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.

We did really well this week in terms of spends, ice creams for the kids rather than days out at wackies etc - then I blew it in tesco last night, spent £30

Never a good idea going in there hungry after a long eve work AND premenstrual!!!

Hi all. Well I have bitten the bullet with the shopping and done a £200 shop for next month to be delivered on Tuesday which is payday. I went for 10-11pm as it is only £1! I have meal planned for the whole month and will write it up neatly on a chart. It is a massive amount to suddenly spend on shopping but I know if the money does run out there will be food in the freezer to eat.
We have a wedding reception to go to tomorrow night that we could really do without. It is a friend I haven't seen for years and I have never met her partner. We are meeting other friends there but don't have much money to spend on drinks.

Well done AbbyLou...be great to hear how you get on with this approach as we go through the month? Weekly is working well for me so far but always willing to try something new if it saves me money!

Mum2Fergus I wish mine would say that! We are complete holiday addicts though and I travelled loads on a shoestring throughout my life before DC's and they have inherited our love of going to exciting places which I'm glad about in lots of ways although obviously costs a lot!

puffylovett we never seem to get offered 0% cc anymore? This is going to sound unbelievably dim but where would I look for one 'cold' as it were? We also have £14k card limit on our current one so am a bit loathe to get rid of it completely as is useful for emergencies.

I will Mum2Fergus. I'm a bit nervous about it myself to be honest but no other way seems to be working at the moment. If I do it weekly I always go over budget, even with my meal plans! I am trying a new approach this month to see what happens. There is quite a lot of meat on the list so I know we will have stuff left at the end of the month. Scarily, it is actually cheaper than it should have been because dh is away with his work for a week and I can eat more cheaply when he's not here! I have written down what fresh stuff I should need to buy each week for the meal plan as well as the usual top-ups of fruit, bread, milk and yogurts. I am also determined to bake more as dh eats a lot fo cakes/biscuits and they cost a fortune.

Burma, have a look on the Money Saving Expert site for best BT deals...there is also a section where you can 'Check My Chances' which will find out your chances of getting the best but BT credit cards by using an eligibility tool (works with all cards except Tesco).

They check your details against what CC firms are looking for in customers.

It's a 'soft search, so you can see it but lenders can't so no impact on your credit file.

It will give you your chance of being accepted for the card.

It's not a guarantee,but you'll get an idea of your chances...

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the warm welcomes! eBay sales coming on okay, sold one dress for £15, and 5 others for sale with lots of 'watchers'.

However, I went and blew it all this afternoon in the sales. Gorgeous coat (which admittedly I do actually genuinely need), reduced to £80 from £250....

Someone put a rocket up my arse please!

Hi all, just a quick note to say hello. Bad week spending wise, emergency dental mostly, so maxed out again, but lurking on this thread has kept me at least mentally on track and this morning I changed left over foreign currency back so have enough for the weekend when I am determined to download one of TalkinPeace's spreadsheets and start inputting.

Burma I had the same thought as Puffy - if you could get a 0% card for that 6k you would have an extra £100 a month to throw at the debts.

Mum I do love your posts, they always inspire me! I've always been of the school of thought of "it's only a couple of quid, no point in saving that" so I love what you are doing with cc1 and your food budget.

Oops, I think I missed a page, sorry Burma!

Barclaycard are doing a 36 month 0% card I think?
You wouldn't need to get rid of your old card - just lock it up for now.
Have a look on MSE website for deals. I didn't know you could do a 'soft' search, that's useful to know

Burna you could also try joining experian just for their 30 day free trial. It can match you to balance transfer cards as well as letting you know how you are fairing credit wise in general. I did it and found it really interesting. It's very sobering to see how long a missed payment stays on your credit history - even for a mobile phone bill.

Anyway they matched me to a 0% card and I transferred by £6k CC debt onto that saving myself a small fortune in interest and enabling me to pay off the debt much quicker. It was coming on here that gave me the confidence to do this and I feel so much more in control now. I can see a way out.

Well dd have just made 12 large shortbread biscuits and 12 cupcakes together. I'm quite a decent cook but not the world's best baker so am very proud of myself. We have got the inlaws coming tomorrow. In return for helping with loads of diy/garden jobs we are doing lunch. Dh is cooking a cottage pie and now we have the cakes/biscuits we have something nice to offer tham afterwards. I may get some cookies done later too. I think I need to think more about how much money it saves to bake yourself. I didn't have to buy anything, I had it all in anyway. I just always see it as a hassle but it really wasn't and dd loved doing it with me.

