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.

Fairy
Part of the POINT of these threads is that you take the edge off the stress ranting at us and thus cope better with your RL friends and family.
That's our job

PS a friend of mine has, for 8 years
done ALL her Christmas food shopping after 1pm on Christmas Eve
last year she got Turkey, trimmings, veg, ham, salmon and cake for under £15 (for 6 people FFS)
I'm not as brave as her
but if you are feeling broke, you could try being madly brave

I might leave it til Xmas eve morning.
Prob go the day before Xmas eve though :)
Ebay is great for bargains. My dc always seem to like the cheapest least thought out present :) last year it was a 99p harmonica!

Fairy I can sympathise completely with what you say about debt. Thankfully, my parents have been brilliant and have covered our mortgage for the last 15 months, but DHs parents response when he lost his job was, 'well, JickJack's parents won't let you starve' (Helpful). DH had a highly paid job and I left teaching because before we moved here to be near my family, I didn't have anyone to help with childcare and when I was having DD I was still teaching three days but two lots of nursery fees would have wiped out my income. Plus, DH travelled all the time, UK and abroad, so it was and has been much easier for me to be at home. Losing his job suddenly (six months after going self employed to work for a US form) we went from around £60K+ to nothing, but not entitled to anything either because we have a mortgage.

Anyway, I now earn under £9K as a TA, and I know I could probably teach full time but I'm loathe to commit while there's a chance that DH could end up back in a job which means he's hardly home. This way at least I don't throw money away on childcare as I work at the younger kids school. Recently I have picked up a couple of extra hours on a Friday afternoon which means we can get working tax credits which is one reason I've been able to say to my mum that it's time we have to go it alone. From January, we have enough money coming in to pay the mortgage and direct debits, but nothing left for food/living/debt.......scary as to pay the minimum on the debt we have is going to mean robbing Peter to pay Paul and probably getting into more debt.

Our figures, roughly,

NW cc £900 (but min payment only £25)
HSBC cc £4000
Amex £2700
FD cc £3000 (but I've got £2K off this this year and it's on 0%)
Loan (from extending and running into major issues, our house is a money pit) £7000 ish, two years left, we pay £287 a month

I now have the following.....
£900 in savings (hangs head as this includes the last of the money we had put away for the children, luckily in accounts they didn't know they had so they won't miss it)
MBNA 0% card which I can do a money transfer on for £2800

Question......what to do?????

I was thinking about paying off the NW card to be rid, then paying off the Amex (thus converting this to 0%). But then I thought, maybe I shouldn't pay off the NW card as the minimum is so low, perhaps I should leave the money and use to cover the other cards minimum payments for a few months????

On a more positive note, DH has FINALLY realised that we have no choice but to stop SPENDING on credit cards!!!!

Sorry, that turned into an essay. If we didn't have the debts we would be fine. I could kick myself, and DH, but especially him because he's always taken the view that it's my fault we have no money. Only now is he actually facing up to the fact that he's responsible too.

Jickjack
When my kids were young, their "savings" were an "envelope" inside my amounts.
I was only able to transfer the money into their own accounts (with added calculated interest) a few years ago.

Credit cards : do the standing order trick ....
..... Opening post, spreadsheets thread link
..... Credit Card spreadsheet
...... changing from min DDR to fixed min STO changes the repayment term from 18 years to 2

If you have a 0% card, transfer everything you can into it and then throw money at the others till they are gone and then throw money at the one not accruing interest

And so, so, so pleased that your DH has clicked

Jickjack....I can sympathise on the money pit front!! :(
We have £10k in ctf accounts for the kids. Which we can't touch. We have stopped paying into them for now...we will start up payments again when we can afford it (ha ha)
My dh works away a fair bit too - sometimes at short notice - and that's why I'm a sahm. With the kids, and my mum, it's just impossible to find anything and most jobs now seem to be zero hours contracts and last minute sick cover which I can't do.
Can't stop Dhs pension as it's also got a generous death in service benefit which he would lose otherwise and - sadly - I know how needed those benefits can be :(
Can't stop the insurances - we have claimed twice on the house insurance this year alone!

So fed up with myself. Have eradicated the little savings that we had and now have nothing.

I've worked so hard and yet fundamentally nothing about me has changed. I know that I am depressed at the moment and spending is linked to that - it's why I'm in debt in the first place.

Just feeling meh.

I think my new year's resolution will be to work on myself and hope things like weight and money settle as I do. Me not being okay is the one constant factor in everything so maybe that's where I start.

It's been a really tough few years and I would like to feel a shift in everything. It's long overdue.

I've stood in the turkey aisle on Christmas Eve at 4pm to buy a half price turkey, I got a free range Norfolk black for £12 (it was small). Sainsburys bought out trolley fills of half price fresh geese and turkeys.

I wasn't the only one there either, other people were standing waiting too.

I'm not buying a Christmas pudding until after Christmas this year, I'll buy one for next year as well because they have a long date on them.

www.ukcouponing.co.uk/forum/index.php. Coupon forum, I've decided to become a couponer. Other people seem to manage it.

Kinky
Its nearly the end of term. You are shattered.
But you are right, spending will give you 3 seconds of pleasure and 3 years of stress.
So, you need to work on your head.
Mindfulness / CBT / Yoga / Meditation
there is lots on Youtube
John Kabat Zinn is fab .... try this video

or this one but find yourself some quiet moments over the hols to drag your brain round to facing the way you want it to

Thanks Talkin - I've got one of his books and one by Mark Williams, but I have - typically - never really made time to use it.

I am going to make my well being a focal point, I don't want my DH and my DC to face more of me like this. I know it's hard going for all of us and has repercussions for everyone - like needing new carpets and a new hob, but spending the money on plastic Christmas tat instead.

