Debt mutual support thread number 7 ....... Spring is coming - let the sun shine into your finances and your life

[TalkinPeace]

This thread follows on from the last six threads in the series, the most recent of which is here.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_money_matters/2258202-Debt-mutual-support-thread-number-6-start-the-new-year-with-a-clear-purpose-and-keep-moving-forwards-even-by-tiny-steps?

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.

Just been doing my payday finances. I have spent a year battling my shopping addiction. This month, for the first time ever I am less in debt than I was at the start of the pay month - over £1000. Last month the debt stood at £26132, it is now £24860. I keep thinking there must be something I have forgotten. Am sat at home crying that I maybe have won the battle.

Bloody well done AT x

Thanks. It was weird as it felt for months like I wasn't getting very far, but then it all seemed to fall into place quickly once I broke the cycle, along with a massive change in mind set.

My aim is to have it under 20K by the time I go on holiday in the summer. I know I shouldn't be holidaying whilst in debt, but I need it for my sanity (I work with children with extremely challenging behaviour - it breaks you!).

afterthought
I am so, so pleased that you are getting your head into a happy place - your wallet will now surely follow.

baddz
There is no shame in putting stuff on the credit card - so long as you have a clear plan of how to repay it.

Think where you came from of putting stuff on the card that would be paid of in 18 years time. Now you count down every month. A significant achievement.

Hello all, is there room here for another one?

There's me, DH, DS (3.5), DD (nearly 2) and DC3 due in August. We have about 15k on credit cards, mostly historical debt that we've neither added to nor paid off in a long while but really want to get on top of it now as will obv have more mouths to feed and will be 'officially' starting home ed in September, when DS would otherwise have started in Reception.

I've seen TiP advise that credit card direct debts should be changed to standing orders. The rationale makes sense but is there a best way to go about the timing in terms of setting up the SO and cancelling the DD, so that I don't either accidentally miss a payment or have both the DD and SO taken out in the same month? will I need to contact each card provider if I can't manage the card online?

thanks

Twomoreminutes
Welcome to the gang on this grey and miserable Mothers day.

Credit cards payment : the standing order is in stead of the direct debit.
So, you know what day the DDR goes out. Straight after it does, set up the standing order for two days before the next DDR would have gone and cancel the DD
Then you cannot miss a payment and the debt will start to get whumped faster than you'd realise.

Thanks for the advice .

Oh, and never ever talk to the card companies about doing this.
They will do their level best to get you to stay with the DDR - and thus keep their profits up.

ANY card can be managed online now - on the back of your statement will be the bank instructions for changing the payments.

Marking place - doing terrible here on spending front. I've really fecked up. My gym habit and diet all to pot. But I have done a lot of uni work and got some voluntary work sorted with good training.

Chaotic times here too. Pay day in 10 days and can't come soon enough. Marking place so I can read properly later.

Total disaster. For the first time ever I was feeling optimistic about paying off our debts this year, have been using YNAB and had a plan in place.

Then DH admits that the overdraft on his account, which he had told me was around 1800, is actually over f*king 4k!!!! It's not even as though the money has been spent on anything specific - looks like he's been using the account for work expenses etc but not transferring over the funds to cover it. No idea how much over the limit it must be now but there are £70 of charges accruing each month at the minimum from what I saw.

I am so angry. He is only responsible for this one account and can't even manage that. And he's lied about it for a long time, adding interest upon interest. It's added another 25% to our total debt.

I don't even understand how overdrafts work so don't know the options for making sure the charges don't keep piling up? We don't have the cash to pay it all off. Can it be transferred to a 0% card to give us more time? Does paying small amounts at a time stop the charges?

Feel like giving up before we've even started and I can't bear to look at him

Oh and he is being arsey and rude to me as apparently I'm not entitled to be angry about this.

Kinky - just read another of those 'Secret Teacher' articles in the Guardian it was about a husband and wife, both teachers who took a demotion, overall paycut of 10k but 'immeasurably' happy. What they described sound dreadful. I thought about you and some RL teachers I know who are struggling.

Hell two I have been their - My DH ran up his expenses on al ong trip into thousands (it was abroad) when he got the money refunded he never use dit to pay the card and of course it got spent. Feel your fury...go for it he needs a bloody good telling and he needs to take responsbility for it all.

We paid off huge overdrafts recentyl and we used a 0% money transfer card..check Martin Lewis for latest ones, not all cards do the money transfer thing.

