Single income, AuDHD, £31k debt, no savings

puffintail

I'm currently awaiting the outcome of two Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) complaints for irresponsible lending (lenders didn't uphold the complaints, so I escalated to FOS within the last month).

Still single, on the same public sector income as I was earlier this year. Mortgage is currently at just over £126k (house worth somewhere around £200k). Still run the animal rescue charity from home, voluntarily (the kindness of public donations keeps us going without any financial investment from me).

No savings (I'd saved up for my car service, and for another big car bill of £1k, but all of that has now been spent and I'm back to £0 saved). Still no holidays, no dining out, no takeaways, no alcohol, no smoking, no work lunches or coffees. No pet care costs as I am *very* lucky to work from home and have an incredible direct line manager (who I often worry I am not doing justice to, with how heavy life is feeling just now, meaning I'm not being anywhere near as productive as I should be).

I had 2.5 months off earlier this year for, what presented as, a severe allergic reaction - still no closer to knowing what it was, and a lot of the symptoms are still there, albeit on a lower ebb. I have a specialist appointment at the end of Nov, I'm battling for investigations into Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, but it's been an uphill battle of self advocacy. The financial stress has not been all that helpful with my focus, anxiety, and exhaustion, which has then impacted my ability to perform well at my full-time job.

The joyful trifector of ADHD, Autism, and PMDD is less than ideal, too.

I have been having some NHS online CBT (due to end in December) and have continued selling as much as I can of my own personal possessions to keep afloat.

puffintail

I'm in a really low ebb just now, emotionally. It feels like groundhog day. I know that there are people in far, far harder situations, and I am grateful every day for the boss I have, my animal family and having a mortgage, so I don't mean to sound like a major downer and I know that things could be so much worse. The debt increased because of some unavoidable repair costs, and it's great I was able to save to cover some annual bills. Truthfully, though, I just feel like I want to hide away from the world and pause life for a while. I'm putting in tremendous emotional and practical effort, but it seems like it is for precious little progress...

Afdaff

Just read through your diary, and I’m sorry you’ve been having such a difficult year. I understand the wanting to hide away from the world feeling. The fact that you’ve come back here and had the courage to post again shows determination though, and we’ll help cheer you on.

I often find myself working in bursts- say a burst of house improvement, a burst of creative energy, or of financial steps forward. You had a really good burst earlier in the year and set things in place, and even though currently things are harder, what you did earlier in the year did help. Another period of focussing now/when you’re ready will do the same.

SparFuchs

puffintail said:

Thanks all - I have typically been using *any* surplus and throwing it on to my debt, but then, when a big bill hits (e.g. the £1k car bill due next month that I don't have savings for) then the debt increases anyway.

The mobile phone cost came as a result of my last phone totally dying, and not being able to afford a new mobile phone, so I switched from SIM only to contract to get a phone.

Re the electricity, I pay just over £100 duel fuel, so I guessed at what proportion would go where. I don't watch TV, nor have any games consoles, I turn lights off and standby off for the computer at every opportunity, only boil as much water as I need each time and have the quickest showers I can, too. 

I have life assurance primarily to boost any payout for whomever handles my estate if I were to die, so that they're not left with any debt to pay off. I do have a sister, we're not close, but I wouldn't want her facing any nasty surprises.

I pay council tax over 12 months.

Note for the future: CEX sell secondhand phones with, I think, a 5 year warrenty. There's no need to spend a lot on buying a new phone outright or getting into a contract.

puffintail

Afdaff said:

Just read through your diary, and I’m sorry you’ve been having such a difficult year. I understand the wanting to hide away from the world feeling. The fact that you’ve come back here and had the courage to post again shows determination though, and we’ll help cheer you on.

I often find myself working in bursts- say a burst of house improvement, a burst of creative energy, or of financial steps forward. You had a really good burst earlier in the year and set things in place, and even though currently things are harder, what you did earlier in the year did help. Another period of focussing now/when you’re ready will do the same.

Thank you, I really appreciate the compassion here 💙

puffintail

Pay day yesterday.

I did my usual snowflake "round up" payment to the mortgage. I'm so grateful to have a mortgage, and appreciate my consistency in paying these snowflakes payments, every month, since having it. It's easy to look at our failings, but easier to overlook our wins, no matter how small. I'd like to do better with that. 

I then left the amount needed (plus a small buffer) for all direct debits in my First Direct account, and immediately transferred the remaining over to my Starling account (which I'm trying out using for any monthly spends and annual savings). I then popped a little bit of money in my annual savings "pots" (emergency fund, vet fund, car service, gifts, home insurance, MOT, Tax, boiler service).

I'm trying to use my Starling account slightly differently this month. I already created savings "pots" for various annual things that I'm adding tiny bits to (but I've decided to create "pots" for fuel and food/cleaning stuff (active monthly spends). I keep a buffer in the main account, then, each time I spend either of those categories, I remove the money from the "pot" back into the main account, so I can have an easy visual of how much I've got left, each month, in those respective "pots". This manual process, although a bit annoying, is helping me to keep the amount of spend/left to spend fresh in my mind. I'm curious as to whether this will be helpful, so it'll be good to look back and see.

daintydaisy

Well done for ripping the plaster off - that’s the hardest part. It will only get easier from here. I like the idea of having separate accounts and I do something similar with Monzo where I try and have a set budget for each category. Wishing you the best of luck on your debt busting journey!

puffintail

daintydaisy said:

Well done for ripping the plaster off - that’s the hardest part. It will only get easier from here. I like the idea of having separate accounts and I do something similar with Monzo where I try and have a set budget for each category. Wishing you the best of luck on your debt busting journey!

Thank you so much, I really appreciate this support 😊

puffintail

I've had an email from MBNA, who I have a CC with, zero balance, £10k limit.

They've offered the below, and I'm wondering whether to do the 3.5% fee money transfer, and pay down the maximum transfer (£9300 according to MBNA) on one of my two loans. I'd pay down the Lendable one (9.3% APR) which would, in theory, leave me with c. £4k to pay back to Lendable, and £9625 to MBNA (the fee is £325). Over the same 20 months, if I don't utilise the money transfer, I'd be paying Lendable c. £748 in interest. It's very likely I'll need to do a balance transfer at the end of the 20 months, which, of course, will attract another fee.

It looks like the minimum monthly payment on the MBNA would be £240, if I did the money transfer.

Lendable don't reduce the monthly repayment, only the loan term (currently 60 months). So I'd end up having to continue the £279 on top of the MBNA payment (for around 14 months, at a guess) which I don't think is sustainable...

I could do the lump sum on my Zopa, albeit that's slightly less of a saving with 8.4% APR, but they do reduce the monthly repayment (it would be £106, in place of the current £342)

I'd welcome input to help me think this through, "out loud", please?

Money Transfers • 0% p.a. for 20 months. 3.5% fee applies.

• 5.9% p.a. for 30 months. 0% fee applies.

MFWannabe

As it wouldn’t be sustainable to pay lendable and MBNA I’d move as much as possible of the Zopa loan 
The transfer fee is equivalent of 3 months loan interest so would be worth it x