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New here, desperate to get out of debt

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  • kimwp
    kimwp Posts: 2,911 Forumite
    Fifth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    edited 27 November 2024 at 6:40PM
    She goes in April 2025
    Ok, thank you. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I want you to understand what you are trying to do:

    - reduce your individual spend by £350 (plus any other differences between reality and your budget that you haven't mentioned) at a time of year when people tend to socialise and spend more
    - £200 of this saving being to only spend £125 on groceries and takeaways, when it takes a lot of discipline and frugality to spend only £125 on groceries alone
    - spend nothing on clothes, shoes until the debt is paid and you have saved enough to cover mat leave

    Be aware that your partner will likely find it difficult to have a second job in her last trimester, so any additional income from her after Christmas can't be counted on. It's also pretty unrealistic to think that you can continue with a second job with a new-born, unless your partner is going to take all the burden and you are going to wear sound cancelling headphones at night.

    And you are starting -£13,000 (as an individual) and wanting to get to +£10000 (as a couple, by April, given the difficulty of the extra jobs explained above).
    Difficult to do the numbers properly without knowing your partner's debt, but let's assume her debt is paid off by Christmas. (what's the likelihood of this?)
    You earn £500 from your extra job in December for the debt/savings pot. Then in Jan/Feb/March, you have an additional £225 plus whatever your partner is now not paying towards her debts (let's assume £700) per month:
    £4,275 towards your debt/savings pot.

    So in April, you have a baby, having scrimped and saved for five months, as a couple, you have £13,000 in debt, £4,275 in savings and will need to continue to scrimp and save for the duration of the maternity leave, because you need to keep to your budget of £350 less than you currently spend, which has no allowance for baby clothes, coffee mornings and baby groups to keep your partner from feeling lonely when you are back at work and you've saved less than half of what you need to save for mat leave. What is your plan for purchasing car seats, prams, cots, dummies, wipes, nappies, baby carriers, toys etc?

    It's a pretty grim picture and obviously not a full picture because it doesn't have your partner's finances in (if you provide them, I can add them in).

    My suggestion would be to
    1. save up any extra money into a savings account, rather than paying off the debts. (it will make fairly small differences to the interest over the next four months, but means you have the money available)
    2. keep reassessing the situation (a diary on here would be a good idea) as to whether you can keep to your budget and the likelihood of having what you need for maternity leave and the baby.

    I appreciate that you don't want markers on your credit file, but if you both stop paying your debts, you will have £1900 (£1172 debt payments, £225 towards partner debt payments, £500 from second job) a month to save (assuming you manage to cut £350+ from your spending) >> at the start of maternity leave: £7,500 from you plus the contribution to this from your partner. 


    In terms of whether you transfer your Tesco credit card to the 0% balance, check what the fee is.
    Statement of Affairs (SOA) link: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php

    For free, non-judgemental debt advice, try: Stepchange or National Debtline. Beware fee charging companies with similar names.
  • RAS
    RAS Posts: 35,543 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Seeing this last night, I also thought that you are probably going to have to look at a DMP. That second job could make a difference. But it's going to be very tough with a new baby, practically and financially. 

    Start by separating out that ents category, so presents, pub, meals out. You need a clothes line, if only for knickers, socks and shoes, and that need to be saved outside you main account. 

    Good news on the 0%.cards, but you still need to share the limit is on the other two cards, please and whether you can send on them?

    You and your partner need to sit down together and put together a joint budget, looking at both sets of debts. There no point clearing her 21% card whilst you've got that Plata Loan. Shifting that is priority.

    You also both need to be on the same page re spends. That means buying second hand for bubs rather than splashing out on new. You can't avoid the nappies but is your partner planning to breastfeed? Not always possible but worth checking support sources now, if she wants to try. And ask people to buy age 3 months and over clothing rather than newborn as presents. They are all little things but add up to a £1000 or more in the first year.

    One other thing, when the baby arrives, you won't feel like cooking. Try and spot yellow stickered stuff and once a week make up a batch that you can split, maybe one meal now, one for later in the month and three for the "maternity freezer"?
    If you've have not made a mistake, you've made nothing
  • I completely understand you wanting to get things sorted without missing payments but it’s a high cost option. It’s what I did so I know. That said, it’ll take longer but should be doable.  I agree that extra income or savings could be set aside for now as a new baby is stressful enough without not having a financial buffer.  With regards to entertaining, if you aren’t comfortable discussing finances, the pregnancy is a good reason not to go out and have people round instead.
    also, bear in mind that there may be some savings while your partner is off work but that won’t be forever and planning needs to happen for childcare costs.
    i do agree that batch cooking needs to become a habit or takeaways will, especially with a new born in the house.

