Don't be so hard on yourself...

lazy&indebt

I have, in the past two years, cut my debt down from £16k to just under £5k.

I have been miserable nearly the whole time. A big chunk of cutting this down was getting rid of my car the was on HP and buying myself a cheeky little fiesta (wich cash I might add) which was a huge help.

This year I have decided to not be so hard on myself, I have (and still do)work very hard for my cash. So I have decided that I will make the effort to pay the one card off (£500) before the 0% runs out (August) and the other can stay as it is and become my last priority. It's on a low life of balance and I never pay the minimum by the way but I have just decided that if a month happens where I don't fancy buying myself anything that I will pay my card off with it (I am also looking for a new job, hope to get £4k per year extra - if I do then obviously I will throw more money at my credit card)

The reson I am saying this? Well, I think this DFW thing has become far too serious. It's almost like a cult now than simply people helping people out. You seem to become sucked in and then money rules your life which isn't healthy. I understand that there are many people who are just about managing to break even and I do feel sorry for those people because that is when you do NEED to watch EVERY penny. I just wanted to point out that, for people like me, we don't NEED cash to rule our lives. As long as the debt is going down and you aren't racking any more up. As long as you are being sensible and financially savvy and building up savings that it's NOT going to kill you to treat yourself to that new pair of shoes if you've been working hard and you are paying with cash.

I know this is going to cause a backlash and a lot of you will be pointing out that my username is very fitting but I just wanted to say how I feel.

MrsTinks

QUICK! Someone show them a credit card statement and "last reminder" letter! :rotfl:
No seriously though... I think you have done well reducing your debts so far and don't forget that what suits you might not suit others. Some people have been so deep in debt they can't cope with the thought of having debt any more and therefor need to get out of it entirely. This is because to them having a credit facility is too tempting like alcohol is to a recovered alcoholic...
You obviously feel you have gotten to a point where your debt is managable - as Martin says: "Debt isn't bad, BAD debt is bad".
Good luck and I hope you do get debt free one day however you get there

kizzykizzywizzy

Hi Lazy,
Feeling a bit miserable myself today too, due to restricting my spending sooo much
But, like tine says, I really want to get rid of this debt so badly, that I'd rather be miserable now for as short a time as possible than have it drag on for years!
I really want to buy a new house ( bigger garden & near a better secondary school, so have 4 1/2 years to do this in ) & I desperately want a holiday ( not much! ) but with even this relatively small to some people, amount of debt, I won't be able to do either of these things, so I'm afraid there's no contest.
I think you've done fab, by the way & if you are happy with the way you're handling the small amount you still owe then that's great:T good for you

Gemmzie

That's great if you have the luxury to do that, heck if all our debts were manageable I'm sure we'd be doing the same. But they aren't and we have to watch every penny so we don't lose our house.
I'm not having a go, just saying there's lots of different situations on here and not everyone can take that step back.

Shineyhappy

I think its horses for courses as they say.

Personally I want kids in a few years and before I have them I want to go on a dream holiday. OH and I have discussed this and hopefully next year we aim to go on a 3 week holiday to China, India or possibly Canada and a cruise to see some whales. If I want to do this then I have to make some serious cut backs now and for me the perks of being debt free are worth the sacrifices I have to make at the moment.

But also I dont know what will happen in the future and as I have a rather large interest only mortgage then this needs to be addressed as well to stop any unexpected bills to wreck everything.

ltm07

lazy&indebt wrote: »

I have, in the past two years, cut my debt down from £16k to just under £5k.

I have been miserable nearly the whole time. A big chunk of cutting this down was getting rid of my car the was on HP and buying myself a cheeky little fiesta (wich cash I might add) which was a huge help.

This year I have decided to not be so hard on myself, I have (and still do)work very hard for my cash. So I have decided that I will make the effort to pay the one card off (£500) before the 0% runs out (August) and the other can stay as it is and become my last priority. It's on a low life of balance and I never pay the minimum by the way but I have just decided that if a month happens where I don't fancy buying myself anything that I will pay my card off with it (I am also looking for a new job, hope to get £4k per year extra - if I do then obviously I will throw more money at my credit card)

The reson I am saying this? Well, I think this DFW thing has become far too serious. It's almost like a cult now than simply people helping people out. You seem to become sucked in and then money rules your life which isn't healthy. I understand that there are many people who are just about managing to break even and I do feel sorry for those people because that is when you do NEED to watch EVERY penny. I just wanted to point out that, for people like me, we don't NEED cash to rule our lives. As long as the debt is going down and you aren't racking any more up. As long as you are being sensible and financially savvy and building up savings that it's NOT going to kill you to treat yourself to that new pair of shoes if you've been working hard and you are paying with cash.

