7 years lack of control ... 18 months to regain it

timetogetcontrol

I’m not going to go into too much detail but I’m £14k in debt after 7 years of no control , living for the moment. 

I’m getting married in 18 months and H2B has zero idea of my financial situation and I  refuse to get married with this hanging over my head. 

In the last week I secured a new 0% BT card for 22 months and had an offer on an existing card for 12 months 0% so I’ve been shuffling over the weekend. I’ve paid my £450 overdraft this weekend aswell as £240 I had hanging around on Klarna. I don’t have much more this month that I can throw at debts but I have a good plan to go ahead with . Here’s a list of my debts with highest APR first :

- Card 1 - £650 24% .. will be paying this off first 
- Loan - £1776 18% ...£148pk fixed payments ends August 21 
- Card 2 - £1000 (paid £200 yesterday) 0% ends March 21 
-Card 3 £5,515 0% ends August 2021 
-Card 4 £5000 0% ends July 2022 

I did have most of this on some other cards and accounts with interest between 18%- 24% So I’m pleased to have got a lot of it down to 0% . I’m disappointed I couldn’t shift the Loan but it’s due to end in 11 months and if one of the cards I’ve left open but is £0 offers me a BT I may transfer it over. 

So that’s my start. I’ll go into more details maybe an SOA etc at later dates but I’m feeling comfortable at the moment with my budget. I’m planning on paying off £650 - £690 per month starting with the MBNA, and next will be working on ensuring the cards with the 0% ending next year are sorted. I can live with the loan as it’s fixed and it’s in the last year of its 6 years , like I said I can move if if something comes up but it would save around £120 in interest in the next 11 months so it’s not the end of the world given how much I’ll be saving with the other BT I have made. I have a £2k emergency fund so that’s not something I need to worry about. 

I have also applied for the Halifax offer to get £100 for transferring . If they accept me I’ll throw that £100 towards it all too. 

With trying to save for the wedding and repay this off so it’s going to be a tough 18 months but I have something to focus me now unlike before. It’s not just about me anymore and I really need to start planning and sorting myself out for if we have a family in the future . 

Speak soon x

Smashingitnow

Hello! Welcome to the diary world!
This looks super...what great motivation you have here to sort this out. And you have most of your credit on 0% so nearly every penny you pay is going to get that total down.
As you say it's going to be tough to balance this with wedding saving - have you got your weddind budget agreed..
So great to see you focusing on your future...I'll look forward to your updates.
Best

timetogetcontrol

Hiya ! 

Wedding budget is agreed... it is going to be very small and I’m putting £200 a month away towards it which will end up putting more away than the budget just in case and if we don’t spend it , I’m sure a little mini moon will be on the cards or will be in the starting married life savings pot! I feel I can manage £200 as I had a pay rise of £190 a month last month so I’m treating it as if I never had the payrise for the next 18 months ...Also really lucky that we have family that are gifting us money.

Really pleased most is on 0%. I’ve cut the cards up and deleted all card numbers from my phones memory so no temptation to spend at all. 

I’m feeling abit inpatient now and want to get started properly with making some payments off the cards but I knew this month would be more of a ‘sorting and juggling’ month. 

The diaries have already helped so much . I needed to more a store account balance to the 0% but didn’t have a physical card but saw elsewhere the suggestion of paying on another credit card and then transferring from that to the 0% and it worked perfectly.

I had originally in my head split all my debts into the months they are due over and was budgeting that way but have set up minimum payments on everything and the excess will be paid from the one card I have interest charges on and next I will focus on the cards due to end start and middle of next year. 

I looked how much I had been paying a month in interest and it made me feel sick ! 

Once all this is done I am going to avoid credit as much as possible but if for any reason we decide to get a cooker or sofa or a big purchase I am vowing now to NEVER pay interest again  

Smashingitnow

That's clever with the store card...haven't heard of that. Much as some grumpy people here (well not i the diaries bit more on the credit card forum) say cut back, spend less, there's no tricks, there ARE tricks. 

I bet you'll plan quite the canny wedding with your new mindset - nice diary to follow!

ceremony

Well done for taking action! It sounds like you've got a good plan and the numbers add up. Having the wedding coming up is good motivation too! Once the smaller card is paid off and you're throwing everything at the bigger 0% ones you'll see the balance dropping fast. I'm rooting for you to start your marriage debt free!

timetogetcontrol

Well well well . 

I got married , had a child who’s 2.5yrs old and now I’m £20k in debt …… SO HERE WE GO AGAIN 😭😭😭😭

NeverendingDMP

timetogetcontrol said:

Well well well . 

I got married , had a child who’s 2.5yrs old and now I’m £20k in debt …… SO HERE WE GO AGAIN 😭😭😭😭

Hi welcome back. Dont worry you can get it down again I'm sure

Sarahwithlove

Welcome back. Is your hubby on board this time? If suggest posting a SOA so we can give you some tips