Finally going to solve this debt once and for all

ArtyJ931

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82133479#Comment_82133479

It’s your life and your money you get to decide what your priorities are and that’s perfectly ok. Everybody has different priorities in life and that’s as it should be. :)

abaka

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82133576#Comment_82133576

Thanks for your comment! I must say I’ve been reading your own diary and think you’re doing amazing on your own journey.

You are right that everybody has different priorities and approaches.

I would hazard a guess that going nucleur and pausing my life and skimping back on everything would be detrimental to my health.

And any detriment to my health would be a major set back and could see me on a Bipolar fuelled spending spree!

I do have some other positive news though. I did get accepted for the Santander card and also got accepted for a NatWest 36 card.

I looked at that when I thought the Santander card wasn’t going to work out as a back up plan. However I decided to go ahead and get it

This allows me to move my Virgin Card which ends in 10 months and the other Virgin. And Halifax card which ends in 17 months. It means I have reduced my card outgoings to 3 instead of 4 and it also means all my cards are now tied up until 2029 (Mar, July and Sept).

This allows me to relax on overpayments and focus on the immediate few months to build up my pots and emergency funds.

I should be able to clear one of the cards in full before The 0% expires and the other two will be lower balances when they expire (when my pots are established and I’ve adjusted to using them for spending and replenishing when needs be) I’ll go back to overpaying the cards.

I would say some people will disagree with my approach here on kicking the can down the road, but I’ve just secured 3 years of interest free periods on 15k worth of debt so I’m happy with my approach.

daisy_1571

Wouldn't have thought there would be anyone thinking thats a bad approach. The longer you have it 0% the better. The simpler you make your finances the better. Sounds very sensible and was worthwhile applying.

The only problem that I could forsee that might arise is if you have left yourself open lines of credit on the paid off cards that you can utilise if you go on another spending spree ?

There are other diaries on here with posters who have similar experiences, perhaps sharing of ideas to get in front of yourselves during an episode might be a helpful tool? Maybe an open thread, maybe pms, but whilst I can offer advice on systems, spreadsheets and techniques like tha,t I have no experience of the bipolar to offer advice on techniques for that. From diaries it seems like thats one thing that can derail months of work so the more you can do to help yourself in those periods the better for long term financial stability.

Dxx

abaka

Agreed and I’m already taking action to do that, by deleting accounts! Im the last few months, I’ve closed two MBNA accounts which had a total credit limit of 17,000. A Halifax account which had a limit of 8,000, A Virgin account which had a limit of 5,100 and two Tesco accounts which had a combined limit of 26,000.

That’s actually scary to think that the amount of credit I’ve cancelled my access to exceeds my yearly salary and theres still over 80k available to me at this moment in time (including the two I’ve just opened)

Makingabobor2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82134834#Comment_82134834

This is the problem....credit cards & banks just letting us keep on opening new accounts & extending overdrafts. We kept thinking we could pay it off, but it never happened. By the time we had our LBM, our debt at the time was almost twice our combined salaries, and we still had a massive mortgage.

ArtyJ931

I checked my credit report this morning (tried to - it wouldn’t let me so I only had access to the from mse credit club) and the credit cards I’m defaulting on have all reduced my available balance to at or near the actual balance but I still have more than 20k “available” through various cards with zero balance

Makingabobor2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82135118#Comment_82135118

Its just mad isn't it. I now have a credit card, after years of not having one when DMP started. I dont use it for cŕedit, but for getting N*ct*r points. It has a £1600 limit, and I buy groceries with it, or pay for something online, and then pay off the next day. Never got anywhere near the credit limit

But lenders are still so bad at letting people have credit without really looking at whether they can really afford it.

abaka

It is indeed scary. I used to always pride myself in my ability to never pay any interest on my cards but I think that the card issuers just threw more and more limits at me to just slowly drown in the debt.

I’ve had a proper cold/flu working on me all weekend so took today as leave from work. Did my balance transfer to NatWest, and done my 5er a day payment to my pots.

I think once I have the pots where I want them to be, I’ll stick to the 5er a day and use that to clear some of the nationwide loan. My wife is a big fan of that approach and has told me when she’s back to work, she’ll be dumping a 5er a day into my soon to be smallest debt which is Santander.

So by tackling this together we’ll hopefully get there before my October 2030 target. I’m less optimistic based on my changing approach to focus on building my savings and everyday pots but my wife thinks we’ll do it!

Makingabobor2

£5 a day will add up very quickly.

joedenise

if you’re both doing a fiver a day that’s £70 a week and at least £280 a month so the debts should come down quite quickly.