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.

NSD for me here as in bed with awful sore throat and achey shakey joints and muscles. Feel dreadful. Somehow need to be well enough to go into school tomorrow as my exam classes only seven weeks left really and every lesson counts - scary stuff.

I get paid on Tuesday and feel excited about working through my new spreadsheet. I don't think that March will be an impressive month in terms of paying off debt (I will just pay slightly over the minimum) as too many other things to pay for (new front window and car repairs being the big ones) but I am determined not to use the CC and not to have no money left at the end of the month.

Welcome Possibly - we're a supportive bunch here.

Ellie - I give myself around £250 every six months for clothes. I'm a bit of a capsule wardrobe person though and have quite a small amount of clothes - but only buy things I really love. I tend to find I need new jeans, a summer dress, two pairs of shoes every year at May-ish time and then some new knitwear, blouses, cords and boots around October. So around £500 a year - which seems okay to me.

DH buys his own - but I imagine spends less - about £200 a year but he (despite being quite a pretty boy type) cares less about clothes then anyone I know and literally wears stuff until it's falling apart.

I'm afraid we don't have a clothes budget Ellie, they are too much of a luxury! I buy the dc clothes when they need them but they are always included into the monthly budget and the cost shared between dh and I. We are lucky with dd's clothes as I get a lot of my neice's old clothes from my sister. For ds we tend to get a few bits now and then. He is 9 so isn't at that stage where he grows a lot. We tend to get him things as and when he needs them.
Dh and I don't get new clothes really. We buy the odd thing out of our own monthly money when we really have to but it's not something we really feel we can justify having a seperate budget for.
I always try to think that once this debt is gone I can buy more then so it's worth plugging away!

Sorry to hear you're feeling poorly Golden, hope you manage to shake it off today before going back tomorrow.
As usual I have left all my school work until the last day! I think I will be working most of the day but the kids have homework too so it's not the end of the world.

Thanks for the lovely welcome, and it's good to know I'm ok to sit here and plan and budget even if the debt is going to get a bit worse before it gets better. I think the crucial thing for me is to minimise how much worse it gets so that tackling it come June isn't such a mammoth task.

Clothes budget - I actually often end up discussing this at work (I work in a vaguely fashiony industry, so clothing and style is often up for discussion), and the one thing I have found is that people are vastly unrealistic about the amount they spend on clothes. Most people on a lowish income think they spend perhaps £20 a month on clothes, and when they go through and think about it, it's more like £100+. I think an awful lot of people think the spend basically nothing, but forget to average out big purchases like winter coats, boots, wedding guest outfits etc. I'm not in a position to give sensible answers given current debt predicament, but I find I need to make a real effort to keep the DCs much below £40 a month (both under 7, so shoes every few months at £30+, including school shoes, which seems to be the main expense). DH has been in the habit of spending nothing for a couple of years then having a £500 blowout to replace all the knackered things at once (his job can be physical so clothes and shoes get actually worn out), so I guess that averages at around £20-25pm. My clothes spending has been at more of the £100+ per month mark, but I'm now budgeting less. I think we will probably budget £100 a month for all of us.

Hi all, I have just made a comprehensive Plan (with a capital P) and it is unbelievable how much happier I feel! At least three quarters of it is advice gleaned from this thread (eg emergency fund, worst debts first, meal plan, stick to food budget, envelopes for Christmas etc etc). It also helps that the sun is shining . Thank you all so very much to all you lovely people. Ps I'm following the "advice from mother" thread too and it is noticeable that while many mums told us never to be financially beholden to any man and, sometimes, to look after the pennies, it seems that few of us were actually taught to budget. Sorry for the long post. I am feeling quite giddy!

... Taught to budget for families I mean, as that's quite different from you alone living within your means/ student loan/ first salary.

Blimey puffer! That's good news for a rainy Sunday!

yy Puffer, managing the finances of a family is not just a responsibility, but a skill, IMO. It also requires a certain degree of time commitment, which can be hard to manage with two full time working parents, I reckon. I need a housewife!

