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.

try gumtree as well

I've just written the first draft of my Endowment spreadsheet .....
docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiZqlQ7-gn07dHpPa0d6OWoxRE1sTmZWT0RFOXZfSlE&usp=drive_web#gid=0
could anybody with an OLD endowment please check it to see if the assumptions are reasonable and whether it works?

Thanks talkin.
I am amazed at how much stuff you know.

Nerf
spreadsheet writing is almost a hobby
I'm still rubbish at Macros but have got databases nearly under control
basically I'm a numbers geek.

It did not save me from getting Endowment rather than repayment mortgage though!

Your most useful tip to me so far has been to unsubscribe from emails. I have extended this to screwing up special offer vouchers at tills.
I just sold a coffee machine!

No old policy here TiP so can't help,sorry...

iPod collected,£50 in cash purse for next week food budget and £50 paid to CC1 from ac. Planning NSD tomorrow ...

NSD here today thank god.

I unsubscribed from all my favourite shops on-line and I swear that it has been the making of me. I really did not realise how tempting all those 15% off at White Company, Boden etc were - I was forever clicking on them and buying just one top, scarf, bracelet whatever. Not having those constant prompts has been a massive help in not spending.

So true Burma - almost like you're saving money.
I'm getting each dc a magazine subscription for a birthday present - will save the begging in supermarkets and will give them something to do.

Hi TiP, I had a go at the spreadsheet but it is not working for me. Maybe I am putting the data in the wrong boxes/ not clicking enough "submit"s and I don't know how to look up the assumptions. Will try again tomorrow on PC (hard to see on phone).

Lidl shop, including yummy looking meat (special offer). Aldi just don't have a proper range of yoghurts. Parking and 90p ice creams otherwise, so quite pleased with today.

Nerfmother, yy to getting distracted by nasty surprises. Hope you are ok.

ooh Puffer : could you PM me what you are putting in / getting wrong
as the conversion from Openoffice to Google docs is often odd
and I had to put numbers based on my own rather than industry averages
xx TiP

A bit of a spendy day for me. Drinks on our day out today and chippy on the way home was about £20 for 4. Put petrol in which was £25 and did a food shop to last until payday which was £31.

Now have £15 left for petrol if I need it in the week and £20 in my purse (this might be spent on lunch on school trip on Thursday - awesome cafe where we are going!). Should be OK until Friday. I have TV savings in my account if I need it, plus a £50 buffer in my account but would rather not use it

Children with their Dad tonight so cooking a nice Thai Prawn curry for me and boyfriend, and he has bought wine and a DVD

Re begging in supermarkets, I tell mine they can each choose a yoghurt flavour! Magazine begging has gone down...

There's me saying I've had an NSD, I've just bought a food processor and kettle on-line argh!!!! I have been spending disproportionately silly amounts of time prepping food every evening so think it will help with my cooking everything from scratch routine.

Hello! Hope it's ok if I join in - I was directed here by mum2fergus after starting a thread earlier today.

Basically DH and I have hit reality point on our spending. We've been spending and spending in the hope that my business would grow enough to cover childcare costs, but it just isn't happening quickly enough, so we've taken the decision to downscale things before it all gets utterly out of hand and we have a debt we can't repay. The biggest change we are going to make is making our (amazing, wonderful, lovely, perfect) nanny redundant (when we got her it was cheaper than any of the alternative childcare options for our two DCs in our location, if you're wondering why we went down the nanny route).

However, we are in the irritatingly position of physically not being able to get rid of her for a couple of months - I am housebound with SPD at 8 months pregnant and don't have a car, so without her I can't get DC1 to school and back. So we are keeping her on until 6 weeks after I give birth again (c-section, same problem with driving/walking the 2 mile school run, no option for family help). Which means we are only going to get poorer for the next couple of months, but we have realised that our 'fuck it, we're spending more than we're earning anyway' attitude isn't going to help, so we need to minimise the damage in order to be able to drag ourselves out of debt when she does finish in May.

Depressingly, even once we've made her redundant, our outgoings are still slightly higher than our income, so I will need to work evenings and weekends just to keep us standing still, so even more motivation to try to learn to make cut backs and find ways to cut spends/boost income!

