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.

Good. It's horrible when you get something unexpected. The gas/electric end bill as well as first bill has thrown me.
Especially as we have to find 450 for some building work.

Badvok - it is very simple to use I find. I love it. This month I know I have some expenses - DS birthday and Dad's birthday, one expensive night out and a school trip overseas where I'll spend a fair bit on food - so I have budgeted more to those categories and nothing on clothes and only a little on take aways. In the past payday was a "go and buy nice things" day because I couldn't really see how my money would work that month.

From October we can all pay our road tax on monthly DD - that will really help I think. I have 4 months until mine is due so putting aside £35 a month and then will go on new DD scheme for the next one.

Buying supermarket gift cards in a great idea for Christmas! Might try and do that.

Badvoc I love love love YNAB. I honestly believe if I'd found it 18 months ago we not only wouldn't have a debt but we would still have a chunk of savings left. I can see it might not work for everyone (the way of dealing with pre-budget debt is a little weird), but it has been life changing for me in terms of managing my finances. Was chatting to DH yesterday about how good it would have been as a student to apportion out that massive student loan once a term instead of spending it all in the first month!

I thought the same about the student thing - planning on converting my son to YNAB before he goes to Uni!

I'm going to take the liberty of boring you all with my end of month update ... if only to have something for me to look back on to see how far I've come! Move along if you're not interested lol ... during February I have:

• repaid a total of 561.26 to CC1, and made a BT of 4985 to interest free (CC3), balance to pay is 1108.08 - I really hope to pay this off in March however am dependent on our annual bonus being paid which is still to be confirmed
• closed Next storecard - this has been at a 0 balance since Nov/Dec last year
• extended a fixed deal for gas/elec which will save me 3 per month

Minimum payments to the following:

• CC2 (balance now 3630)
• CC3 (balance now 4985)
• Personal Loan (balance now 7670)
• Mortgage (balance now 89961)

Emergency fund of 500 remains in tact, have accrued no further debt and 'envelopes' account is balanced

Since joining the thread I have repaid 3% of my overall total start debt (or 84% not including mortgage) - not too shabby!!

Would love to get into the whole YNAB thing, but we've no desktop at home (Apple whores the pair of us!) ...

Grrr. Two piddly invoices have been paid, but the 'pay nursery! pay student loan off! buy clothes!' one hasn't. Am trying to look on the bright side - it's a cashflow issue rather than there being no cash, iyswim, but sometimes I hate working freelance. The overdrafts are paid off anyway, and DDs for the month ahead are OK too (joint and my account, will look at DH's later).

So new aims for March:
Get to grips with ynab. can anyone explain how you enter debt/overdrafts
Withdraw £100 month for Aldi shop, toddler groups, etc.
Not use ebay or amazon to buy "cheap" things
Pay standard amounts to CC (0%) and SLC debt (£250)

I also have my head in the sand about our living expenses card. It comes out of DH's account, so we have a fun evening ahead of updating the spreadsheet to see if he can come in at the end of the month without a huge overdraft (he also gets paid today). Will be back later with a thrilling update! It helps to get it written down.

Am in need of a haircut (may relegate to fringe trim) and am supposed to be going on night out tomorrow (may cancel).

Next payday aims: pay nursery for April, repay kids' ISA (using it for March nursery!), pay off DH's overdraft (see above, it's joint debt but money comes in and out of different places), chuck anything else at student loan.

Haha cross post! I don't find the end of month updates boring - they're useful to see what everyone else is doing!

I can't get my head around YNAB . see I'm crap with money.

I have a little excel spreadsheet that i put all my daily outgoings into so that at the end of the month I can see where all our money has gone but can see that isn't budgeting. Do you all not track what you spend as 'actuals' but just do the projections?

Mum2Fergus am impressed with £500 emergency fund .

oooh just realised that this thread is going to run into the buffers in a minute!

Burma YNAB allows you to project and then input actuals so you can see how what you're projecting measures up against what you're spending on a day by day basis.

themoneyone there is a YNAB tutorial on entering debt/overdrafts (doesn't need to be entered at the beginning of the month or budgeting process, I only put all of ours in the other day). It's not terribly intuitive and if you're spending on CCs/overdraft you kind of have to account for things twice (you'll see what I mean when you try it), but it's the best method I've come across still.

We have got a massive babysitting bill coming up tomorrow to go to a wedding which we said yes to months ago. Am not looking forward to that! Will probably be a good £75.

