Just need some support and encouragement...

onedayiwill

Also just noticed this:

"Mobile phone x2 120 " :eek:

Is this two £60 contracts?? Can you reduce to a cheaper tariff? That is a LOT of money.

sxw

Please don't put off having children like we have, we owe a lot and I mean a lot but we have been trying for years to get ourselves straight and we are still a long way off. We always said when this is sorted we can think about children, I earn more than my husband so me being off work for a while would've have left us in even more of a mess. It is now too late for us, and are finding (as we are seriously considering bankruptcy now) that had we had children when we first wanted instead of waiting for a brighter tomorrow, we would be helped a lot more. You are dealing with your problems now and I can appreciate that you need to feel secure before you ideally want children, just don't be like us and keep putting it off, you will always get help with children if the worst comes to the worst which I am sure it won't.

saver6

Well we've already said we simply can't do kids until I qualify for maternity pay at work anyway, which will happen in December 09. This to me feels like the goal - a year and a half to get ourselves into a good position financially (and emotionally) to give our kids the best future. I'm 28 now so that feels ok to me in terms of when I will be ready. But I think the debts will go on longer than that... where's that snowball calculator gone??

Mobile phone contracts - I only spend about £30 a month including line rental and once that runs out (not for a while yet unfortunately), I'm going PAYG. OH however used to have this habit of getting 2 contracts in order to change his phone more often and at one point even had 3!!! Can't believe what a mug he's been about that - but he knows it now!

We have a teeny tiny house that cannot house hubby's fishing and camping equipment which is why we "need" the garage.

RAS

Hi

THe snowball is on www.whatsthecost.com.

Re the camping stuff etc, do you have a loft in the house, even a tiddly one?

And I bet if you looked there would be some stuff you could sell to start knocking that debt down.

dfitps

It needn't be a case of buying magazines or re-reading old books - why not join your local library?

Would your OH agree to a budget for fishing stuff and so on so that although he could spend over that if he really had to, it would mean the two of you discussing it first? If he's a bit of an impulsive spender for things like that (I am so it's v. familiar to me!) then often any reason to pause to think can help and often I don't actually miss the thing I've nearly bought anyway.

Verbatim

Hi Saver6,

Sounds like you're doing pretty well but have hit one of the "Gawd how much longer............" moments. on the bright side you have got your oh to agree to sell the expensive car and as well as being able to pay £5k off a debt you won't have the associated costs each month either so even more money to reduce the debt.

have you seen the make £10 a day in june thread? Perhaps that might be a way to make extra without taking another job?

dancingfairy

Just my opinion
Mortgage 822
Building & Contents Ins 25
Council Tax 120 - can you pay over 12 months if not already?
Electricity/Gas 50 (have now fixed and we are currently £250 in credit from DD overpayments) - can you reduce you dd or get them to send you a cheque - this is a ridiculous amount to have sitting around.
Water 25
Telephone & Internet 20-25 (inc. calls)
Mobile phone x2 120 woah - that's massive!
TV licence 12
Sky 47 (about to cut this to the basic package) - it's gotta go
Food 200 (this is my budget but somehow i seem to always go over, despite not getting takeaways anymore. Also includes home made lunches) - go over to Old Style and take the grocery challenge there.
Clothing 0, unless I happen to have a bit spare to treat myself - I never spend on clothing unless I can afford to or am in desperate need
Petrol 400-500 (I have a 50 mile round trip every day) are you buying from cheapest garage? check out petrol prices I think it is - every little bit helps and you travel so much it will soon add up.
Car Insurance 125 (hubby has slightly dodgy record so higher insurance)
Pets 30 inc. insurance and food
Life & CIC !!!. 40
Boiler cover 18 (I know this is high but we're locked in until November - was a panic buy when it blew up last year)
Garage fees 40 (I would love to get rid of it but we have no room at the house for a lot of stuff)
Entertainment Changeable depending on if it's an ok month.
Sundries OH and his hobbies!!!!!! I reckon he spends about £200 on them, and only ever tells me after! I spend a few quid a week on things like magazines, but generally re-read my old books to try and save.

The thing that really sticks out here is you are doing your best to get rid of the debts while your husband is spending £120 on mobiles every month, £200 on entertainment and £40 on a garage to house all his stuff. You really need to sit down with him and have a chat about it. Until his priorities change you won't be making much headway. Maybe work out your debt free date and then show him how much difference saving £200 out of his spends above would make to the date.

klane

Perhaps he would be up for selling on some of his older, less snazzy/new fishing and camping stuff? Maybe you should show him the Demotivator tool here - add up all those "hobbies"... it's quite horrifying!

incesticde

dancingfairy wrote: »

Petrol 400-500 (I have a 50 mile round trip every day) are you buying from cheapest garage? check out petrol prices I think it is - every little bit helps and you travel so much it will soon add up.

What the hell are you driving? A Hummer!!???!!!!

I do a 100 mile round trip every working day and even in the old clapped out cav 1.8 I was not spending that much.

I made the switch to Diesel and am now currently saving £150+ a month, perhaps you could do the same?

In the meantime start working out your mpg and start checking your tyre pressures every few days (In my experience having the right tyre pressures saves me about 3% on fuel (which in your case is £15)).

This is a major part of your expediture and needs to be looked at.

Good luck!

saver6

Just an update.

Our fixed rate is coming to an end so we've just had a mortgage advisor go through the books so to speak. His two options were a) to move house, live on beans on toast forever more and not ever have kids or b) stick out our current house and absorb the ever-so-slightly-unmanageable debts into our new mortgage (which is possible as we have enough equity), using a 5-yr fixed rate, portable and overpayments allowed product. We don't even have to extend the term.

Our fixed costs will now be £400 less per month, which we intend to set up as a standing order overpayment to the mortgage. This way if those unexpected payments come up that beforehand we would have HAD to put on the cc, we can just easily forego the overpayment to pay for it.

I do feel a lot calmer about it (providing the mortgage valuer gets the figures right on Monday!), and although the mortgage is now a lot higher, at least we have this clean slate that has a little flexibility in it - possibly even able to put some savings away each month for our kiddy-full future! We are still of course downgrading certain things, but the best thing of all is that hubby now sees the problem and has agreed that moving would be the worst possible thing we could do right now. Once all the paperwork is complete I'm going to be suggesting that we plough ALL our wages into the joint account, only keeping back an allowance each for the month.

The motivation will come in knowing that we are bashing the mortgage figure down in order to be able to move. If he wants to move, he's gonna have to bloody well work hard for it!

So slightly nervous about the house value being ok, and am not happy that it's had to come to this but at least I think I'll be able to sleep better knowing that it's all dealt with and the little unused stash of credit cards can be cut up permanently.

Once it's all done, all we'll have is the mortgage figure as debt, which I want to display in my home and physically count down as further motivation.

And I've started Aldi shopping now - didn't realise what I was missing!

So thanks for all the support, now that I think finally we're getting on track, both financially, physically, emotionally and realistically!!!