A Lifetime of Debt - F, 40s, autistic, parent, professional

foxgloves

£750 a month on food! That is a vast amount & there are some significant savings to be made here. Sounds as though you are starting to put measures in place. Working as a team will make it easier to adapt to working to a viable budget. 
F

thelibrarian11

I've made the decision this morning to offer HMRC 400 and do 1 token payments to everyone else, then let a pot build up. Once everything here is covered I'll overpay HMRC on both this year and next year, once that's done I'll offer full and final settlements on my unsecured debt. We will do overtime and freelance and be very strict on spending. Should be sorted in 1.5-2 years, I feel very confident that this plan will work and we won't suffer while it's happening. What a relief!

joedenise

Maybe if your husbands insists on expensive decaf coffee he should buy it himself from his personal spends money - it seems as though he has more than enough!

thelibrarian11

joedenise said:

Maybe if your husbands insists on expensive decaf coffee he should buy it himself from his personal spends money - it seems as though he has more than enough!

Yes he bloody should, thinks he's King Charles drinking his Lavazzas. I think one problem is his brother and sister are both v high earners and in his head he works long hours so should have this stuff too. This is my next challenge now I've figured this out, what am I gonna do with him?

thelibrarian11

More practical stuff that I'm logging in my diary: I can't automatically switch over my direct debits because we're going from a joint account to just me, nooo. So I've done some work on changing them manually, although stuff like the council tax I have to print off and post a form, the absolute pains. When I've been doing this, there's a bout £400 of them that only Husband has access to and I can't change, so I'm thinking he just sorts them himself and gives me a bit less each month. I'm looking forward to not having to manage his bills and making him do it himself, lots less stress for me.

On another note, I'm not too well today, I have meds that make me dizzy, but I'm VERY dizzy today and fell over with it, which has never happened before. I think I'm a bit stressed, although I'm always a bit stressed, think it's all finally caught up with me.

Aimingforthegoodlife

You have made an amazing start, I find the best thing to do, is write down ideas and savings, then pick one a month to look at. It can easily become overwhelming, especially when DH isn't on board so it all boils down to you! Best of luck with your journey!

thelibrarian11

More progress: we have a few bills that are about to go down, the kids don't want their smart watches any more so I will cancel their contract when it finishes in December, our contents insurance also finishes in December and I can get a much better deal, and Husband's vehicle insurance will come down a bit as it renews in the next 2 months.

I can't change any more direct debits because it's close to payment day, so our bank accounts will be an absolute mess this month. I am sending letters tomorrow to all the defaulted debts offering £1, and will get letters ready for the others when they do default. I have had some texts from Lendable saying they want paying, they know I've cancelled the direct debit, so hopefully they won't drag their feet defaulting.

I'm slightly concerned the amount of work this is taking to manage, so much time I've spent on this already. I hope I can keep it up when the relentless school and work routine kicks in again next week. Another concern I have is that when I've looked at food bills, I forgot to mention that Husband has coeliac disease which pushes things right up, and we suspect our daughter has something as she constantly complains of stomach pains. We are currently eliminating dairy to see if it's that, there was an incident over the weekend where she drank milk and immediately vomited, so that's going to cost us as well buying all the alternatives.

The update that I am most happy about however is that Husband announced, in front of the kids, that he would like to train as a HGV driver now they are getting older. I'm really pleased with this as I had thought he was going to do his minimum wage job forever and do nothing to develop himself, I was really worrying about that, and there are government schemes to retrain so out of all the things he was thinking about it has the lowest cost. 

Sarahwithlove

I'm lactose intolerant. I have alot of supermarket own lactose free stuff to keep costs lower. 

kiss_me_now9

Following. It sounds like you've got some good ideas on how to tackle things. 

How did you become a librarian if you don't mind me asking? It's always a job that's interested me but it seems impossible to get into, ha. 

RAS

Hi, Aldi still do shower jel at 39p. The blue seems poplar, the aloe vera less so. Often hiding behind the more expensive ones.

And their basic soya milk is 50p per litre, whilst they do several other non-milks.