Puffer we've all been there. DH got no work for four weeks over Christmas (he's a supply teacher) and I ended up putting a food shop on the CC. Wouldn't have had to that if I'd planned better. I'm learning, slowly x

Re barclaycard 0pc deal, it's only for new customers, but if you have one already still worth calling up and they might offer you a smaller amount for less than 31 months but still at 0pc. Worked for me last week (despite my credit rating being in the doldrums). And it is now locked up. The bad one I bt'ed from is going to have everything thrown at it from next month when that 0pc expires. For overdraft I am going to meal plan and eBay sell like crazy. Aldi shops only - amazing difference in price! Not sure about the meat there though, any thoughts? No meat counter so presumably even organic meat is gassed up so it still looks fresh/ freshly minced for days?

To all those wanting 0% credit card deals.

Credit is only offered to those who do not need it.
As soon as you start consistently paying more than the minimum on your cards (by freezing the payments on every one of them - as per my spreadsheet)
you will have proved to their computer that you no longer need the money
so they will offer it to you!

FWIW I used to get offered cards all the time on amazing deals

now I get no offers because my file shows that I've paid no CC interest in five years despite the monthly bill regularly being over £3000
so they realise they will make no money from me

myGolden thanks for the support and sorry to hear yours - Christmas of all times!

Thank you everyone will take a look!

I am baffled as to why we no longer get cc card offers because we have been paying the minimum or barely more than for years (crap I know). I never get offers and yet used to get loads? Surely we are their ideal customer? Never miss a payment and yet pay the minimum back and therefore the maximum interest?

Will look at Experian again - we did it a few years ago and had a bad rating due to one missed payment of £25 on a mobile phone that stayed on our account for 6 bloody years! It was so old that BT couldn't find out how we could pay it back and so it had to stay there until it naturally fell off the end as it were grrrrr....

Puffer the Aldi meat is really good. Their free range chicken is delicious and the better mince is fine (I say this as a dye in the wool Waitrose customer so fairly hard to please!)

Talkin that's a really interesting point I hadn't really thought of. We have got the interest frozen on all our debts bar one. It's funny, between us dh and I have three Barclaycards. One was mine, one was dh's and the other was an old Egg card of mine taken over by Barclaycard. When we went onto our first ever DMP Barclaycard froze the interest on both of mine but not dh's. When we started self-managing we rang them to see if they would accept our payments. With mine they said yes straight away and agreed to keep it on 0%. With dh they agreed the payments but would not reduce the interest lower than they already had. I can't remember how much he pays but it is a reduced rate. When he pushed for 0% they told him they never cut interest to 05 on DMPs! Interesting when they had for both of mine! He didn't push it because he wanted an easy life but obviously that is the first one we are paying off.

I did the soft search and shifted debt to a 36 month card through MSE. Was very helpful.

Evening all! Spendy day for me...49 on petrol (budgeted for), 3.34 on milk, bread and a bundle of Ginsters sausage rolls reduced to 15p each at Tesco garage!! Ok, not exactly healthy but like to have stuff on standby incase DP has to rustle up a meal lol 5 on a slow cooker cook book too. I've really taken to slow cooking recently so think of it as an investment.

Dinner tonight was pizza made from flatbread, pepperoni and mozzarella...tomorrow it's my slow cooker doner kebab (it's delish!!) with salad and pitta, Sunday will come from freezer, so plenty will be left from this weeks food budget

We just had a freezer tea too! Partly because we needed to defrost the freezer and partly to make way for next month's big shop! It was interesting to say the least! Dc loved it, junk food city!

Omg you wonderful people, I've just applied for a 0% balance transfer on MSE and they've approved it!!!!! Oh wow that will save hundreds if it goes come through - they said it is approved though so I guess that means that it will?

Thanks so much! xx

Great news Burma.

I know I owe loads and loads of money, but if I could pay someone to do all of my marking and planning for next week, I would be seriously considering it... Full of cold and struggling to get myself in order ready for going back next week. Have worked for two days now but I swear the pile is growing!

Oh no you poor thing wish i could help - early night with hot lemon and whiskey for you Kinky