Am so pleased to have DH on board with the serious frugality, I was worried he would be really anti when we chatted last night (not about the big decision to lose the nanny, but about the extra cuts we then need to make so we can start paying off debt instead of peddling to stay still). I need to make a plan for my income each month I think (as in, how to apportion it as it comes in, as it comes in dribs and drabs thanks to self employment), but it can wait until I've iced the cake I made yesterday

Thanks for all the advice about clothes budgets. DP will need lots of his clothes replacing as he hasn't had anything new for a very long time and lots of his clothes are falling apart. My main aim is to have realistic budgets that we can actually stick to and then I can always tighten the budgets a bit more when we get used to them. I'm scared to be too hardcore and then fail spectacularly! I was thinking £1000 for the year (£84 per month) but thinking that it is too generous and I should slice some of that off to pay towards debts instead. I'm confused and changing my mind on a pretty much daily basis! Maybe £700? For the year? That would be £59 a month? I don't know! I think I am overthinking this...

What do people budget for in their "envelopes" budget? I'm worried I am going to miss something really obvious!

It is clothes that get me into trouble a lot .... I'm on the no buying clothes for a year thread that I joined after lying in bed one night and off the top of my head I reckoned I had spent over £3k on clothes just for myself last year ! I'm sure that the other members of the family got the odd thing too.

Puffer your plan sounds good! This whole envelope thing, is it figurative or literal? I often think I would like a row of jam jars which a few quid in each one for the month but worry it would just disappear into the ether.

Envelope system for me consists of an online bank ac and a spreadsheet divided up into the different money streams within the system...I envelope for car insurance and roadside assistance (pay annually as that saves a few quid), haircuts, health/dental, petrol, fun money, clothes, and just added another to cover the various bits of work I want done in the house...

I like the envelopes idea too and think I already do it to some extent. I have my Slimming World enveleope (an actual envelope!) where I put all the money I need for that each money and I have an envelope for my pub lunch on a Friday - about £25 a month for that I think. Last month I also had a shopping envelope and I took all the cash out so I knew how much I had got. This didn't work brilliantly for me but I did think more about what I was spending it on. I still had the same problem though which was when it ran out I started using my own money and then had none left for other things!

Clothes shopping
A while back I lost three stone in six months - result was that NONE of my clothes fitted any more.
And at the time I was utterly broke.
So I got into charity shops.
It takes a while and you need to find a good 'batch' of them
but there are REAL bargains to be had.
I buy nearly new designer (conran, d&G) jeans and label work clothes (phase 8, next, jaeger) for less than £10 an outfit
and I ONLY buy what I need

for kids : NCT sales are wonderful.
Also ask in the charity shop if they have local uniform out the back
and do not be ashamed to ask at the school office quietly if you can buy out of the lost property bin - you are saving it from landfill

shoes for kids : go to a good independent shop and get them to measure generously
kids only need school shoes, trainers, wellies and party shoes

do not try to be in the fashion parade and you will end up with more money and your kids will end up more self assured

but its better to buy good quality second hand than cheap new

rant over!

Possibly it will help so much to have him on board. I never could, so struggled so much and now he is STBXH due in no small part to that. Yy also to working parents difficulties. I do think we may be the first generation not only to be able to have big bucks career options, but also to have to juggle everything and to learn the home skills as well. Let's not forget to pass on this hard-earned knowledge to our children! My eldest is 6, I've just started pocket money/ saving / budgetting explanations, including that there are jobs which pay more than others (car washing/ taking rubbish out). For me, I know it'll be so hard to stick to the plan and will take ages - but at least I have a plan again!