I know this is going to cause a backlash and a lot of you will be pointing out that my username is very fitting but I just wanted to say how I feel.

I totally agree with you on everything you say. Our debt alot worse than yours & i got an even bigger shock yesterday when i worked out that we actually owe around 1k more on two loans than we thought,which brings our debt back up to nearly the same as it was at our LBM last July. It's entirely our own fault that we got into this mess but to be fair a large proportion of the money has gone towards doing the house up. Without overtime we are left with £119 a month to live on after paying everything out & that's to buy clothes,save for holidays,MOT on car,car maintenance Xmas & birthdays etc,so we can't even afford to go out without doing overtime. Also want to get married & have had to call it off twice due to how much of a mess we're in.We owe my Mum £3,400 & although she said she is in no rush for it back we would like to pay her off as the £20 a month we're paying now will take 170 months to pay off(alot sooner i know if we stick to our payments on the whatsthecost website). We are existing at the moment,rather than living a half decent life. It would be nigh on impossible to stick to our payments on the whatsthecost website as if anything goes wrong with our car or if we want to make more Home Improvements then we would have to borrow more anyway. We have had a £32,000 mortgage extension over 16 years agreed in principle & if we take that out will leave us £435 better off a month. Worked it out that we would be paying £11,000 more in interest doing it this way but we can make overpayments & would pay an extra £700 a year over the 16 years. We will carry on doing overtime & looking for bargains & taking tips off you good people & also try to give advice where we can(although i know most of you will say that debt consolidation is bad advice). Just can't carry on doing this(i.e.had to use my birthday money just to buy OH some crisps & a bar of chocolate for her pack up last night as we've no shopping money til Friday to buy multipacks & also had to borrow £15 of DD's pocket money to make sure we didn't go overdrawn).Well done to all of you for sticking to it & getting your debts down & maybe if i was single then i would be able to stick it out & go the whole DFW journey,but our DD is missing out on so much as we can barely afford to take her out anywhere. We have changed our spending habits dramatically(our debt would be better but we had already booked 2 holidays before our LBM) & just to have a normal life on £119 a month is just about impossible. We've learned so much from coming on here but what's better,living like hermits for at least the next five years or freeing up enough money so that we can live a normal life,save up for things & also pay off the £11,000 interest over the next 16 years?

Dithering_Dad

The trouble with having a rest from full on debt repayment is that apart from the fact that you will incur yet more interest on the debt, is that you never know what's just around the next corner.

As a previous poster has said, why live like a hermit for 5 years to pay off debt when you can let the debt go the full course and enjoy your life. The trouble is that if anything untoward happens (like a job loss, more children, or illness) that affects your income, you'll have no way to service the debt.

lazy&indebt

I guess everyone's circumstances are different and what works for one may not work for another. I tried to be all financially savvy at first and save money in an ISA to pay of a 0% credit card. It didn't work as because the money was there I ended up spending it and it earned me a grand total of £12 interest at the end of the year. Hardly worth it.

I guess I wanted to post this, not just as a statement but maybe I was seeking approval too. I don't know.

Good luck to everyone and please try not to stress yourself out. You are not a bad person if you splip up once in a while x

Broken_hearted

I worked very hard on the debts in 2006 but reached burnout in 2007 with very little progress. Somewhere in the middle would be great for this year.

(Land_of)_Maz

If your debt is manageable and low percentage then i would consider yourself cured/consider your journey over if you want to but remember not everyone is in the same place as you.....

You're lucky as yours is now not a bad debt (was it ever really?) and as Martin said and someone else pointed out, debt is not bad it's bad debt that is bad.... or whatever the phrase was!

Trouble is a lot of people on here do have bad debts on high interest rates etc and so they need to focus on the DFW lifestyle to get out of the cycle.

Lucky you that you are in a better place than you were before, and well done on clearing so much but just cause you maybe don't need the group as much, doesn't make it any less valuable, by it's very nature everyone moves along the process at different times. I think cult isn't really an accurate description and helping people (others and ourselves) is still very much the aim of the board.

monkey22_2

I think everyone has to follow their own path.
For us a DMP allows us enough money to live on, although there's not much leeway I grant you. It has however forced us to look at our spending habits and adopt a simpler lifestyle - we have to be creative when it come to pressies and days out, cook from scratch, save Tesco clubcard points for holidays etc.

I can honestly say we've never been happier and I don't believe my kids are going without.