When the hell will I learn?

dae14867

fatbelly said:

Then I think sticking all those debts into a debt management plan with Stepchange would be a good start. Concentrate on everyone getting debt free. Don't worry about credit score.

It's going to take 6 years but if you don't kill off the interest it will take longer. Left to your own devices you may get discouraged by over-optimistic plans that you cannot deliver on. For example, you cannot clear £6600 of debt in  a year with £300 surplus income per month.

Stepchange will take your monthly payment and distribute it.

Your task will be learnng how to live on a budget

If you want to post a statement of affairs we can have a look at the detail

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php

Thanks Fatbelly,
A lot of the debt (£17,500) is in my wife's name and taken out a long time ago and is now with people like Lowell and Moorcroft. As this is old, is it worth talking to them about full and final settlement amounts? I know it can be seen as the easy way out (and believe me I have always taken that in the past) ?

SandyShores

There's lots of advice on here saying that unless you tackle your spending, no matter how you get rid of the debt, they will always come back.  That's definitely true, as we paid off our debt several times from windfalls but within a short period of time the debt was back.  It can take several lightbulb moments until you finally 'get' it.  My biggest problem was my DH who had no concept of budgeting at all and was very happy to spend whilst I stressed about the payments.  

The best thing we did was to stop spending on credit and gave my DH a cash budget for the month - when it was gone it was gone.  We had a frugal budget for shopping, did lots of home cooking - there's some brilliant threads on here - and we didn't spend anything unless it was essential.  It was pretty tough, but about six years on, we'd paid everything off and now have our own house again.  The best bit, apart from the house, was going on holiday with everything paid for in advance, including taking the spending money as cash - so much more enjoyable when you aren't worrying about how you are going to pay for it when you get home.  Like you, I started tackling the debt in my early 50's, and now we plan to start overpaying the mortgage soon so we can be mortgage free in retirement.

You're in a really good position with your health and a decent salary, you just have to find the motivation.  I followed Dave Ramsay and Anthony O'Neal for a while.  Dave Ramsay has five steps - first is to get together a £1k emergency fund, the next step is to pay off your debts, step 3 is building a bigger emergency fund, step 4, 5 and 6 are paying off your mortgage, putting money into pension and saving for the children's university funds.  Good luck with it.

dae14867

SandyShores said:

There's lots of advice on here saying that unless you tackle your spending, no matter how you get rid of the debt, they will always come back.  That's definitely true, as we paid off our debt several times from windfalls but within a short period of time the debt was back.  It can take several lightbulb moments until you finally 'get' it.  My biggest problem was my DH who had no concept of budgeting at all and was very happy to spend whilst I stressed about the payments.  

The best thing we did was to stop spending on credit and gave my DH a cash budget for the month - when it was gone it was gone.  We had a frugal budget for shopping, did lots of home cooking - there's some brilliant threads on here - and we didn't spend anything unless it was essential.  It was pretty tough, but about six years on, we'd paid everything off and now have our own house again.  The best bit, apart from the house, was going on holiday with everything paid for in advance, including taking the spending money as cash - so much more enjoyable when you aren't worrying about how you are going to pay for it when you get home.  Like you, I started tackling the debt in my early 50's, and now we plan to start overpaying the mortgage soon so we can be mortgage free in retirement.

You're in a really good position with your health and a decent salary, you just have to find the motivation.  I followed Dave Ramsay and Anthony O'Neal for a while.  Dave Ramsay has five steps - first is to get together a £1k emergency fund, the next step is to pay off your debts, step 3 is building a bigger emergency fund, step 4, 5 and 6 are paying off your mortgage, putting money into pension and saving for the children's university funds.  Good luck with it.

Great advice. Thanks for taking the time to reply to my thread...

fatbelly

dae14867 said:

fatbelly said:

Then I think sticking all those debts into a debt management plan with Stepchange would be a good start. Concentrate on everyone getting debt free. Don't worry about credit score.

It's going to take 6 years but if you don't kill off the interest it will take longer. Left to your own devices you may get discouraged by over-optimistic plans that you cannot deliver on. For example, you cannot clear £6600 of debt in  a year with £300 surplus income per month.

Stepchange will take your monthly payment and distribute it.

Your task will be learnng how to live on a budget

If you want to post a statement of affairs we can have a look at the detail

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php

Thanks Fatbelly,
A lot of the debt (£17,500) is in my wife's name and taken out a long time ago and is now with people like Lowell and Moorcroft. As this is old, is it worth talking to them about full and final settlement amounts? I know it can be seen as the easy way out (and believe me I have always taken that in the past) ?

If you've got a lump sum - absolutely. Now is a good time to get a deal on debts like that.

If it is a credit debt (not utility, phone or overdraft) then it is always worth doing a cca request first. You'd be amazed how many of these debt buyers have no paperwork for the debt and it then becomes unenforceable under the Consumer Credit Act.

You won't find anyone here suggesting you pay a debt buyer the full amount. There is even talk of statutory provision to force them to take a discount.

Fatsdom

Why not post an SOA. Only £300 left over on a £55k income seems very odd, but until we see the actual figures we can't comment. 

webnibbler

I can recommend keeping a spending diary. Yes it is as boring and tedious as it sounds but it will really help shine a light on your spending habits. With a really decent income and only £300 left over I suspect you have money leaks in places you didn't know you had places. Track absolutely every spend, even little bits of cash, for a couple of months and then review it. This will give you a really good idea of where you spend the most money and where you can make cuts. It will also help to shine a light on those monthly direct debits that have been forgotten about and no longer used. It will also help to provide the information for a much more accurate SOA if needed, something that is difficult to put together without a full spending picture.

I've kept a spending diary for several years now, although it takes an hour a month to go through statements etc. it is time well spent. It has helped to flag when spending is getting out of control in a particular way. There are good template spreadsheets online to get you started.

In addition to what others have mentioned, I would seriously look at getting some life cover and also income protection insurance in place if you haven't already. Good luck.

DrCarrie

I would recommend really looking arond the website and forum to get some motivation and ideas of how you want to progress, let it be part of your journey. Your goals and priorities will change. 

Psychologically, its that emotion > spend thing you need to work on. (  When I feel the urge to spend, I look at my CC statement, or come onto the forum, and am planning what I will spend my money on every quater - will feel like a splurge rather than the drip drip of frequent spending. I am taking a week to decide wether i really want / need it). 

Do a MSE Budget planner, and SOA, really look at it. You need to be able to stick to a budget. If you want to do a couple of months super strict and no spending, thats cool, but its not sustainable. Rework, and keep reworking. Snowball the debts, focus how you want to focus. It needs to work for you. 
Try everyday to be kind to yourself about your realtionship wth money - its a hard thing to change. Set yourself small goals and explore the feelings that lead to the urge to spend. Join a challenge or 2, start a diary. Stay focussed and committed to your overall goal and what that means to you. Stay committed and focussed to the mini goals along the way. 

Good luck!