Give me some motivation! Feeling embarrassed and down about debt!

24 Posts


Posting here to finally face the music. My lightbulb moment has been having my baby girl. We borrowed money on credit cards and overdrafts to do up our home, and I’ve since had 6 months of crippling maternity pay. I’m losing sleep now over our debt. We’re able to make the payments on all our debts, and we’re going to start overpaying on debt in July when I get my full wage back.
just looking for some motivation that we can do it!!!
here’s our total debt
CC 1: £7200
cc2 : £1500
overdraft: £2000
Buy now pay later: £430
seeing it all like that makes me feel sick.
like I said, we’re starting to pay £500 a month off when my wage comes back in July, but seeing it all like that makes me want to cry!
just looking for some motivation that we can do it!!!
here’s our total debt

CC 1: £7200
cc2 : £1500
overdraft: £2000
Buy now pay later: £430
seeing it all like that makes me feel sick.
like I said, we’re starting to pay £500 a month off when my wage comes back in July, but seeing it all like that makes me want to cry!
Total debt at LBM: £9919
Creation finance: £436/PAID OFF IN FULL
Creation finance: £436/PAID OFF IN FULL
Capital One: £2200/£1842
MBNA: £7283/£5566
Total debt: £9919/£7408
Emergency Fund: £950
Christmas 2022: £110/£600
Baby Savings: £232.87
Investments:£400
Total Savings: £1692.87
MBNA: £7283/£5566
Total debt: £9919/£7408
Emergency Fund: £950
Christmas 2022: £110/£600
Baby Savings: £232.87
Investments:£400
Total Savings: £1692.87
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Replies
I know debt can be horrifically worrying, but you will get it paid off, because you have a plan.
You have recently had a baby, might you need to talk to a healthcare professional about 'baby blues'?
you've spent the money on making your home lovely for your new daughter, so try and focus on your baby, and carry on with your plan to get the debt paid off. You can and will do it, but please don't be so hard on yourself.
take care, and good luck.
If not and high rates, then you may want to look at what you can do to reduce the interest rates, whether call to card providers asking them to do something (explain maternity pay situation) but they may not, or looking to see if you can do balance transfers to low rate cards.
Main point is you're aware of the debt and trying to sort it so good luck.
Good luck
Well done for addressing this now.
You need to know the interest rates charged on each account. It's likely that the overdraft is the highest, so that would be the one to pay off first. But until you have the numbers, it's impossible to tell.
the overdraft was the killer and we buried our heads in the sand over it for years. We took it out when the apr was 18% to help with doing our house up, but when the interest shot up last year it’s been costing us £50 a month in interest 😭
so, this is what we’ve done so far! I get my full time wage back on 22nd July which means we can start to clear on the 22nd of this month! Woohoo! We also got a new credit card (don’t shout at me yet!) and transferred the balance of the overdraft to the new card which is 0% for 16 months. That’s a saving of £50 a month alone in interest. We can clear that cc in 8 months so we will be well within the interest free period. Finally, my other half cancelled the sky movies bit of our sky package saving £10 a month. Not a lot but every little helps!!
top tip as well. Some of you may have heard of TopCashback. Well, they offer £3 cash back on all online grocery orders at Asda. I worked out, if I shopped via TopCashback with Asda for a year, that would be £156!! Result!
Creation finance: £436/PAID OFF IN FULL
MBNA: £7283/£5566
Total debt: £9919/£7408
Emergency Fund: £950
Christmas 2022: £110/£600
Baby Savings: £232.87
Investments:£400
Total Savings: £1692.87
You have done some good things already! go you!
Others have given some great advice and ideas. I would recommend the following:
- join a challenge or 2, stay involved in the forum, it keeps you motivated.
- consider writing a debt-free diary
- enjoy the rest of your Mat leave, and your daughter, time is precious.
Secondly, there is absolutely no shame so please don't be embarrassed. We've all been there and probably a few people you know are or have been in a similar position but debt seems to be a taboo subject.
I was in exactly the same position as you, having a baby changed my focus and made me address the debt. What I learned was;
- Give yourself a realistic budget for nice things each month. A family day out/your favourite coffee or something like that. It makes it easier to stick to your plan.
- Track every single spend on a spreadsheet. You will be horrified but you can quickly see why you've ended up in debt.
- Work out your realistic debt free date. The majority of us find ways to beat the target. Prolific surveys are a great way to start by bringing in extra income. If you can do something extra to bring in more money, do it and use that to overpay debts.
Best of luck, you can absolutely do this!
Save 12k in 2023 #35: £2850 / £12,000
Earn £365 on Prolific in 2023: £53.50 / £365