Debt mutual support thread number 6 ....... start the new year with a clear purpose and keep moving forwards even by tiny steps

[TalkinPeace]

This thread follows on from the last five threads in the series, the most recent of which is here.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2193736-Debt-mutual-support-thread-number-5-the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-is-NOT-an-oncoming-train?

We live in a society that makes it horribly easy to get into debt but makes it incredibly hard to admit you have a problem and even harder to get out of debt.
The posters on threads, new and experienced, are here to help people get to where they want to be.

I am not in debt, any more.
Here is a link to some spreadsheets that might help
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/1987219-SPREADSHEETS-for-Debt-Control-Budgeting-Mortgages-etc

and lots of people use this
YouNeedABudget

The important things to remember are

• yesterday is as past as the Crimean War

( we will not judge how you got into debt, but we will support you on the way out )

• this is an anonymous forum

( we will not tell your employer, family or friends of the reality of your numbers and we are here day and night )

• this thread is about supporting people through the huge mindset changes needed to come out of debt

( feel free to offload all of the feelings that drive you to want to spend, that make it hard to save and that generally make life crap at times, including getting those closest to you to recognise the changes needed )

Join in, bare your soul and come out the other end.
Its worth it.
You are worth it
The long term results for you, your partner, your children, and your friends and family are worth it.

I've started cutting back now ready for the main job to start in January. We should in theory be debt free by next Christmas barring any disasters. It'll be the first time in our married life we'll be debt free and we're planning on having a honeymoon once we've saved for it! This thread is really helping me get a grip and to get DH o board with it all too. Thank you all for being so honest and supportive.

I need tieing down I really do. I've spent more today. Some of which I can cover, but some of which I can't and will have to jig overpayment to cover it.

Ive still spent less than last year on presents. I'm just not mean enough!

Sigh.
Tumble dryer has broken!

Dh just has his dad's vouchers to get now.
Got vouchers for my Xmas food shop, thank god.
Ds1 has just told me he needs a secret santa gift for Friday for a "girl" for school
Ffs.
His school are dreadful for this! Everything is so last minute.
Luckily I had a free gift some weeks ago so she is getting that :)
It's ds2s xmas disco on Thursday and ds1s class party so I need go provide food - I am being very lazy and have bought aldi Pringles and a tub of flapjacks :)
Have offered to bake mince pies for mil for Xmas eve as we are going up there.

badvoc
Do you have an airer? / banisters / radiators?
I've never had a tumble drier so am not used to the concept.

Sounds like you have everything else under control

andsmile
slap yourself on the wrist. Is there any of it you can take back for a refund?

TIP...I love my tumble dryer. It's like family to me :)
Well, mum will dry some stuff for me and I have an airer (load on it ATM)
We may look a bit crumpled by Xmas day :)

Badvoc Give everything a "flick" before you hang it out, and then make sure you hang really neatly : you'll be amazed how well stuff dries, and it costs nothing

just marking my place.
boiler got fixed today, and suddenly house feels boiling hot! Had got used to it being cooler so definitely will be having it on less.
someone mentioned about feeling stressed about the worry of unexpected bills. I feel that too. our car is 10 yrs old and cost us 500 at mot in September.
re tumble dryers, we have one now but I don't use it if the heating is on. put the airer next to radiator and it drys so quickly. I wonder if it's cheaper to have heating off and dry clothing in dryer or have heating on more and dry clothing on radiator?

dh has gone and bought unnecessary food today, crisps and chocolate etc. it was only a few quid but he was only supposed to be getting toothpaste!!!! I can tell these habits will be hard to break. I refrained from having a go but gently told him it was unnecessary. He claimed they were on offer. I dropped it. Gently does it i think.
some really inspiring stories on these threads. so hoping we can be a success story too.

Still need to go shop for gift for Dsis and Bil but they have told me some wine and cakes will be fine, so I will be baking some home-made and making some other bits and maybe getting something interesting from art gallery.

All other bits are accounted for, FIL is sending some cash, not probably a huge amount but it will help us over Christmas and I will be getting a substantial amount come new year so we'll survive.

Badvoc I've never had a tumble dryer and what TiP says is right, if you hang it carefully it doesn't crease. A good idea is also to flip it over once the top side feels dryer as the under side will still be quite damp, this means it will dry quicker. I also move things up to the top layers of the airer as they dry as heat rises so the top tends to get dry quicker. I've got a Minky airer that I got ages ago from Wilko and it is better than the conventional ones as you can fit more on. We haven't got room for a tumble dryer but I only ever remember my mum using hers in an emergency. On some of the sunny days that we've been having I still put washing outside at the moment as well.

DS Christmas party today so he will come home chocolate and cake fuelled. His teacher said they are going to attempt to feed the children some healthy food at the party, just thought 'good luck with that then!'

Checking in x

Popperdoodles - just seen your comment about TV package cost on last thread. Answer is v simple - buy an IPTV box - they cost about £110 but it's a one off charge with an annual fee of about thirty quid (so two months worth of your current charge). For that you get hundreds if channels, films, tv box sets etc, and lots of the sky/sports channels. You need to retain your line rental and broadband, but TalkTalk do that all in at about 17.99 a month, so if you spend £216 a year on line rental and broadband, plus £170 on IPTV box, that's only £386 - compared to £840 on your current package!

