A healthier way to chase dopamine

Lolina

Hi everyone,

I’m newly registered to the forum but have been reading these diaries for a few weeks and it’s inspired me to start my own one to keep me accountable and hopefully get the debts down!

My problem is that I currently have a large amount of credit card debt through what I now realise is chasing dopamine. I get a huge, temporary rush from spending and it feels really good… until it wears off and I end up with more possessions I don’t need and an ever-increasing amount of debt. Some of the things I’ve bought years ago are still unpacked, in their boxes, under the bed! So I’m amassing clutter, debt and a negative headspace, all in an attempt to feel better about myself. It rationally doesn’t make sense, but psychologically it feels really scary to have to give it up – but I’m not able to keep on living this way ☹

I want to try to get that dopamine rush in a healthier way, hence the name of this diary. I live alone and have told nobody about the extent of my debts, so there is no-one to keep me accountable – I need to learn to be accountable to myself, don’t I.

I get inspired reading about people on here who are making efforts like selling things on Vinted etc, and making small, sustainable changes that have big results in the long run. I am hoping that I can emulate you all in being proactive about the debt, and getting the buzz I’m chasing from seeing the numbers go down.

I’ll put down my debts in the next post. Looking forward to taking part in this lovely supportive community, and grateful to receive any encouragement or advice along the way.

Lolina

Okay, so here is what I owe currently on credit cards only (I have a small mortgage, ~£34k, and a small student loan, ~5k, so I’m not counting these):

Virgin: £807.97 Minimum payment don’t know, it’s a recent transfer and doesn’t tell me yet. 0% until 31st Jan 2028. This was a balance transfer from Tesco that was earning interest.

Halifax 1: £2,821.20 Minimum payment £70.53.

0% on £1,327.31 until 03/12/26

0% on £997.50 until 22/05/27

0% on £496.39 until 03/06/27

Halifax 2: £3,968.64 Minimum payment £99.22.

0% on £2,725.92 until 10/02/27

0% on £1,242.72 until 22/04/27

MBNA: £11,116.56 Minimum payment £277.91

0% on £5,341.08 until 23/08/26 (have a reminder in my calendar to transfer this to Virgin 0% at end of July)

0% on £418.00 until 15/09/26

0% on £1,127.92 until 26/02/27

0% on £4,229.56 until 22/04/27

Tesco: £2,681.60 Minimum payment £29.00

0% - doesn’t say until when on any statements. I need to ring them, but I suspect it might be Sept 2026 based on when I opened the account. Very sneaky of them not to say this!!

TOTAL CREDIT CARD DEBT: £21,395.97

Eeekk. That is really scary to look at, and scary to know that a couple of large amounts will be coming to the end of their 0% interest soon. I really, really need to get a handle on this.

I’m not sure what the best way to tackle this is – I think my plan will be to throw every spare penny at the smaller amount coming up soon (MBNA £418) and hope for 0% balance transfer offers for the larger amounts when they expire? I should be okay for the £5k on MBNA as should be able to transfer this to my Virgin 0% offer, but that looming (unknown) Tesco amount is really scaring me!

Ah well, I feel better for at least getting it down ‘on paper’. Any advice or insight greatly appreciated! 😊

Jemma01

Can you please also complete a statement of affairs so we know how much income comes in and out? Do you mind updating the post to also include what the variable rate would be if you don't pay it while interest free or transfer?

One thing that brings me joy is selling my unwanted things, and decluttering. The £5 you get here it and there when things sell is exciting lol even when it's only the cost of shipping and packaging!!

Draw yourself a spreadsheet with all debt on one side, and your income on the other side, and every time you get paid, decide which debt the money goes to, and start crossing out and closing accounts. Visualising it drop down bit by bit would give you sense of achievement.

You can get chatgpt to create an excel tracker for you, I just did one but can't upload it as the file extension is not allowed (AIs do make mistakes, so if you do, check all the numbers are correct).

AntoMac

Welcome to the forum. You’ve taken a huge step by acknowledging where you are.

I kind of did similar with 0pc/low cost Balance and Money transfers when I was obsessed with paying off my mortgage. Yes I got the mortgage down significantly but it was at the expense of thousands of pounds of credit card balances. My highest balance was over £25k when l stopped to take stock of what I was doing. I’m pleased to say I got on top of it and it’s no longer a problem, so based on the limited information you’ve provided (What we don’t know is what your income and other expenses are) I would say that if I and others can do it, then so can you.

If you can post a Statement of Affairs (Hopefully you’ve seen these on other diaries) there are many wise heads on here who can offer help and support.

For my credit cards II have the relevant apps, and I seem to get never ending 0pc BT offers. Do you use the apps with your credit cards?

it’s a positive that all your cards are at 0pc but of course there’s no guarantee that 0pc offers will always be available.

