I wanna be... no, not a tree, but debt free!

Lady_Fluff

Hello!

My intro! I hope this is the right place!
I got into a right pickle basically, and it nearly cost me my relationship. Luckily, my partner is so supportive that I still have her, and I am eternally grateful for that.

I started off using my card for little things. When we moved into our current house, my mother in law announced that she was no longer able to cope with the payments on her multiple cards, and she didn't want to tell her husband as she thought he would leave her. So, as one of the cards that she used was in my partner's name, we offered to clear that. There was about £5k, I don't remember exaxctly. My partner agreed to chuck all her wages off the card and we'd live off my wages. we'd just moved to a new place which was cheaper in rent than our old one. I figured we could cope. I'd changed jobs as well, so was bringing in a bit more money.
But yeah, I started using my card, just a few things at first, but when we went on holiday in the Autumn of 2005, I realised I'd have to use it in order to get by. Money was getting too tight, and I oculdn't manage with everything, especially when the bills were coming in. So I withdrew the monthly rent money on there. Obviously, I didn't have the money to pay it all off. But the mimum payments were low. And downhill from there. I'd used up my £1500 limit by February 2006 when I went into hospital. Shortly after that, they decided to give me an extra £1000 on my limit. That was gone by the August. By this time, my repayments were now £70 a month minimum, and I was struggling to meet them. I kept going over my overdraft limit, and eventually I started taking from our joint savings account, which has £2000 in. I used it all within 9 months. So I had no more money, no more overdraft, no more credit cards.
I sat down with my partner and reassessed the finances. I agreed to give her the cash to deal with the food shopping and suchlike, as suddenyl I couldnlt afford to pay out seemingly as much as I had been, I kept running out of money when I hadn't before. But it was OK, she thought as we could use the savings to pay off my overdraft. Then she checked the account. I'd been hiding the statemts so she hadn't seen my spending. I'd shredded most of my credit card statements and kept them in work, and I'd switche dto paper free internet banking and never logging on so I didn't have to see what state my account was in. I was getting suicidal, worrying about it, ignoring phone calls, knowing which ones were the bank's numbers so I didn't answer them. Everythign blew up. I grovelled to my parents, which was not easy as we have a turbulent relationship at the best of times and I had not been speaking to my father since the autumn after he said some unpleasant things about my partner. However, they have cleared my debts, and have given me a year to get back on my feet before I start paying them back. £5500 in total, I owe them.
I think it can work. I have just had a pay rise and with my new plan, we are managing to save £50 every month which is going back in our savings. I'm looking forward to being debt free, even if it is in the distant future, and getting my life openly and honestly back on track.

busy_today_mate

You've did the hard bit mate. Now what you need to do is get the head down and get it paid. Won't be easy but you will get there with some hard work along the way.

saver03

Hello and welcome :wave: you have definately come to the right place. You will never have to feel alone anymore and anytime you have suicidal thoughts you should come on here and type it all down to get it out of your system.Believe me it will make you feel better.

Maybe you could post your soa (statement of affairs) and people can look at it and give you advice on where you can make any cut backs.

Click on this link (hopefully it will work am not very computer savvy:rotfl: ) and it will give you everything you need to get started on your debt free journey http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=562271

Lady_Fluff

OK SOA:

(this doesn't include everything you might expect, this is my stuff, and my partner does the rest (utility bills and the like), but as she only works part time, the bulk of the money stuff is mine...)

wages: 1002
rent: 475
BT: £16ish (depending on whether any non-free calls have to be made
Orange Broadband: £17
mobiles (both of us): £10, but this can skip a month if we build enough excess
Council Tax: unsure how much it's going up to but was £90
TV license: £30ish per quarter
(I'm sure i've forgotten something here!)

On payday, I pay the rent, and take out £250 to give to Mrs Fluff - that's £200 for food and £50 for savings. If we go over, then it's her wages, but she's cutting back as much as possible as she is paying for her MA, and her fees come out 3x a year. (I'm also doing a Masters, but I've wangled work paying for it...). Once I've taken that money out, I don't touch the account, except when I buy my hamster bedding online (big bags of horse bedding work out better than small bags in pet stores, and I've done lots of shopping around to get the cheapest price possible - managed to save £5 last time :j )

Looking forward to getting stuck in and gradually freeing my burden!
(don't worry, my mental health is in a much happier place now - that old thing about a problem shared is a problem halved is true!)