Drowning In £16K of poor decisions.. 28 May 2022 at 5:44PM edited 20 June 2022 at 8:54PM in Debt-free wannabe 6 replies 1.1K views

Throughmyfingers

Hi All,

I thought I would start this diary for some accountability and I am hoping that as things start to slowly improve I will also be able to see the progress I am making.

A bit of context - I am in my 30's with two children (7 & 12) and working full-time, whilst I have a good income I have made very poor decisions when it comes to finances.  I spend it before I earn it, and this resulted in the majority of my debt being on CCs.  I have been debt busting on and off for the last few years as I did become concerned with how much we were living beyond our means, and my aim is to clear my cards and buy a house. 

Whilst I haven't been great with money the last two years or so have really become out of hand, my relationship was emotionally turbulent and some of the spending I think was emotional and at other times also  stop arguments.  I know that sounds strange but e.g I was popping out with friends so then I would order a takeaway so OH didn't need to cook, something would be broken and rather than save up and then replace I would just order another one even in one case a £600 freezer.  Up until recently I have been living with my partner and we have had 2 incomes, we have since parted and now I have found myself trying to juggle all the repayments on my own and the numbers are very scary.

I have totalled the figures and I currently have £15,669.30 in debt   approx. £6.5K of this is 0% and the rest is relatively high interest.

I have looked at cancelling everything non-essential that is not under contract e.g Netflix, Spotify subscriptions however my outgoings are approx £2000 p/m.  This includes Utilities, afterschool clubs for the kids and all my CC repayments etc.  I haven't sorted any maintenance payments with the DS dad  but think this will be approx £200 p/m which I am hoping will cover food shops for three of us for the month.  I can just about cover everything if I am VERY careful, so I need to learn some new habits like meal planning and buying 2nd hand but also want to try raise some money along the way to clear things down quicker.

I hope some of you will want to follow along, as I aim to be posting quite often and the support would be great!!!

  

fl123

It is difficult when debts pile up, but its a great start to recognise the problem and get on the right path. I can't offer you any advice, as i came here for help as well, but I wish you all the best of luck on your journey !

LittleMissDetermined

Meal planning is a key thing and I found my slow cooker was a god send.  Utilise that expensive freezer by batch cooking in a slow cooker  It takes the stress out of cooking, you know it's healthy and made from scratch and I usually get a good 3-4 double portions of food in ours.

Cancelling your non-essentials is a good step, but definitely get the maintenance sorted out so you have that extra income sooner rather than later. 

If this is your diary, it should probably be in the Debt free diaries section, hopefully an admin/moderator will come along and move it soon 

Good luck!
LMD x

Throughmyfingers

LittleMissDetermined said:

Meal planning is a key thing and I found my slow cooker was a god send.  Utilise that expensive freezer by batch cooking in a slow cooker  It takes the stress out of cooking, you know it's healthy and made from scratch and I usually get a good 3-4 double portions of food in ours.

Cancelling your non-essentials is a good step, but definitely get the maintenance sorted out so you have that extra income sooner rather than later. 

If this is your diary, it should probably be in the Debt free diaries section, hopefully an admin/moderator will come along and move it soon 

Good luck!
LMD x

Thankyou LMD!! Thats where i thought i had put it 😂 if someone could send me packing to the correct place it would be appreciated.

Its a double FF so thats my plan 100% I am hoping to get some inspo on here and plan to switch back to Ald rather than where I was shopping previously to save some £ also hopefully! 

X

LittleMissDetermined

Here's the link to the diary post creation, you can just copy it over and then add a link to it on this one for any followers 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/post/discussion/debt-free-diaries

I did exactly the same thing when I created my first diary years ago  

LMD x

peteuk

Post a SOA and youll get loads of advice as to what you can do to cut your outgoings.

Important step is the one you've taken, recognising there is an issue. So well done. 

Throughmyfingers

Thankyou Lmd diary link is below:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6361455/drowning-in-16k-of-poor-decisions/p1?new=1

❤️