£69k debt free wannabe

Jensfrugalyear

Right I'm new to this so hopefully its in the right place!

We have been in debt for as long as I can remember, well I have been, my husband has just been in debt since we brought our house.

I have been trying to sort money for 12 months now and have cleared a bit of debt but have deffo made some bad decisions with money in the last year too! Hoping this diary will help me stay more focused.

Our debts around £61.5k now

£20000 loan, due to end August 2026
£5700 car finance due to end feb 2025
£6000 car loan due to end april 2024
£8100 barclaycard 
£7500 sainsburys credit card
£5000 bank of Scotland credit card
£4600 MBNA credit card
£2900 Tesco credit card
£1800 marbles credit card - should be cleared end august this year.
Have paid off £500 natwest credit card a couple of times already this year!

My biggest issue I have had is still buying on my credit card I think oh its only a bit but before I know it I have spent 100s on it, so the other day I finally cut up all my credit cards. It was scary but I feel better for it

My husband knows we are in debt but has no idea of the scale as I sort all our money out. He thinks its about 30k and I don't have thd heart to tell him the truth as he will just worry too much over it! So sharing my story here to get some motivation and hopefully have some folks to celebrate with as I clear off each credit card!

TheAble

Best of luck with it all. What sort of income do you have?

Aspiration

Subscribed to your diary!! 

Lots of great advice here and even reading the diaries daily keeps me on track so good luck!

Coffeekup

Nice work on starting a diary....
Accounting where your money goes will keep you on track.
Fill out a SOA and post it here, maybe we can give you suggestions on where to cut back. It'll also give you an idea on how long it'll take to pay it all back. 
That being said first things first, stop spending and start selling stuff you no longer need or use... Then use that to pay towards a debt.

I wish you all the best... 

Honeysucklelou2

Well done for clearing what you have in the last 12 months. Best wishes for the continued clearing.

dawnybabes

It’s a roller coaster with twists and turns but you’ve started which is the hardest part.

Jensfrugalyear

Thanks all for the support so far it really has cheered me up 😃 will do a SOA this week to add, its currently all on excel.

Thankfully I do earn a good wage, we currently pick up 4500 per month. Trouble is when your income goes up its so easy for the credit limits and spending to.

FOMO_overspender

Starting a diary on here was the best thing I have done - from advice, cheer leaders to just keeping myself accountable - so you're definitely in the right place

Doing an SOA is really helpful but just make sure it's realistic and not aspirational, as I made that mistake! E.g. if you know you spend £X on food shopping, put that in for the 1st draft. You can then create goals to reduce where spending is high and it 's achievable. There's nothing worse than starting with unattainable goals... or at least that's what I found anyway. 

Bizzywizard

Hi,

Welcome to the forum!
My DH had £20K worth of debit in May 2019. I knew we had 0% debit....but found out he could no longer get these offers and decided to not tell me and was worrying about the high interest........he finally came clean after not sleeping one night. I was not mad, I just took control of our finances, so switched interest incurring CC debit into my name on 0% deals(I had not had a credit card since 18) I then found I had  3 in one night all on 0% deals. We changed bank accounts and set up one in his name and one in mine with Nationwide Flex direct.He did NOT have the overdraft facility, I did as this was interest free fr 1YEAR ONLY at £2K (which I also paid off in that year). We then set up a joint bank account for all the bill and family allowance. We then slowly paid down his overdraft which was around 44% this is what was killing us!

I also have an excel spread sheet that I use to this day and check my banks accounts each night....so we never get in a mess again.

So just to say you are not alone, but its worth sharing your debt amount with DH...he may be upset to start with...but show him a plan of how to get out of it and I'm sure you guys can work through it together.

We have been debt free since December 2020....we have gone without and our kids have to achieve this.....but its worth it. 

I will check in once your SOA is up.

And sell sell sell anything you do not need and put it straight towards to debit and DO NOT SPEND ON YOUR CREDIT CARDS!!!!

Bizzy

Aspiration

Lots of us can relate @Jensfrugalyear so please don’t be too hard on yourself.

We all do it in different ways but the acknowledgment you’ve made I found was the hardest part.

My wife knows we have debt but not the detail of it. We go through our living expenses and agree plans and then everything else goes at clearing it. 

I think it’s really easy to do and go through those expensive years, house moves etc and then wake up realising it’s caught up with you. It certainly did for me!! 

Hope you’re ok and as per all of the comments on your thread, lots of positive stories and people to share the journey!

Aspiration

WinterWarrior

Good luck @Jensfrugalyear