Good luck and well done for recognising where you are.

When those balances start coming down it will be such a good feeling as you hit each little landmark/target.

Smudgeismydog

Hello and welcome 👋

A SOA is always useful as you can review your expenditure and the helpful folk here can often spot things you might have missed.

If your debt is all on 0%, then throwing everything at the smallest debt first (snowball method) can be motivating as you can get rid debts quickly. It sounds like you have a good understanding of the relevant interest rates though, so ordering the debts in date order and working through them that way might be sensible to try and avoid paying really rates of interest.
Visual charts that you colour in, or just adding the debts to your signature and updating on here regularly are helpful methods of tracking progress

Lolina

Thank you for the warm welcome! 🤗 I'm glad I started this diary. I'll get started on a SOA (I have seen them on other diaries) and post it when it's done.

Yes @AntoMac, I use the apps for the credit cards and there always is a 0% offer waiting when I log on. I always (naively!) assumed these would always be available, so that is a sobering thought and has given me a bit of a wakeup call.

I love the idea of the spreadsheets and the visual charts to keep me motivated, thank you, I will get started on those too. Lots of things to think about!

Lolina

I’ve looked at my income and outgoings to see what exactly I have to throw at this debt. I have some large costs that are unavoidable due to personal/family issues, and I don’t want to get into that as there’s currently nothing I can do about them. They’re in the region of approximately £260 per month.

My internet, insurances, Netflix (basic package) and mobile costs are the lowest I can possibly get – my mobile is sim only and £8/month (plus an extra £3 per month donation to Cats Protection which I won’t get rid of). I have three cats but cancelled my pet insurance after four years of paying £££ and thankfully not having to use it – I think it would be better to save that money so that if, God forbid, I need to use it, I have it saved. Of course I haven’t actually done that though. Wish I'd never taken out the insurance at all and I could've saved so much, but sure hindsight is wonderful isn't it.

So my situation at the minute with non-negotiable, absolute costs is:

Income: £2,374 (due a pay rise and back pay in I think August)

Mortgage: £354

Unavoidable (personal situation) costs as mentioned above: £261

Home insurance: £50

Rates: £141

Electricity: £20

Gas: £20 (I know electricity and gas seem very low, but this is linked in and partially mitigated by the personal situation I referenced above. Every cloud, etc…)

Internet: £32

Netflix: £6

Mobile phone: £11

Car tax: £18

Denplan: £14

Google storage: £2

Paypal credit: £35 (two more payments left)

Argos pay 6 month's interest free (£300 coffee machine - a very expensive dopamine-chasing purchase but I love it): £50

MBNA credit card: £277.91

Tesco credit card: £29

Halifax 1 credit card: £71

Halifax 2 credit card: £100

Virgin credit card: Not sure yet as it's just been set up, let’s say £30 to be on safe side

Total bills that have to come out: £1,521.91

That is really sobering, and means that the total money I have left to pay for things like cat food, groceries, car insurance, diesel, MOT, house repair, emergency fund, holidays, hair cuts, socialising, etc, is only £852. And that is only making the minimum payments off the credit cards.

This is not good. I didn’t think it was as bad as this to be honest. I feel a bit scared now 😢

AntoMac

Another poor sleeper like me if posting at 3am!! Or hopefully you work shifts or something. Hopefully the latter 😉Anyway….

Your mortgage is relatively low so that’s a good thing. So many are paying 4 figures for rent/mortgage so well done for whatever reason for having got that so low. I was similar with low mortgage but high credit card balances.

It has to be a big positive that you’ve realised it’s an issue and are addressing your behaviours as much as anything.

With Balance Transfers comes BT fees of course, with another big one coming up in August. Difficult to avoid of course, but part of the cycle of Balance Transfers.

The pay rise/back pay, end of PayPal and end of Argos are all positives on the horizon. Not saying all is rosy but could be much worse.

Do you have any savings or emergency fund? Do you generally stay well out of overdraft? I know what you mean with the pet insurance and of course hindsight is a wonderful thing about not taking it out in the first place but it might have been a literal life saver had you needed it. Can you at least start putting the equivalent away somewhere safe just in case,

We had one cat and whilst he was absolutely priceless, they don’t come cheap.

I also learned the hard way to put car maintenance, holiday, emergency funds etc away monthly. Can you do that and are you able to clearly see from your bank statements etc exactly where your money goes.

When I was in a similar situation I was cross with myself which I guess you might be as well. I found that any tiny overpayment I could make really made a difference. I was a bit scattergun with them but it must look better for the credit card providers if you can show that you can pay over the minimum each month. Of course as your balances go down so do the minimum monthly payments so there’s another small positive. Hopefully your total minimum monthly payments are now as high as they will ever be and will start to creep down.