Burma, I'm on Excel too. I work on a month on month basis (don't feel need for monthly cash flow as everything pretty much comes in and goes out the same day!) with all income and expenditure documented.

I allocate every penny of income to somewhere be it put aside for my envelopes, bills, debt repayment etc. if I'm under budget with anything (usually petrol or housekeeping) then the remains get paid towards CC1...even if it's only a few pounds.

So rolling balance month to month is zero. Was nervous about this to start but once I had my emergency fund set up I knew Id be ok...

winterlover
Carpet - before you spend any money .... try freecycle

Finally had a talk about saving and paying off debts with DH, he clammed up, mumbled about saving starting to save 20 quid a week, the conversation ended. Now I feel like crap. He has no interest in trying to pay off debt sooner or trying to cut down on shopping spends etc.
I really feel like we could be doing more, I have nothing left after paying my share of bills and my gym membership, he however should have a couple of hundred a month, I dont want any money judt think there are better ways we could organise ourselves.
This stresses me so much that this could potentially ruin our marriage eventually, I could scream right now im so annoyed.
Sorry for the big rant.

TheWildOnes
Who does the shopping?
Have you quantified the debt on a spreadsheet and printed it out
and then be REALLY tight on money for a couple of weeks "to save what I can out of my share"
once he's had beans on toast for a week it might start to click

also, do ask what he wants to do for his birthday in 18 years time when he has finished paying for that game / gizmo / takaeaway he just bought on his card

he's hiding because he's scared
you can be the strong one here

He does the shopping, I mentioned taking the shopping money from the bank weekly to keep an eye on the budget as at the minute he pays for shopping on his card so we have no idea what is being spent.
I have spreadsheets ready to use, maybe inputting the numbers and showing him other options for paying off debts earlier may help, if he can see how much will be swallowed up in interest the longer this goes on.
I dont feel strong right now, I feel hurt, angry and frustrated that he doesnt want better for our family.
Thanks for the suggestions so far.

Someone start a new thread! I will! But then will try to link it...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2011878-Debt-support-thread-2

Think it's here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2011878-Debt-support-thread-2?msgid=45421216#45421216

New thread link

(((TheWildOnes)))
Taking the first step to admitting what you owe and the current system is not working is really hard
and men are utterly crap at chatting about stuff like this with their mates.

Get hold of his credit card statement.
Put the totals into my credit card spreadsheet
and then print it out .... should be about ten pages ... tape them together
and spread it along the hall floor
say and do nothing more
he has to make the realisation for himself
only then can you work together to sort it

(debt is rather like weight loss in that respect)

Thanks talkinpeace, ill give it a try.

lisad come and join us on the new thread here.

Hi there Im going bankrupt I hope by the end of March. I had a house but moved in with my partner who lived 2 hours away. I moved to him as his job is better paid and a family buisness. I also fell pregnant (which was not planned). Anyway 3 yrs later here we are. I rented my house out at a loss for 3 yrs. But the shortfall I kept telling myself was ok as it was like savings for my 2 boys and hoped for house prices to go up. I tried to sell but my mortgage is now 108K and the house was worth 90K. So neg equity. The bank put the mortgage up and our working tax credits dropped. I took a loan out to keep us going as my partner was due a promotion. That fell through and he got a pay cut due to the buisness circumstances. Im in a low paid job as a shool tech. But get the school hols off keeping the child costs down. I was just about holding it together when my tennant who was long term left in Nov last year. No one rented over christmas and I had to pay an electrician 250 quid. So any money I tried to scrape together was gone. I took out a debt management plan with step change they are fantastic. They advised bankruptsy. I saw my house had been sold for 89K so far so my debts will be 40K. Im gutted after trying to do the right thing all the time. Trying to keep the family together. My partner is always on a downer and gets angryquickly this is nothing to do with him. We kept our bills and houses seperate. So I have no link where I am now.I feel very upset and frightened by it all. I have never done this before. I invested money from my divorce into the house that was mine. Gutted is not the word. I have been the doctors and they have put me on meds to calm things down. I dont feel supported. And want to rip my partners head off when he moans about trivial crap. So now Im worrying I have made the wrong decission anyway. He just does not get it. Hope there us someone else out there that feels the same?

Scruffy - you are in the right place for support - come and join us on the new thread (link before your post) as this one is full x