    that said, I hope it all works out well and that you can corral your worries. Take care
    Mortgage at 01.01.14 £119,481.83:eek: today £0 Emergency fund £5.5/5.5k & £200/200 cash.:jWeight 24/02/19 14st 7lb now 12st determined to stop defining myself by my mistakes. Progress not perfection.:T100%through my 1% mortgage challenge. 100% through my pb challenge.
  • ManyWays
    ManyWays Posts: 1,308 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Fifth Anniversary Name Dropper
    Amount left after debt repayments 4.60
    You cant plan to sort your own debts out and then help your partner as you have no money to do this. And the situation is unsustainable with maternity leave coming up, so I think you need to look at doing a joint budget, including her income and debts as well to see what the real options are. 
  • Hopefully you are correct on the £500 extra from the 2nd job and accounting for the correct tax rate. Based on your net take home you must be close to being a higher rate taxpayer so some of that 2nd job income may be taxed at 40%.
  • Thank you all for commenting. I think I have been pushing myself to get out of the debt as soon as possible, but with the numbers as they are I don’t think this is going to be possible and I am going to need to prioritise saving some extra money towards the mat leave pot, baby pot and clothes pot in order to avoid relying on credit card towards the end of the month.
    I am keen to try to stick to the £125 budget for food.

    I have transferred the balances from Tesco cc and family member cc onto my new 0% Barclaycard, so this will hopefully make things more manageable.

    i am going to aim to overpay on the loans to get these cleared asap, pay minimums on the two 0% cards, and then save the rest.

    going to sit down again on Friday and redo my SOA with all of the advice I have received and go from there.

    thank you all
    Starting debt June 2024 - £19,294.53 
    Dec 2024 - £12,321.17
    Jan 2025 - £11,487.28
    April 2025 - £9319.18
  • kimwp
    kimwp Posts: 2,911 Forumite
    Fifth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Thank you all for commenting. I think I have been pushing myself to get out of the debt as soon as possible, but with the numbers as they are I don’t think this is going to be possible and I am going to need to prioritise saving some extra money towards the mat leave pot, baby pot and clothes pot in order to avoid relying on credit card towards the end of the month.
    I am keen to try to stick to the £125 budget for food.

    I have transferred the balances from Tesco cc and family member cc onto my new 0% Barclaycard, so this will hopefully make things more manageable.

    i am going to aim to overpay on the loans to get these cleared asap, pay minimums on the two 0% cards, and then save the rest.

    going to sit down again on Friday and redo my SOA with all of the advice I have received and go from there.

    thank you all
    Good thinking. When you do your SOA, just put your minimums against each of the debts, then you can see what you have to play with.

    The old style money saving board has a few popular threads on frugal grocery shopping, just make sure (as I'm sure you will) that you all get the nutrients you need with growing a little one. Things like beans on toast with fruit or omelette with lots of veg, wholemeal pasta with lentil, veg and tomato sauce are reasonably nutritious and cheap I think. And Lidl do their veg box things, good for curries and smoothies.
    Statement of Affairs (SOA) link: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php

    For free, non-judgemental debt advice, try: Stepchange or National Debtline. Beware fee charging companies with similar names.
  • MFWannabe
    MFWannabe Posts: 2,457 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    You may want to post on the Debt free diaries section to keep yourself accountable? 
    Is the Barclaycard just a balance transfer card? Or is it also a Money transfer card? 

    MFW 2025 #50: £1139.75/£6000

    12/06/25: Mortgage: £65,000.00
    07/03/25: Mortgage: £67,000.00
    18/01/25: Mortgage: £68,500.14
    27/12/24: Mortgage: £69,278.38 

    27/12/24: Debt: £0 🥳😁
    27/12/24: Savings: £12,000

    07/03/25: Savings: £16,500

  • kimwp said:
    Thank you all for commenting. I think I have been pushing myself to get out of the debt as soon as possible, but with the numbers as they are I don’t think this is going to be possible and I am going to need to prioritise saving some extra money towards the mat leave pot, baby pot and clothes pot in order to avoid relying on credit card towards the end of the month.
    I am keen to try to stick to the £125 budget for food.

    I have transferred the balances from Tesco cc and family member cc onto my new 0% Barclaycard, so this will hopefully make things more manageable.

    i am going to aim to overpay on the loans to get these cleared asap, pay minimums on the two 0% cards, and then save the rest.

    going to sit down again on Friday and redo my SOA with all of the advice I have received and go from there.

    thank you all
    Good thinking. When you do your SOA, just put your minimums against each of the debts, then you can see what you have to play with.

    The old style money saving board has a few popular threads on frugal grocery shopping, just make sure (as I'm sure you will) that you all get the nutrients you need with growing a little one. Things like beans on toast with fruit or omelette with lots of veg, wholemeal pasta with lentil, veg and tomato sauce are reasonably nutritious and cheap I think. And Lidl do their veg box things, good for curries and smoothies.
    Thank you so much, this is so helpful
    Starting debt June 2024 - £19,294.53 
    Dec 2024 - £12,321.17
    Jan 2025 - £11,487.28
    April 2025 - £9319.18
  • kimwp
    kimwp Posts: 2,911 Forumite
    Fifth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    The old style money saving board is weirdly under hobbies-
    https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/old-style-moneysaving

    There is a spending board too, which has shopping threads, but I think the old style one has more threads on making money and food go further.
    Statement of Affairs (SOA) link: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php

    For free, non-judgemental debt advice, try: Stepchange or National Debtline. Beware fee charging companies with similar names.
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