I am really, really exhausted this time too. It's definitely getting harder each year to get through Autumn Term. I'm already reading the comments of Facebook about all the holidays teachers get and wanting to scream!!

Kinky - my 2 dc and I all have endoftermitis!
Both dc have colds/coughs and I am just exhausted.l
I can't imagine what it must be like to be a teacher too!
I also need to start putting myself first a bit more in the new year...

Kinky
Hide those FB posts
Every teacher DH meets (and he meets a lot) is running on empty by the end of term.

If you can make 10-15 minutes of mindfulness part of your daily routine over the hols, it will be habit by the start of term and you'll be able to carry on once term starts.

Hello! I was a regular on the original threads and just wanted to pop in and say how glad I am that the threads are still going and that everyone is still plugging away at the debt-busting. Its such a slow, long, hard road, and its so easy to get demoralised. We started this year £15,100 in debt and with a LOT of effort and two pretty major "going off the rails" months we are down to £10,900 now. This is massive progress for us and I feel so much more positive going in to 2015. Keep at it folks, we'll all get there in the end.

Pixie
Good to hear from you
and so pleased that you are 1/3 of the way through in just a year
Have a great, but sensible, Christmas
TiP

Kinky I completely understand where you're coming from. I spend when I get low too. It's almost like you feel life is shit so what's there to lose...and for me at least once I start I get carried away. Really hard.

Well my £2 budget sort of went a bit screwed up today. .. I realised I needed a book of stamps so £3 something and then bought various bits in aldi for £6. Mainly some fruit for ds as he won't eat any veg whatsoever so with some fruit at least he's getting some vitamins and I also got some cleaning products. Oh well.

I now have £45 to last until Monday out of which must come £10 petrol to get me into the city to spend the last of our christmas savings card. No way round that otherwise we have £40 on a card for presents we can't use. Not sure how I'm going to manage for the next few days until Monday with £35 and no food apart from bread and eggs. Have to just do my best.

Took ds to the library today. All a bit of a disaster. He just wanted to scream his head off and climb on all the tables. ...!! He isn't really a quiet child. We did come home with a pile of books though which kept him occupied on and off the rest of the day.

Dh and I are both so down and fed up we are hardly speaking to each other. It sounds funny but when you are so broke what do you talk about? You have no plans to make, you can't afford anything not even a rented film, you have watched everything on Netflix, you've not got anything to get excited about. Everyday is the same shit different day, especially when you throw a toddler from hell into the mix as well (ds 2.5 is having one tantrum after another at the moment, dh and I are so worn out with it all).

On a plus side.... I managed to sell 3 old tops on ebay for a fiver. Every little helps. ....!!

Money is the only thing dh And I argue about

So we're just a bit away from the end of the year and everything is either budgeted for or bought. I will not be going out so will not be spending at all today.

Fairy I know how it feels, if you've nothing to look forward to it gets you down. DH is always major grump when we're skint. Have you looked into any free things you can get or do. If you sign up to Amazon Prime you can get a free trial of Amazon video prime which has loads of films etc on it and you can cancel before it becomes chargeable and it might have some different stuff to Netflix. The free things might help with the toddler from hell as if they're occupied they are generally more manageable!

On the minus side here it seems DS has left his hearing aid somewhere at school and I'm hoping it turns up otherwise it will be really problematic to get re-made and will involve a hospital visit .

Fairy that's tough. I have no advice though x

Had my works Christmas do tonight wearing a five year old top, jeggings and boots - did my hair all curly and put tonnes of lipstick on and I got several compliments!

Spent ages doing my makeup neatly and to be honest I don't think anyone noticed I wasn't exactly dressed up to the nines. So total cost was just my tube fair home - I KNOW I'd be regretting it right now if I'd spent £50 on a new outfit - as I've said before, the 'old me' would always get new clothes when feeling nervous.

Well done trainers! It's like a double compliment when you've made yourself look great without all the frills and expenses!

It did make me feel quite glad Jonty - I sometimes post on the S&B boards (not about £700 handbags though!) and it has definitely kept me up-to-date in terms of what looks current - I hope!

Hi sorry this off topic, but you are all such a nice bunch.

I've been stressed yesterday feeling sick and crying - have a bumpy history of PND, mild bouts of depression/anxiety. I felt aid let everyone down - my financial planning, diet and general kaos in the house had let everyone down. My DH had to pick me up when he finished work.

Today end of term and I saw a mum who I'm friendly with and have met up with a few times. She seemed as if she was in. A hurry to get away from me which set me off worrying that I havn't been invited to and end of term thing that I would have in the past. There is a backstory (don't think it warrants thread as did it on own and it's that old school gate thing) - we dying, me feeling far less confident and overcompensating by spending (this time last year ish was off the map NEXT acc!!) to make me feel better. I feel tearful. All the work that I'd done to make myself feel better through gaining perspective an reevaluating my personal values just seems to. Have evaporated with the thought I've been left out. Though I havn't been forthcoming with invited to too there's from school. Arrgghhhhh. We are going away tomorrow, gifts are almost all wrapped, everything booked etc. DH is a good mood not ill or stressed from work....being helpful.

I hope it's ok to off load this here in this little corner of MN, cos you lot are lovely and kind constructive and non judgemental.

We dying should be a Wendy situation or a bitch wedge

And breathe...

I got a lovely card from a student thanking me and calling me a "phenomenal teacher". I'm so chuffed, it's made my year! That's better than any 'outstanding' grading. It's also good to have a reminder that this is why I put myself through it every day. I genuinely love the kids at my school (don't tell them I said that though ) and I love supporting them and helping to bring them on.

Maybe it's the end-of-term euphoria talking?