Can we have a support thread for people who are massively in debt?

[Nerfmother]

Because you can't talk about it in real life? We owe 44k, reduced from 60k in a year. Not including mortgage.
It's so depressing.
Dh is determined to pay it off and so bankruptcy or plans isn't an option. I do think its doable, just hard hard hard.

pixie
do a jacket potaoes supper ....
cook all the spuds long and slow
then get all the oddments out of the fridge and cupboards and let everybody serve themselves

then do the same with home made pizzas another night

no pans to wash up
leftovers used up
no money spent

Thanks Talkin. I'll have a good rummage through the cupboards tomorrow and maybe list the contents for your perusal and advice!

Oh pixie, it's not each day it's the overall pattern. Don't get too down- it just leads to giving up totally.
We had a standard letter from the bank today, saying as we are interest only they need to remind us to check our repayment plan. We don't have one , dh is fifty, I'm forty, we can't do it at the moment and we have no equity and fifteen years to go.
Totally depressed, floored, pointless etc. have had to choose to do the chin up thing - what else is there?
You'll be okay.

It is depressing. I spend a vast amount of time kicking myself for past choices. But, ultimately, there's nothing we can do except go forward from this point. I keep trying to feel gratitude for what we do have and try not to dwell on how much better life could have been if we'd have managed money better from the outset.

Thanks to the MOT angels, car went through without any issues. I had some money put by to pay for it, so managed to pay £500 off one of the cards yesterday too. I still feel weak at how much more there is to go, but at least I've made a start.

The most frustrating thing at the moment are what feels like the mega-gaps between pay days when I'm itching to pay more off!

I feel your pain Kinky. How does it take so little time to accrue the debt but years to pay it off (ok I do know)

I'm soooo frustrated and pissed off with myself for getting into this situation. But have to keep reminding myself I have a roof over my head and food on the table so things aren't bad it's just convincing myself of this sometimes, and the road to being debt free will be a very long one for me!

Yep, blue, it will be at least 5 years here and that's not even taking into account variable mortgage with no equity and potential interest rises. If that happens, we'll be adding time on. Sigh.

Hi everyone, can I join you please? Dh and I have a lot of debt but for the first time in years we actually feel in control of it.
About 4 years ago we were at rockbottom. We were getting further and further into debt every day and could see no way out. We -stupidly- entered into a DMP with Debtline. We didn't know at the time that there were people out there who did it for free. Although our debt was decreasing, we were obviously paying a monthly fee and we felt as if we had no idea what was going on. It was a great relief not to have the phonecalls and letters but Debtline were never able to give us a debt-free date and it all felt out of control.
Last October we finally decided tot take the bull by the horns. We cancelled our DMP and took on all the debt oursleves. We contacted every creditor, 10 in total, and offered to pay £5 a month more to each one than we were paying already. All the companies accpeted this, some more readily than others, but it was a million times easier than we thought it would be.
We now have around £21000 to pay off and only one company still charging interest.
As of next month we will have an extra £300 a month as dh will finish paying off a debt to his father. The plan is to put the £300 into an account every month. We aim to put £200 a month towards the debt and £100 to savings. I know it seems odd to some that we would not put every penny to the debt but it was having no savings that got us into a lot of this mess. We would like to have a cushion there for things like car expenses, both our cars are getting old.
The plan is obviously to pay off the one charging interest first. The balance is around £850 on that one. I think we plan to leave the money in the account until we have enough in the debt money to pay off the full balance then ring up, pay it off and close it. I prefer this option to spreading that £200 a monthbetween all the creditors. They'll still all be getting the amount we said but one at a time they will be paid off. Do you think this sounds like a good plan?

Welcome Abby. I think that sounds like a great plan. It will be psychologically so uplifting to get rid of your creditors one by one.

Yes Pixie, you're right. That is what we hope too. There is also the added bonus that with each one gone, there will be a little extra to add into the savings towards the others. We are aiming for October 2016 which will be 3 years from the month we re-started ourselves. We are going to try and throw as much at it as possible though to bring that date forward. Dh will get a payrise in September, hopefully around £120 a month, so that will be added to it too. We do have to live extremely frugally to make this happen but we are used to it. We try to use tesco vouchers for treats out (buy all petrol and diesel there), we shop at Aldi now which has been a saving and we have very stricy budgets for everything else.
As sad as it sounds, we are quite excited to see it going down. Dh has set up a spreadsheet on his computer and we fill in every time a payment goes in. It has a percentage at the end and we are almost at 10% now!

Hi Abby, sounds like my plan. So I think it's great!

Thanks Nerf. Things are pretty tight at the mo but we're managing. We used Tesco vouchers for a reat day out and meal on Sunday so that was our big treat of the holidays. Yesterday the dc went out with their grandparents and they're going there for tea again today so I don't have to feed them a hot meal again - result! We have lots of family visiting to do over the next couple of days and hopefully just diesel to pay for. Dh is doing a market research thing tomorrow for £60 so that will help towards the cost.