On the clothes front I found a really good article on creating a capsule wardrobe...I followed the process and charity bagged/sold loads. I can make about 35 outfits from only 12 or so key pieces. I only buy anything that fits in with my new scheme...off to see if I can find the article

That article sounds interesting Mum, I'd like to read it if you can find it. I am hoping to lose some more weight with sw soon so I kind of holding off buing any new clothes at the mo. I will need some for our holidays but I hope to be thinner by then!
School work is stressing me out now so I have come here to find shelter!! I purposely left it all until today as dh is out all day and we have spent loads of time withe kids all holiday. Now I can't get my head round it at all. We have started a new way of planning this half term and it's doing my head in!

I'd like to see the article about the capsule wardrobe too Mum if you an find it. I did a "work shop" in September for the first time ever and I think I kind of followed the capsule principle, two dresses from next, four jackets (all next but all charity shop buys so less than £20 total) two pairs of trousers and a couple of plain tops. will have to rethink for summer though. My out of work wardrobe is chaotic and I "never have anything to wear" even though it is full

I've started doing "envelopes" with YNAB this month. It's great as I can log spending as I go on my phone and it syncs to the PC. I'm still on the trial but I will definitely buy it when my 34 days is up - I reckon it has saved me three times the £29.99 price tag already in just 3 weeks and I love it, am hoping it comes on sale on Steam before then though, made my son put it on his Steam wish list so he can monitor the price for me. First time I have ever really felt in control of my money. Also shocked me at where money goes. Spent £70 on take aways/eating out in just a couple of weeks on little things - a pizza for me and kids, a work lunch, a Chinese for me on a Friday, etc. That's how it has saved me money - I now have a category amount and "when it's gone, it's gone". Similar for other categories too.

No spend day for me today I hope. Pizza dough in bread maker for tea which will make enough for son's lunch tomorrow (teacher training day so he is at home), and they are at their Dad's until 2pm so will come back having had lunch already

Hoping for NSD tomorrow too as teacher day for me means free lunch. Tuesday might need a petrol top up as I am on a course (another free lunch!) - I have 15 left in the petrol category to do that with. If I can make Wednesday a NSD too then I have a crisp £20 note to buy lunch with on my school trip on Thursday - awesome!

(My life doesn't always revolve around food - honest! )

Re clothes. Dh has really good dress sense and is v interested in the way things look. A few years ago he sat patiently while I tried on everything in my wardrobe and we decided what colours and styles worked - eg wrap dresses no, v necks no, and now I can buy stuff that fits my look.
It seems to work - people always say I look out together/good unprompted (would be nice to be complimented on my brain or something but hey!)

I have also decided, this side of payday, to stop scattering about with money.
There is no point in trying to put savings away and then borrow it back for food. We do lidl and meal planning but food for six (incl fabri conditioner and cleaning stuff and shampoo etc) is 550 a month. Trying to stick to 400 is pointless.
So, I am going to put the money granddad gives me into the food bank account and start with 550.
Ds gets dla and I try to save this - dh has pointed out this is pointless, it gets borrowed back, and the whole point is to pay for daily living expenses for ds.
Time to face facts and stop scuttering!

End of week update from me-envelopes ac balanced,emergency fund down 160 but will repay this at end of month when DP gets paid. Food budget 13.06 left so have just paid that to CC1. 50 from sale of iPod I will pay to CC1 once my work expenses are repaid...off to find that link,again lol

Nerfmother
you have just crossed the Rubicon of debt
WELL DONE
you have internally realised that all spending and income is interlinked
and that only by looking at the wood AND the trees can you find sanity

well done
whoop round the room
get others to read your posts to see the steps

TiP goes all fluffy inside when this happens

Thank you TiP!
It does feel like a bit of a breakthrough. And a bit disappointing that the magic answer is not really a wand

It's hard (mine was over £1m - never divorce (nor marry) a man who earns less than you do)

I have read every single post from the beginning.

I will join in shortly, but call the midwife is about to start

I just wanted to say TiP you are amazing. I love your posts which are so helpful and never patronising.

I downloaded YNAB for the trial yesterday and got stuck in but really struggled trying to enter in the fact that we do actually get paid

I'm going to revisit it tomorrow when my patience is restored.