So no amazingly helpful advice from me there I’m afraid, but hopefully a bit of perspective, and a reminder that if you were renting your rent could be much higher than your current combined mortgage and minimum monthly credit card payments.

For me it was all about realising I’d got to the ridiculous £25kplus of Balance Transfers, committing to go no higher, and gradually moving the balances in the opposite direction.

Jemma01

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82037681#Comment_82037681

dont be scared, half of the journey is realising where you stand, and putting yourself on the right track.

I will tell what I did to clear my debt, I know I took it to the extreme length, but I needed to, I'm not suggesting you do it all (or even part), I just want you to rethink your spending habits on the leftover money, we all operate at different paste.

• For food, I bought raw ingredients and cooked 4 meals and froze them (all on the same day, so I could share base ingredients like onion garlic), so every day I would choose what I want. Frozen veggies and fruits too. This meant I didn't go shopping for few weeks which significantly reduced my food spending. I almost stopped buying snacks and anything I deemed unnecessary. My food was at a certain intervals (4-5hrs), if it wasn't time, I wasn't eating, it helped me stick to my gym diet and reduced sugars.
• Socialising reducedddd, if we go out we go for walks and not buying anything, or come to my house and we cook together.
• Holidays? Absolutely not. But I discovered camping and it gave me an outlet to be away (2 nights per trip only, and my food I carried with me, the places I stayed at had a community freezer). So no food costs there.
• Hair cuts at home using a home hair leveling thing (I can show you what it looks like), no colouring.
• No access to credit cards, only 2 debits that I never overdraft because my eyes were on my bank app like a hawk.
• I went to the gym after work and 1 weekend day (roughly 5/6 days/w, which meant less time thinking and shopping or socialising!! £19.99/m. (This wasn't a change for me, I've been doing that for years, but I wrote it here so you think about the times where you start shopping, to occupy that time with something else that's not too costly).
• I didn't buy clothes or shoes at that time.
• Cleaning supplies swapped everything to washing liquid and bleach (works for kitchen and toilet), mirror spray cleaner, and generic surface spray (for bedroom). This meant I'd go straight in to what I needed and out, no time for extras or trying new things.

That was me for 1.5yrs (Oct24-Apr26). sometimes you gotta do whacha gotta do 😱. Was it hard. Absolutely, was i glued to my bank app checking every penny. Absolutely. Am I relieved now? God yes. I still have one family debt to pay, but they're easy on me and I'm paying the agreed amount monthly, my life is nearly back to normal, but I did develop good habits over the period that I carried forward willingly.

All my bills are paid start of the month, so when the money is gone, I have no option. If I don't have the money. Tough luck.

in_need_of_direction

I’d start by rounding up the minimum payments to the nearest £5 or £10, work out the cost of this and set yourself a wee challenge to generate this money through sales, the dreaded surveys, vouchers, cash back, etc. not only is it good for your credit record but it gives a sense of achievement. I’d sit down and work out the costs for each of the essentials to be covered by the remaining £852 e.g. what’s the average monthly cost of cat food? Try to budget for essentials and then I would split what’s left between savings pots and debt clearance.. I’d do the same as other monies free up like when PayPal is cleared.
if you previously got a kick from spending, you must have built up some stocks of items. I used to add half the cost of anything new that I used from home, to my overpayment on the grounds that I would otherwise have spent on a replacement. I’m down to my last 3 unopened tubes of EL primer most of which were bought to get bonus gifts that I primarily gave away!

Anyhow, well done on taking the first steps, you’ve got this. Just keep posting as the cheerleaders on here are brilliant

Lolina

Thank you all so much for the support, it really means so much to me!

@AntoMac unfortunately not shift work, just a very bad sleeper like yourself and up at all hours of the morning! Thanks for your positive thoughts, they have really cheered me and make me feel like I can get through this. You are right, I feel really cross with myself but that is not helping, only making things worse, so I need to just acknowledge that I messed up and then put it behind me. I do stay out of my overdraft, and have a very small emergency fund in a Monzo ISA (about £240) so that's another positive thing.

@Jemma01 thanks for all the ideas, brilliant that you have achieved so much! I am considering the gym idea as I think I spend a lot in the evenings because I'm so used to it and a bit bored on my own - my friends all live quite far away and I don't see them as often as I'd like. Plus I have a good bit of weight to shift! There's a Pure Gym near me that I think is not too expensive. Just have to muster up the courage to start! 😨

@in_need_of_direction thanks for the advice, I really like the idea of paying a little extra off each debt. It will be a little psychological boost as well as getting it down quicker. I like the idea of a little challenge to myself, and like you say, I have plenty that I could sell if I just got my act together and got organised to do it!

Thank you again for the advice and support, it is so encouraging :)