us, so we had to do lots of moving about and the overdraft was bar far the hardest debt to get rid of.  I opened a separate bank account, with no overdraft facility (I cancelled the OD option) and slowly paid the interest incurring OD off, then closed the account. 
Good luck with your debt journey no need to be ashamed, we have all been there!
Just do lots of reading on the main site. Martin Lewis has really helped me sort my (and DH) debt situation out.
Bizzy