Ds2 off school today with a cough and temp.
I knew he wouldnt make it to the the end of term :(
Apparently the dryer is still in warranty...we took out a 5 year one have no memory of this
But I doubt we will get anyone to look at it before Xmas now.

Badvoc - good news about the warranty on the dryer! At least it should be a free repair.

Good news on the warranty! Glad to know those things do have some effect!

Ok having been inspired by everyone else on this thread, I'm joining in! Sorry this is likely to be long... We've got ourselves a plan already for clearing debt and getting ourselves on to good financial footing, so I want to use this thread to keep me inspired and keep track of where we're at. Most of our debt has been 'deliberate' rather than silly spending, because we've had some big life changes in the last year, but now we need to work at getting the debt clear. We got married in August, and put some of the cost on credit cards (at 0%) - we didn't have much time to save beforehand as we only got engaged the previous November, and we wanted to get married fairly quickly as we're both getting older and wanted to try for children straight away after getting married. We thought it would take a while to get pregnant, being older, so we'd have time to clear wedding debt after the wedding - but I got pregnant on honeymoon! So now I'll be going off on maternity in April, and then returning to work at only 3 days per week, so a 40% drop in my salary, plus we need to save a certain amount to cover some of my maternity leave as I'll only get work pay for about half the time. Also, in the spring we bought a new motor home and a new car for me with a loan, as we knew we'd be trying for children and once I'm on reduced salary it would be less easy to get the loan we wanted, so we planned that much in advance. So we need to clear debt and also reduce our outgoings so we can manage easily once I'm on 3 days per week. We both get paid monthly, plus DP is a singer and gigs about once a week, so we get additional weekly income from that.
Debt I have is:

• barclaycard: 6735.66
• post office credit card: 1433.66
• tesco credit card: 470.54
• tesco loan: 29,416.80 (with 11 payments of 490.28 made already, so £24,023.72 still outstanding.
• mortgage: £157,000, £150,000 approx outstanding - but I rent this house out, so mortgage is paid by tenants, we live in family property that we rent. I'm putting the overpayment difference between rent and mortgage aside to give me at least two months mortgage payments should my tenants leave (although they've just signed another years contract). After that I'll use the extra money to either reduce the mortgage down faster or help pay off the remaining loan we have.

Husband has:

• credit cards: 5k
• tesco loan: 11k I think, I need to check exact figure remaining (we financed the motor home across two loans).

I get my work annual bonus on 22nd, which thankfully is enough to clear the barclaycard, the post office card and the tesco card. Then from end of Jan I'll be saving £800 a month toward maternity leave.
Husband has started giving me his gig money the night he gets it, and I've been putting that straight into our premium bonds account, so already this month he's managed to save £530 - so he's aiming to pay his credit cards off by May latest, then start putting money aside for maternity leave. After that, we're also going to aim to pay his 11k loan off by next Christmas, so by the time I go down to 3 days per week, we'll only have my loan outstanding. It's going to be tight, and I'm economising on weekly shopping, and also have managed to do all Christmas shopping for friends/relatives for £300 this year (this is for twenty people, so I'm really chuffed!). I've also got two horses, but I'm trying to find a sharer for one of them, which will reduce those costs substantially. We can definitely do it, we just have to be far more aware of money than before...

Jonty
Welcome aboard. And delighted to hear that you and your DH are communicating and have a plan.

And tee hee at the forward planning for babies - they never turn up when you expect I found I was pregnant just after resigning from a job!

What I would suggest is to really start budgeting and accounting for every penny now so that you know where its going.
And remember the annual stuff - that is what usually bites people

Thanks TalkinPeace - I've got a spreadsheet with all annual expenses - car tax, insurance etc on it, so we've accounted for all that, thank goodness! I've also got all family/friends birthdays on there, so I know when we have to pay for those :0).

NeverFreezeLobsters my annual list is as follows - minus all my horse related things that I'm guessing don't apply to you!

• TV licence
• dog jabs and insurance
• house contents and buildings insurance
• gas/electric/water bills quarterly
• phone bills
• car MOT, insurance,service, breakdown cover, road tax

Welcome jonty And congrats on the pg! :)
I am in awe of those of you who are so organised!
Dh and I really need to sit down in jan and make a plan.
This week has gone a bit up the spout now with ds2 ill. Oh well. Sofa week for me then :)
Our numbers are;
£8000 - loan (we pay £300 pm)
£500 - cc (we pay the min)
£500 - next (we lay the min)
£1000 - overdrafts
:(
And I don't see how on earth we can pay them off any time soon :(
That's what you get for moving into a money pit I guess!
Main goals for next year are to try and get some savings (all gone long ago on household repairs), get rid of the overdrafts and pay down the cc and next.
The loan has another 2 years to go...nothing I can do about that.
Dh will get a bonus of about £800 in march but we usually use that to book a week away in the uk.
I don't mind not going away next year but dh is adamant we should.
We have sold everything we didn't need/want on e bay.
We don't really have any luxuries...except cable tv and dh refuses to reduce the package. It wouldn't save much to be fair.
We have cut down our shopping bill to £400 a month (for 4 of us)
Bit worried that there is nothing we can do :(

Badvoc
are the CC and Next on standing orders rather than DD .......

No, we just pay them each month when we get the bill.

Never...it is a nice house, and it's increased a lot in value since we moved in 3 years ago but....I don't know. I'm not feeling the love ATM.
Oh! I know what I was going to ask you guys!
Anyone know if you can now pay car tax via monthly dd?