Hello everyone
Been offline for a few days, busy working - no bad thing as I'm self employed. I'm busier than ever at the moment, which is great, as my plan is to live on dps wage and use mine to pay off our debt. So the more I can earn, the better.

So spends wise -
54 on a rare valentines meal out, where we talked about goals (skiing holiday) and debt management. We've decided to switch all direct debits to a different account and transfer a weekly amount in to it for our bills.
Then we will use the rest to live on and pay down our overdraft.

I have today reduced the overdraft to 1200 and plan to have it paid off by end march, then reduce it do £250 for emergencies.

Dp wants us to focus on building up a buffer of 3k too, for bills etc.

Is everyone budgeting for treats? When I get into thrifty mode, I feel really guilty doing anything. Both kids want to go and see Lego movie, so might do it after payday and try not to feel too naughty.

Suddenly every penny should go on the card - I go from one extreme to the other.

Just seen I can use clubcard vouchers for cineworld tokens. Excellent!

Puffy glad to hear you are busy, that sounds positive! Great to know every penny you earn goes towards paying things off.
Kinky we are the same as you. Dh and I have always said, right from the start, that the kids will never know when money is short. They are certainly not spoilt but neither do they miss out. We are lucky because they both appreciate small things as treats as well as the big - I guess it all depends how exciting you make things sound! Dh and I both work full time so the kids see any time spent with us altogether as a family as fun time. We had a big day out on Sunday paid for almost entirely with Tesco vouchers. We went to Thinktank in Birmingham and then to Ask for tea. As it was a Sunday we only had to pay £3 to park all day. It was fantastic to spend a proper day out together and even better as it was practically free. We only paid for the parking and the drinks in the restaurant.
I have got my old maternity clothes down from the loft today and have begun ironing and photographing them ready to sell. I have looked into various ways of selling and have decided to put them on my local facebook selling group first as that is free, then if they don't sell try Ebay. I have never had much luck with clothes on Ebay to be honest.

I'm saving my tesco vouchers for Xmas.
Treats: am having the odd treat. We did the cinema today, used some points, cheap Tuesday and did good first at home.
We are sooooo in debt that at the moment I am thinking the odd thing is okay like that because it's not that often. If we had only a small amount, I would probably think ok, cancel everything for six months and do it.
As it is, I need internet and phone line and the tv is free view but we pay for sky movies. I know I should cancel this but it is a god send and stops me buying cheap DVDs and going out to soft play when it's wet.
Also, ds has asd and OCD etc and finds little ds difficult - little ds goes to a club for three hours once a week and it helps a lot - they are apart, little ds gets to be normal and ds gets to have some time alone.
I think what we have done is examined everything we spent money on and made some fundamental changes to our thinking. So no coffee out, no meals out, no buying clothes we don't need.

Shopped at Aldi today again Just wanted to say : Moser dark chocolate with chilli and cherry - OMG! Lovely

Today we had the house valued. It will go straight on the market. My boss valued it higher than I expected, not sure how I feel about that. Obviously the more we get, the better, but I want it to sell quickly. Dh is dazzled by the money of course. I'm just thinking how many people will actually come and view it. I'll have a word with my colleague in the morning. Anyway I spent all morning cleaning and tidying and decluttering. It doesn't look too bad apart from the carpet.

Neefmother - what do you pay for sky movies? We pay £5.99 for Netflix which gives us stacks of kids tv, loads of tv series and lots of chad movies.. I love sky movies but can't justify the cost :(

I was an evil mother before Xmas and cancelled all the kids tv channels on sky. They watched too much anyway!

I budgeted £25 for half term.. Spent that on Monday we did have a nice day though!
They had a McDonald's today, with a play date - tomorrow is swimming (although they are asking for wackies eek!)
So I'm over budget, but I don't feel too guilty as I'm working this week when I'm supposed to be on hols.

Kazz, how stressful for you. Do you think you'll be relieved when you sell?

Sky movies costs 11 PCM via Virgin. We don't have any other paid for channels and getting an internet dongle would be very expensive as we both work from home.

It's really hard isn't it? For say a year I could justify the kids pitching in, and really going for it - no clubs, no tv, no days out but it's going to take such a long time they need to fit in with their friends and do stuff as well.

Having said that, I have paid back what I spent on the cc out of the emergency fund (printer and cinema) and using 'real' money makes it real.

Yes, I already feel relieved that we're doing something about our situation. If we could sell the house it would be a huge relief.

Ohh I'll have a look at the 'use by' date is on my tesco vouchers and see if I can save them for Xmas.

DH gets his fuel from tesco so we get about 15 quids worth each month. So it would be worth saving for Xmas

It is hard.. We've been begrudgingly paying for ds1 to do beavers (Every week we get 'I hate it, I want to stop') so this week i said right, I'm speaking to the leader - you won't go back afrr half term. You can stop.
Miraculously he now desperately wants to stay

Mine bless them, no and understand mum and dad have very little money and have become very good at saving up their pocket money for something they desperately want