A thread for people trying to pay off debt?

[moneyworries8]

Would there be any interest in this?

I'll start us off. I'm 30, a SAHM with 2DC.
Our debts are:

£4,000 loan that we've been paying off for 6 months.
£2,300 on a credit card

The debt is manageable but I've had the realisation that if something doesn't change, these figures are going to get bigger and bigger. I know it's a hard time of year to start but I don't believe in "waiting until the new year!"

We could post on here for advice/support as well as sharing our successes (and failures, but hopefully there won't be many of those) with each other. I feel like I need some people to help keep me on track.

So, is anyone interested?

Hiya SpecialAgent
You can do this
Sod credit ratings. They are piffle. Cashflow is king.
Stepchange will help you freeze your interest.
The Frugaleers will help you live on less
decluttering will help you cover fees
and there are ways to amuse children for free that do not feel like scrimping
YOU CAN DO THIS

Thanks @Ta1kinPeace I'm fairly good at the decluttering. I'm not sentimental about stuff and sell as much crap as possible. Live on the coast with teenage girls who really aren't interested in anything that involves a day out with me! It's more getting the bailiff/letters and phone calls to stop and not panicking when there's a knock on the door.

Hi. Can I join in?

I’ve got a £2,500 credit card bill. I’ve decided to set up a standing order thanks to your advice and get it paid off a bit quicker.

The annoying thing is that my dh virtually paid it off for me last year. I only had a little bit left to pay off and within a year I’ve maxed it out again. It’s not that he couldn’t afford it or anything but he can’t bear wasting money on interest and he’d be so cross and disappointed in me if he knew. Im disappointed in myself.

Hi everyone,

I've just created a thread but I'm copying it in here incase any of you lot can help me thanks:

DH & I currently lease a car. We paid a deposit (around £1600) and pay £230 per month.

DH is in the Army and is due posting in a couple of years. We don't want to lease this time due to the fact that the charges are huge if you need to get out of the lease early. We could end up with an overseas posting so could have no choice but to cancel.

The car DH wants us to get is £14,000. It's a couple of years old with around 30,000 miles on the clock.

By the time we need to buy it, we'll have about £2,000 saved towards it. We can take a loan out for the remaining £12,000, pay off over 3.5 years at £300 per month. The only thing that worries me is that leaves us with £70 per month less than we currently have.

The other option is to pay a £1,400 deposit and have the car for £215 per month on PCP. I don't fully understand PCP but the lady I spoke to at the leasing company recommended it to me. She said that whenever we need to end the contract, people often come out of it with a little bit of money rather than having to pay a cancellation fee. Her company don't offer PCP so this wasn't a sales pitch from her.

I understand the PCP deal would work our way more expensive if we completed the contract because there's a final sum you pay at the end to own the car but it's highly unlikely we'd stick with that car until that point.

I'm massively attracted to paying less per month. That seems like it would be the best way for us to go but I just want to make sure I've got all the facts right 👍🏻

Can anyone help?

Thank you.

You usually only come out if it early if you either sell the car (to pay off your existing balance) or get another car through part ex and another pcp deal.

Why do you need such an expensive car?

I hate PCP
when we had to borrow to replace DH's car I used a Zopa Loan over 5 years and repaid it in 8 months.

Lipwig
You need to look at budgeting. Start to record every penny you spend and go from there

special
Are your girls' phones on PAYG or contract ? My kids are the masters of free wifi - saves me a packet

@moneyworries8 why not get a much cheaper car?

Thanks Ta1kinPeace. I know what it is, too much clothes and hobby shopping. I need to rein it in!

hobby shopping
hmmm
yup, that needs to stop

clothes
If you are not going to wear it 20 times in the first year, do not buy it

I have a clothes tracker for this year as an experiment. Literally every single piece of clothing we buy and the price has to be written down, and who it was for. We have a £240 budget each for the whole year.

Which is really not a lot! But hopefully doable.

So far two pairs of new shoes and two new coats from the sales between 5 of us and lots of budget left.

Money my first thought was cheaper car too. What can you get if you halve the budget?

I buy most clothes (but I hate clothes shopping) at charity shops ....
good quality brands at sub primani prices

Ugh once again our oil ran out. €150 in less than a month. This is our first winter in this house so we had no indication of what the cost of heating would be. And our electricity bill, due on 5th Jan, what a day to have to pay a bill was almost €300. I hadn't budgeted that much for the electricity and I hadn't budgeted at all for the oil. In my naievity (sp ?) I thought it would do us all winter and had decided to put aside €30 a month for oil and get it filled again in March. So I need to revise my budget to putting at least €50 aside for Oil.

But, positive thinking, the good news is that this time, instead of putting it on the credit card like I had to do last time, I was able to scrape it together from our current account. It means a tightly controlled grocery shop at the weekend but I'm getting paid next Thursday so we should manage til then.

And I still have money in reserve to pay my bit off the credit card, once I get to pay day unscathed I can send that money over to reduce the debt

Hi BonBon
I saw your message but have been snowed under with tax returns

getting used to a new fuel type is tough
but WELL DONE on not borrowing to manage it

Thanks Talk for the support

That's brilliant that you could pay for it without credit bonbon. Setting a bit more aside seems sensible, we are really trying to do that in a more conscious way this year too.

Our very old boiler is buggered. We've managed to get a quote for an interest free deal with a big 6 - we think it works out not much more expensive than getting a local trader in (unfortunately because the old one was ancient its not a simple replacement) and less likely to become difficult debt as we would have to find the credit from somewhere and already have cc balance transfers to do in the next few months.

It's annoying to have to increase our debt but hopefully this is the 'best' way to do it - boiler is completely non-functioning so no choice about limping on for a bit longer.

Anyway - it's been helpful to have been thinking about debt and credit and interest rates because I think we would have bunged it on an overdraft previously, which would cost much more.

This thread is so uplifting!
I have £1600 on a 0% tesco card which I am chucking £100 a month at plus any extra I have. I want it gone asap so I can start overpaying on my car loan.
When that's gone I plan to overpay the mortgage

Not a good week here. I had to buy a new coat for one of the children due to his existing one being damaged beyond repair. Fortunately I managed to sell a few bits through Facebook market so didn’t add to the debt but I had been hoping to use the money from seling stuff to reduce debt.

totally
Think of it as standing still for a week rather than falling back
which is an achievement in itself

Falling back now. Another child has just shown me that his coat is torn

(((( totally )))))
Charity shop ?

I have sewn it up for now. He has another perfectly good coat which he chooses not to wear

totally hang on in there! He has two coats so I think you're completely justified not to buy another. Or, charity shop, as Talk suggested.

I’m not even prepared to spend charity shop prices on this occasion. DH suggested I go and get a new coat tomorrow, I chose to repair his existing one and then gave him the choice of repaired coat or virtually unworn winter coat he has in his wardrobe. Part of the reason we are in debt is that DH just goes out and gets stuff as soon as he thinks we need it.

totally
In that case EXTRA well done
for reminding your children and your husband/child the value of money
and to learn to look after possessions