Anyway, current debt is as stands:

• overdraft: £750
• CC: £700 (likely to go up to a good £2-3k over the coming months)
• Payment due to accountant for books and tax return: £390
• Overdue tax on nanny's salary: approx £2.5k but TBH I'm too scared to phone and confirm the amount, as they haven't currently chased me for it and I know they will get aggressive about me needing to pay it if I do phone . I am intending to prioritise bringing this down then confirming how much it is

Total: approx £4,340, likely to be at least £6,500 before we start repaying.

Ugh, that is so bloody depressing. I am really struggling not to get the fuck it attitude and keep spending, since we are so far short of breaking even for the next couple of months anyway.

Apologies for mammoth post!

Oh, fuck, forgot the biggest debt! Personal loan: approx £7,500 including interest payments, being paid at £181 a month, taken out a few months ago

So total debt is actually approx £11,840

Hello orange!
Have you set up a plan with any of the smaller debts? Could you, for example, ask the accountant to accept £50 PCM until it's gone? Not sure if that's doable if you need them to do any work in the meantime. Is it self employed accounts or nanny tax?

Hi Orange,glad you came to join us ...

It's self employed accounts. It's the first year I've used an accountant, and I'm actually fuming with myself that I didn't get a written quote of the price, as the original accountant quoted less, then left the firm, so I have no argument now that the price is more than I was expecting. I could ask to pay it in instalments, but I'm kind of thinking I just want to see one thing wiped out.

I have a one off payment of £1,100 coming in next week (for some not-to-be-repeated work, so a real little one off bonus), so I'm thinking of using it to pay the accountant and pay off most of the overdraft. That way I think at least I'll feel like I'm facing just the (ever growing) CC, the HMRC debt and the personal loan. Ha, JUST those.

Hi Fergus thanks for sending me over. I feel like a complete fraud as I am aware that the chances of making this debt any smaller over the next few months is precisely zero, but I've got to at least minimise the growth until I can start shrinking it.

possibly
nobody who has debts that they cannot see the way out of : even short term : is a fraud on this thread
FFS I've not been in debt for years
and I like to help others get that way

have a look at my spreadsheets threasd ... at the bottom of the OP is a link to my lovely, long maintained me page that might help you out

Not sure how you feel a fraud - don't think I asked for anything other than fellow debtors! No judging/promising/competition here, just somewhere to get stressed/share your plans and small successes
(And do look at talkin's stuff)

Hi orange, welcome. Please don't feel a fraud. Everyone has their lightbulb moment at some point or other and we all do things our own way. Dh and I paid for a DMP for 3 years (!!!) - now that's ridiculous! We had no idea at the time that people did it for free and they just offered us a way out of a scary, bad time.
We are managing it ourselves now and it is reducing, albeit slowly, but we are getting there.
We have had a lovely time catching up with some great friends at a wedding reception tonight. We even managed to stretch to a bottle of wine on the way home which we are enjoying now the exhausted kids have been wrestled into bed.

Glad you had a good time ale. Know you were kind of worried about the costs so it's great it's turned out to be a good memory.

Back to work tomorrow and so much to do today to prepare! Oh dear! Need to pop to asda to pick up a couple of things for packed lunch for DD and a couple of other things. Only have about £15 left til payday so will need to stick to a list.

I'm planning to clear a £100 overdraft after payday. I wanted to do it yesterday but chickened out and decided to do it after payday in case I needed the money for anything! DP gets paid Tuesday so will clear a couple of accounts and use the money to pay off the overdraft and see what is left. I'm torn between using the extra (possibly £20-30) to pay towards another loan or keeping it as emergency money or towards DDs uniform which I will need to buy at Easter (school summer uniform, school swimming costume/bag/hat and brownies uniform as she will be going up from rainbows then). I think I might put it towards the uniforms. My updated budget/envelopes account will start from payday so I'm at that sad excited stage waiting to start!

I also have a question - do you have a clothes budget? If so, how much would be realistic? There is DP and I, as well as a nearly 7yr old DD who won't stop having growth spurts. I have just bought DD new clothes so hopefully she won't grow too much in the next couple of months! I want to budget money for clothes but I just don't know how much is sensible! I tend to not shop regularly and try to get things more from outlet shops/sales and clothes shopping is depressing because I need to lose about 3 stone.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated! I try to use my DDs child benefit money to include her clothes/uniform as well as other things so I guess the budget would be for 2 adults.

Thanks