The Road to Somewhere?

compulsivespender79

Hello Everyone,

I've been posting for a few days now, but as I've been reading I can see that quite a few people keep a kind of 'diary' of their debt, and it seems to keep them motivated, so I thought I'd have a go too!
I first started posting because after Christmas the repayments on everything I had were really too much to cope with, I heard about CCCS on here, so decided to give them a go. I'm now just waiting on them for my Welcome Pack.

A little bit about me;
I'm a 28 year old single mother of one working as a kind of administrator in a secondary school.
I have a history of being useless with money and misusing credit, have been doing it since I was old enough to. I'm now in the situation where I've taken on far too much, and because my tax credits got reduced by £60 a week (even though I told them about four times of my change in circumstances!) I can barely meet the payments. I know, stupid me for taking the TCs for granted.
My lightbulb moment happened just over a week ago. I couldn't cope with the stress and worry, I was hiding from letters and phonecalls, but I wasn't prepared to go down that road again. A few years ago I got a CCJ and was threatened with the bailiffs etc; I managed to get myself out of it and on the straight and narrow, but as soon as my credit rating started to improve I started to take advantage of it, car loan, credit card, store card. Then a bad debt came and bit me on the bottom (god bless Lowell), and then my old company pursued me (rightly) for overpaid maternity pay because I didn't go back to work for them after Mat Leave.

Below are two (incomplete) SOAs, pre- and post-CCCS, and what a difference they make!

SALARY £1142.00
CH BENEFIT £72.00
T CREDIT £448.00
CH SUPPORT £180.00
£1842.00

PRE-CCCS
PAYEE AMOUNT
BRITISH GAS TRADING £60.00
BRITISH TELECOMMUN £12.00
EBAY £6.99
PLUSNET PLC £13.38
CAR INSURANCE £42.31
HOME INSURANCE £7.90
SEVERN TRENT WATER £10.29
T-MOBILE (UK) LIMI £42.00
TV LICENSING £11.61
COUNCIL TAX £84.00
RENT £350.00
MATPAY £50.00
NURSERY £500.00
RBS LOAN £173.00
RBS CC £50.00
MOTHERCARE CC £20.00
LOWELL £57.00
SLC £43.00
RBS O/D £50.00
£1,583.48

POST CCCS;
PAYEE AMOUNT
BRITISH GAS TRADING £60.00
BRITISH TELECOMMUN £12.00
EBAY £6.99
PLUSNET PLC £13.38
CAR INSURANCE £42.31
HOME INSURANCE £7.90
SEVERN TRENT WATER £10.29
T-MOBILE (UK) LIMI £42.00
TV LICENSING £11.61
COUNCIL TAX £84.00
RENT £350.00
MAT PAY £50.00
NURSERY £500.00
CCCS £178.00
£1,368.48

Of course, I haven't included petrol, food, clothes etc: I'm yet to do the budgetting for those, but at least I now have a starting point!
A few points to note:

• British Gas is quite high because of an almighty !!!! up when I first moved in the property.
• I have the 25% council tax discount
• I have the £35 t-mobile flext because I was always overspending on the £25 one, and I don't use the landline to make calls, purely there for internet

Be gentle with me folks!!!!

Oh, and a confession; I smoke, but have cut down from buying 20 a day to 10 a day!

There's plenty more to tell about me, but I'm sure I'll fill you in as I go along . . .

compulsivespender79

Ooops, SOAs didn't work very well did they?? Bear with me and I'll try and sort them out!!

---

Still not great, but I haven't got time to put it right at the minute, will ASAP though.

---

Any better?!?!

(Land_of)_Maz

sometimes copying and pasting doesn't work... a quick edit should do the trick....

compulsivespender79

Have just done the de-motivator on here for my usual spends on crisps, chocolate, and diet coke . . . . .£475 A YEAR!!!!!! :eek:
Ouch, that hurt.

With every yang there's a yin though; I've just uswitched my gas, and saved myself £207 a year, because I finished paying monies outstanding to British Gas last month.

£682 saving in one day?!?

Have put the demotivator poster on my wall at work, so it should have some impact! Wish me luck - and the pounds should start falling off my bottom as well!

ps: how long does it take to be promoted from 'Newbie' status??

CHEAP_AS_CHIPS_4

hiya :j

just wated to say welcome aboard, you in the right place

i am sure there will be someone along soon with some fab advice

i did notice you didn't include a few things in you soa, such as food, petrol, clothes etc,

to enable eveyone to really help, you should include everything.

do you not get any help with nursery fees?

compulsivespender79

CHEAP_AS_CHIPS wrote: »

hiya :j

just wated to say welcome aboard, you in the right place

i am sure there will be someone along soon with some fab advice

i did notice you didn't include a few things in you soa, such as food, petrol, clothes etc,

to enable eveyone to really help, you should include everything.

do you not get any help with nursery fees?

Hi, I do get help with nursery from Tax Credits (it's included in my incoming at the top of my SOA.

As regards my other outgoings, I'm going to sit down this weekend and have a look, and I'll let you know as soon as I do!!!

Verbatim

Welcome to dfw.

Well done on getting off to a flying start.

how about putting the cost of cigs in the demotivator too?

compulsivespender79

Verbatim wrote: »

Welcome to dfw.

Well done on getting off to a flying start.

how about putting the cost of cigs in the demotivator too?

Not quite that brave enough yet! Still in denial I think!

compulsivespender79

Well, what have I achieved in the week since my LBM?

• Arranged a DMP
• Cut up my plastic
• Made token payments to my creditors
• Cancelled DDs to my creditors
• Moved all DDs and SOs to my non-indebted bank account
• Potentially saved myself £700 a year by cutting out some non-essentials and switching my gas supplier

Feeling great!

GirlRacer_2

Well done you. Have you checked your getting all the benefits your entitled to? Maybe single persons discount on Council tax or help with your rent?

Also can't you lower your mobile phone tariff to a lower one?

GR x

compulsivespender79

GirlRacer wrote: »

Well done you. Have you checked your getting all the benefits your entitled to? Maybe single persons discount on Council tax or help with your rent?

Also can't you lower your mobile phone tariff to a lower one?

GR x

Yep, I'm getting everything I'm entitled to. I already have the single persons council tax discount, and I'm not entitled to housing or council tax benefit, I check quite frequently just in case the rules have changed!!

I did lower my phone tariff for a few months, but ended up paying more because I was going over my allowance than I do on the £35 one! I can't switch providers either because I'm tied into T-Mobile for another 16 months!