New User with £30K debt

Kigu

Here we go. Feel scared as both me and my husband have tried to pretend this isn't happening for years. And scared too as I feel so guilty/daft/profligate (although where the money went I don't know). We are both 46, no kids, not houseowners, not drivers either. We are both in employment - I earn £15000, my husband £20000. His job is safe until December 2006 only. We owe £30000 altogether which is to Access, Visa, Egg (cards), store cards, a loan, and an overdraft. We are maxed up. We have no disposible income and are always depressed. I admit to getting a kick from spending and he isn't much better. I was thinking of taking out a single unsecured loan to cover the lot. I was thinking about a Cahoot flexible as we could vary the amount we pay in (I don't want us to feel 'well off' and get back into bad habits you see), and finish early. We have never had any credit problems - always managed to pay everything so far. But this can't go on. Anyone out there with advice for me?

Smiley_Mum

Write down all your incomings and outgoings etc. Daily outgoings in a book, everything so you can see where every penny is going, you can then see where you can cut back. Take a look at Martins Budget spreadsheet above which you can fill out.

Post up on this thread your income/outgoings. Also the how much debt on each card etc, what the apr is and the interest etc.

Take the card/loan with the highest apr and pay as much as you can towards that and pay minimum on the rest until you get the highest apr one paid off then do the same again. Check out

http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

Contact either

http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/ (there is a link for Scotland also)

Also contact your local CAB and they may be able to help you with the credit card companies, if you are struggling to make payments etc.

Cut down all your luxuries, gym memberships, nights out, taxis,, sky tv etc.

Check out the moneysaving oldstyle forum here for help on cooking meals from scratch.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=56929

There is a lot of help on this site and you only need to post and I'm sure someone will post a reply soon. I'm not too clued up but I hope what I've written will help some. Good Luck.

Kigu

Thanks so much. I will come back with detailed figures as soon as I can. To be frank my husband knows all the facts not me - I will endeavour to get them from him. I don't want him to know I am asking for help here or he'd go crazy! Very proud.

We are, in fact, paying minimums back as we are and am not sure I can find any spare to pay more to the highest APR places. We rarely go out, are not members of gyms or other fancy things, don't have Sky or cable, hardly use mobiles, and eat as cheaply as we can. We use a taxi once a week to get the shopping back that's all. Haven't had a holiday for ages. This is the thing - where has all the money gone? We sure as h*ll have nothing to show for it!

Smiley_Mum

There is no harm in asking for help. Better than sticking your head in the sand like some people may do and hoping the debts will go away.

Kigu

No - we've done that for too long. But I can't tell him I am seeking help here - believe you me he'd hit the proverbial! So he'll just have to think I have got savvy all of a sudden!

Squiffy

If you really want to tackle these issues properly, you need to have a full & frank discussion.

There is no shame at all in seeking help here. Why should he be bothered? It's not as if we know who you are or are likely to ever meet you in real life. And even if we did, we're all in the same boat.

I hope you feel able to tell him about this place. It really is a fantastic place for advice and support.

Ember999

Hi Honey,

Your post has prompted me to reply. Quite often in life we don't know where our money has gone! It often seems that the more we earn, the more we spend and the less we can account for most of that spending. If I roll back the years to 15 years ago, my hubby and I had no debt, had an income of £30,000+ a year (which wasn't bad for then) and we earned this figure for 10 years until he was made redundant. On redundancy we had a credit card bill owing of 5,000 and a apple computer on finance at £400 owing. I know this doesn't seem a lot, but at the time and facing no income and little prospects of another job paying anywhere near to what we were earning, was slim. We used most of the redundancy cheque to clear all our debts so at least we owed nothing, even if we were going to be poor

To this day we really don't know where all our money went. Rash spending, shopping trips etc. We have all done it at some point in our lives.

Thankfully, he found a great job paying even more and we now handle our finances a lot better. I save at least £800 per month in ING account and we have thousands sat in there now. Yet, we don't seem to have changed our standard of living at all.

I can't help you sort out the mess you are in now, but take heart from the fact that the regular brains on here about finances will help you sort it out and learning from my experience, you CAN start again with your money and do things differently in the future.

Good Luck,

Ember x

Smiley_Mum

If I can help you with sorting out your debts etc by giving info etc then I'll throw my tuppence worth in, I'm not as clued up on cards/debts etc as some people on this site but I'm sure I'll be able to help in some way. I'm sure, as Squiffy posted above, people will be along to help. Since I've been checking out MSE I've only ever found the members only too keen to help out.

Kigu

I am already beginning to see that. And feeling better already - thank you so much for taking the time to reply.

Kigu

You lot are so kind - I feel quite emotional! Take a virtual cuddle each and every one of you!

Smiley_Mum

Post up the outgoings/incomings etc etc and see what we can do to help out.