Just worked out how much we owe…

[EmbarrassedDebt]

Sat with DH tonight as it’s a week till payday and we have nothing left, so started a spreadsheet for our income and outgoings we are broke like absolutely destitute

In doing this I’ve found out between us we owe

55k’s worth of debt no wonder we have no fucking money

credit cards stand around 17k

cars around 9k on one and 7k on the other (nearly £600 a month on car repayments)

we have 4 loans between us owing 18.5k (seriously didn’t know this)

and other random stuff on finance (shed, tv, sofa)

Dh earns around 40k and I’m on 35k

I literally have no idea what to do but seeing it all down on a spreadsheet make me feel sick.

so far I’ve started a new spreadsheet sheet with the amount owed on each credit card and the interest rate & looking at ways to start paying it down.

I am horrified 😞😞 I’ve been half heartedly for a new job and looking at a second job but now that is something really important on my list of things to do…

please no nasty comments I just needed to get this off my chest and then plan a way out of this mess.

randomly we both have reasonably good credit scores as well I check those tonight as well

It's a shock alright, but now you know you can deal with it. You've had some good advice here, this time next year will be different!

It's a shock. I have been there when I was single. But you'll be in a better place very soon!

Like many have said get those credit cards consolidated. Lots of options. Personally I think a loan is better than zero interest as they don't often give a large amount for balance transfer.
Get DH to sort those mobile phones out to SIM only ASAP!
Thing like SKY/ virgin can be very expensive we have just got rid of ours and are using freesat and freeview.

Just out of curiosity, why did you move so often & why do chose to live so remotely? Seems like that makes everything more difficult.

What do you have that can be sold to tackle the debt? Could your husband use a motorcycle to commute to work, so you could sell one car?

Good luck 💐

Hit post too soon!

We are paying £70 less a month now.

Then the cars, see what you can do to at least trade one in for something cheaper.

Best of luck sorting it all out, you'll get there!

Not sure if this is helpful but I have always paid attention to the sneaky stuff, like the mobile phone bill…. But also internet/Tv packages/insurance/etc.

for e.g.

We stopped sky (only used it for recording etc.) but since stopping they’ve set me letters offering sky a for £15 a month…… if you need sky, negotiate price. (They send me letters nearly every week! Suggests they really want us back!)

Internet; we got 200mb fibre for £26 a month on a deal (as it’s fibre, no line rental). The deal ended and they said ‘it’s up to £60’. So I called up and I’m back down to £29 but double the speed.

Phones are both £6 (more data than I can use). I also check our car and home insurance, breakdown cover, ummm and boiler cover (works out about the same as paying for an annual service).

So maybe look at the detail in your outgoings and call around asking for discounts (checking comparison websites and Quidco first to arm yourself for the negotiation etc. then just call cancellations) You could even save on your food shop - a lot of employers have ‘perk’ websites with discount vouchers for Asda/Tesco/etc. (admittedly we shop at Lidl, but you said you’re more remote so options could be more limited).

And if you track all your savings it could give you a nice emotional boost!! 🙂

Those phone contracts are huge! Op can you post your outgoings and income and we could see where you might be able to save money to throw at the debt?

I tend to agree.

Why purchase a shed for rented accommodation, for example?
Sofa: use Freecycle or similar sources.

Rude and unhelpful.

This is great advice.

Well done for taking the first step OP, it's scary but on your income you should be able to get on top of it without having to go down the formal solution route.

First things first look back at your spending from the last 6 months and work out exactly where you can cut down, then start thinking about how you can increase your income. A second job for you, can DH increase his hours or do overtime at all (I know this isn't always possible, I don't get paid for overtime!), pp mentioned matched betting which is something to look into, the first £500 is relatively easy so that would be £1k between you.

Definitely look at changing at least one car to a cheap run around, used cars prices are good at the moment so it would hopefully pay off one lot of finance.

Where do people store their garden implements, lawn mower, bikes etc etc, they cant just stay out in the rain and weather

And not everyone has a local freecycle that has useful things on it, then you need to be able to collect it, physically able to manouvre the item and get it into your house, trying to get a man with a van round here is a nightmare and you wont be able to get the person to collect your item in the same timescales as the person wants it picked up

We need to get rid of some old doors which have lain in our front garden for ages, we literally cannot get someone to help out and cant get them in the car or on the car roof. We picked them up in a skip down the street and hauled them back to ours on foot, they never fitted the doorways I wanted them to and now its going to cost us to get rid of them!!

Cheap is not always the most cost effective.

I don't know about cars. I feel it really depends on where in the country you live. If op would need cars even if she lived less rurally, it may make more sense to stay put in a cheaper house .
I do agree though that you should go for cheaper cars. Buy second hand ones and not luxury ones. My ford fiesta and Renault Clio lasted a long time with very reasonable repairs.