Dont give in to the rudenss - it's an abuse of trust that type of spending on that scale. Once you have thrashed all this out it will be better....Men tend to be solution focussed so when you've figured out how to deal with it share that with him on one hand but temper it with a big dose of reality. Put it back in his court tell him to go through and classify his spending - clothes/food/nights out/whatever to see where he's gone wrong...he needs to face up to this.

It's exhausting being the 'leader' on these issues I sometimes fuck up too (I have recently). I'm always worrying whether I'm getting things right or not.

Oh two :(
I'm so sorry. I'm not surprised you are livid!
Is he getting charged for the OD? Or is it free?
If he is getting charged then a 0% card to pay it off would probably be your best bet.
What has he spent the money on? If he can pin point what the money has gone on it's not so bad, if he can't then that's really worrying .(
If he can pin point what the money has gone on, then he can change his behaviour accordingly.
I am waiting til my child benefit goes in tomorrow and then I am doing am account check and plan for next month - April is horrendous for me! 5 birthdays, Easter.....gah.

Oh and he is being defensive and rude because he knows he is in the wrong.

twomoreminutes
Your best bet with the overdraft is to talk to the bank and have it converted into a loan over three years, fixed repayments.
At the same face to face meeting - demand one, do not take no for an answer - get his post loan overdraft allowance cut to zero.
The loan will come out of HIS bank account and his card will not let him borrow more.

He'll be in a stink but it will calm down.
One thing that will help is to avoid alcohol for at least a week while you sort this out - so that neither of you get into a drunken rant.

Thanks everyone, feeling a bit better now. Will look into the suggestions for paying it off and ensuring there is no further access to the account.

The ironic thing is he only has the account as it was attached to a loan he took out some years ago, which has just recently been paid off. I'd been transferring the correct (so I thought) loan monthly payment amounts over from the joint account but obv was not aware he was using it for work expenses then not transferring the cash over to cover it, and he told me there was a flat fee for use of the overdraft, which seems not to be the case.

That's what makes it worse in a way, that he hasn't actually been spending money on anything apart from the work expenses (train travel and mileage etc) - it's mostly interest and charges that must be racking up.

Luckily neither of us drink (and I'm 20 weeks pg at the moment anyway) but I don't need alcohol to have a good rant .

Well £150 to the dentist today (ouch)
Another £150 next week.
Sigh.
Ah well.

Everybody has gone very quiet.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Well it might be a bad thing with me. I'm off work with stress! The GP wanted to sign me off ongoing for up to six months but it's just too close to exams. I'll go back in on Monday.

I'm having an awful time wth general lack of support and a bullying manager in school and I just hit breaking point this week and a sort of mini breakdown.

I've decided that I need to leave and find someone me part time teaching work (perhaps teaching ESOL or similar in a college) which might mean a big income drop come Autumn. We're currently on about 60k would go down to about 45k potentially if I get the part time college job I'm looking at, but would be paying less childcare and also Dd qualifies for 15 hours from September anyway.

I'm really not sure what's going to happen. I got the best results in the department by an impressive margin last year so I'm not quite sure why the manager is quite so damning of me (mostly personal comments e.g. he thinks my voice is boring, my signature is a 'horrid scrawl' etc). I do extra curricular groups, summer school ...

Debt stands at £10k on 0% - should I just continue paying this off at current rate in of £400 a month in case I find myself out of work?

((((( Ursula )))))
Is there anybody higher up that you can discuss the matter of the manager with?
Just that its so sad when character conflicts drive good teachers out.

Not long till the Easter Holiday which gives everybody a chance to freshen up.

Keep hitting the debt in the cheery assumption that the manager will get a life.
If you do have to change jobs in the Autumn, you may have to drop down to £200, but on 0% you're still heading in the right direction.

In that case I'll help you pack your parachute

Thanks ??

I'm going to spend tomorrow sending out my cv and sorting a few things out. I've felt like I've been hit by a bus the last few days and feel really numb but I need to take these steps to help me start moving forward.

I may go back into mainstream at some point but not full time, and not for a while x

Ursula get yourself an appointment with Occupational Health through whoever manages your absence in school. Ask for it, don't wait for them to offer. Also, contact your union rep. If you aren't in one, I would join one. When DD was ill, my ex Head attempted to bully me out. It was awful and I was off with stress because it made me so sick. Occupational Health and the union were what got me through and I'm now in a new place where I feel far more valued. Sending love as I know it's tough and don't get sucked into the teacher guilt and going in on Monday if you are not well enough - it will do more harm than good.