Very long journey ahead, time for change is now

happyfuture

Philliggi said:

Obviously im speaking without no real knowledge of your interest rates or specific circumstances, but would it not be better to have a mortgage in this circumstance, rather than credit in multiple places, possibly at much higher rates?

May feel less scary to have one small neat and tidy mortgage payment a month

It probably would but I don’t know if I would get a mortgage with the high amount of unsecured debt? Will look into that. Part of me thinks that I need to change my ways as by reducing the payments down as a mortgage would then give me more disposable income and wouldn’t have ‘learnt’ anything if that makes sense? 

happyfuture

_Dolly_Rocker_ said:

Welcome to the boards and well done for writing it all down - makes it seem more real and now it's time for you to plan and pay it off. 

Probably seems like a mountain to climb but you've taken the hardest step already so keep going. 

You can do this.

Thank you ☺️ Really appreciate the encouragement! It’s definitely a mountain but I know that the feeling of being debt free will be sooooo amazing! 

MFWannabe

happyfuture said:

Philliggi said:

Obviously im speaking without no real knowledge of your interest rates or specific circumstances, but would it not be better to have a mortgage in this circumstance, rather than credit in multiple places, possibly at much higher rates?

May feel less scary to have one small neat and tidy mortgage payment a month

It probably would but I don’t know if I would get a mortgage with the high amount of unsecured debt? Will look into that. Part of me thinks that I need to change my ways as by reducing the payments down as a mortgage would then give me more disposable income and wouldn’t have ‘learnt’ anything if that makes sense? 

Would be a very bad idea imo 
you would be changing unsecured debt into secured and you haven’t learnt any lessons to stop overspending so will rack up even more debt and be in an even worse position than you are now 

happyfuture

ChillyP said:

well done for dealing with it. Can you give an idea of your income? 

Me- £2390
DH- £1100
Child benefit- £170.20
Child DLA- £429.34
Child DLA- £399.05

Some context- I’ve just recently moved job and getting paid a lot more. DH is doing less hours (25hrs a week) to support kids, both have ASD. Our income is very good, our costs can be high having 2 kids with additional needs but I also know we can definitely cut back on a lot of places! 

Philliggi

MFWannabe said:

happyfuture said:

Philliggi said:

Obviously im speaking without no real knowledge of your interest rates or specific circumstances, but would it not be better to have a mortgage in this circumstance, rather than credit in multiple places, possibly at much higher rates?

May feel less scary to have one small neat and tidy mortgage payment a month

It probably would but I don’t know if I would get a mortgage with the high amount of unsecured debt? Will look into that. Part of me thinks that I need to change my ways as by reducing the payments down as a mortgage would then give me more disposable income and wouldn’t have ‘learnt’ anything if that makes sense? 

Would be a very bad idea imo 
you would be changing unsecured debt into secured and you haven’t learnt any lessons to stop overspending so will rack up even more debt and be in an even worse position than you are now 

In a raw sense with no emotion or behavior traits involved this would obviously be the best option to drive down interest and consolodate debt into one place. 

However as you say its not as simple as that and without getting a hold on spending patterns and being fully committed to clearing debt it could be dangerous.

Everyone is different i guess and what works for one wouldnt work for another. 

happyfuture

Thanks for all the comments, advice and encouragement- really appreciate it. 

Last 2 days have been spent looking at debt overall and working out a plan on how we can bring it down. Had a bad day today where a planned NSD ended up costing a fortune- DH was out in car, in the middle of nowhere and clipped the kerb and burst tyre. £240 to get mobile tyre fitter out. He tried so many different places and it was going to cost a fortune to get car towed to garage plus he needed to get back for kids coming home from school. Nearly 4 hour wait and research and still cost us £240 Not a great start but soon we will have money aside for these small disasters! 

Lonelygambler

Welcome to the board. 

£73k no mortgage - sounds good to me. 

Do a full SOA to really have the team unpick and make suggestions. 

_Dolly_Rocker_

What a pain that is - I just had my car written off last week - honestly nightmare. 

Hope you have a better day today!

Highlanddream

I'm like you @happyfuture , no mortgage but have short term debt. I looked at getting a mortgage but have decided to plough through, although I get disheartened at the slowness of the pay off. I started last Nov with 30 grand I am now down to 23200. Which looking at it like that I am quite pleased with the amount gone! I have transferred CC's to 0% for 12 months or more, another incentive to get them off before the rate goes back up. Fingers crossed by then I will find some more 0% ers. Is your loan over 5 years? Is it half way through ?

enthusiasticsaver

happyfuture said:

The debt 12th May 2024

Loan- £31,787.06
Tesco CC- £13,183.19
MBNA CC- £6587.86
RBS CC- £5805.12
Barclaycard CC- £3692.22
Lloyds CC- £2191.65

Family 1- £5810
Family 2- £3746

RBS overdraft- £148.27

Overall total= £72,951.37

I think posting an soa would be a good start to see what income you have and where your money is going.  

First of all what is the interest rate on the loans and credit cards?  Get rid of the overdraft first as they tend to be 40% interest. 

Having no mortgage is good but I would hazard that loan is a debt consolidation loan which means you have been overspending and not budgeting for quite some time.  Moving away from spending to saving and budgeting will take a while to get into this mentality rather than spending whenever.  The car repair is unfortunate but take that as a reminder you need to save for emergencies rather than stick these things on a credit card.