Well done OP for facing the elephant in the room. You can do it!

The first step is done.. you know the amount and know things need to change.

I have an app on android called debt repayment. You put in all your debts and interest rates and it works out how much you should pay (after the minimum) to clear them in the most cost effective way. You can record everytime you make a repayment and it recalculates how much is owed and when youll have paid it back. I find it super useful.
Its free, the icon is light blue and a dove flying.

Firstly, well done on doing the sums and facing the big numbers.

Now breathe, have a glass of something (and savour it, cos it's not going to happen too often), and get cracking.

You've got some easy wins that you can do right now, move the phone contracts, cancel as many subscriptions as possible, move the debt. Stabilise your current outgoings. Until you do, delay what you can - hair cuts, replacing things that aren't broken.

Extra income - eBay, Facebook marketplace for cash for spends.

Right a list of when contracts end, can be renegotiated or switched out. It may not be worth adding to your mortgage if you are on a fixed deal.

You can do this. You just have to go through the process very slowly. You will have to likely downgrade your lifestyle but make sure you find joy and gratitude in the small things.
Ask for help if you need to.

Don't make any hasty decisions. Take stock first and get spreadsheeting.

Can you get your bank & credit card statements online? It is worth going back over all your spending over the last several months and using this to work out when payments are due as well as analysing & categorising where you are spending money.

Once you have done this commit to keeping a record ongoing. The history is the hard bit. If you get in the habit of recording your spending every few days it doesn't take too long.

Forgive yourselves. You are where you are.

Don't assume anything. Look at your cars but don't assume that a cheaper to buy car will be cheaper overall once service, insurance, maintenance and fuel get counted. Also a cheaper car will likely need to be paid for in cash.

You have made the first step. Don't stop now.

Cheap garden storage boxes or cheap diy shed. We didn’t have a shed for years until we could afford one for our new house. There are places to get cheap sofas which so deliver, no need to spend loads on finance. Outlet stores for example, charity furniture stores, cheap IKEA sofas. TVs you can get free or very cheap secondhand, or just a cheap store one, no need to spend loads on a big fancy one.

our first house we furnished completely for under £700 because we simply didn’t have the money to spend more and we weren’t going to stick it on a credit card. We got sofas, dining table and chairs, tv, all bedroom furniture, desk, kitchen things and garden furniture for that.

I think having a spreadsheet is the right way to go - we do the same thing and I’m quite careful about knowing what we spend.

What I would add is that as well as sorting the cars and the phones, do you have anything that you could sell to release any money? I’m thinking stuff you don’t use - every little helps - we did a bit of saving when I was pregnant and sold anything we didn’t use (some sports stuff, Electrical’s we never used etc) and brought in a few hundred pounds off the bat - even with little amounts you can start reducing the debt.

can you earn extra money somehow? I was reading on here last night about matched betting etc - again small amounts but can add up. could u do some additional as hoc work? Exam invigilation, online surveys? Etc

and can you make any savings anywhere in your general budget apart from the phones?
Reduce subscriptions, food bill, takeaways etc?

I think it’s easy to say but try not to let it overwhelm you, take it one step at a time. Like others have suggested seek professional advice too.

good luck resolving it x

You've made the hardest step now. It must have been horrible sitting down and working it all out.

Now it's time for some serious planning.

It will feel tremendously good when you start to make some dents in the debt.

It sounds like you have some easy wins (like mobile contract) and some much harder decisions.

Do you have some stuff you could sell? Even little bits can chip away at the debt. Could you work over time or a second job?

I paid off a fairly hefty (c£10k ) debt acquired from escaping my abusive ex and it felt so bloody amazing when I got there! Set small goals to begin with, every step in the right direction is progress.

I'm sure you mean well, but honestly, you earn TWICE as much as the OP.

Don't want to say too much but we once owed that and half that! It's now down to less that 40. U can do it

The MSE forum is brilliant along with the weekly emails. The debt free wannabe board is full of people who have paid off considerable amounts of debt and they are very helpful.

It's not for everyone and is US centred but Dave Ramsey is also good for a straight forward plan. He has "baby steps" which is basically a fool proof way of getting out of debt.

Many of us have been there OP. The stage you are at was my rock bottom and I still remember who stupid, desperate and upset I felt clearly. It took me about 5 years but I managed to pay it all off. It will get better.

This is the change of mindset that is needed though.

Sorry I went over to money saving website

I have a few ideas of things to look at tomorrow it’s too late to start reading car finance documents etc

moving house hasn’t been our choice 🤷‍♀️ we have been really unlucky landlords selling, one house we had really bad neighbours (drugs and sex) I guess we could have stayed but we didn’t we are hopeful we will stay here for a good couple of years but you never know with renting do you? Due to dc having some issues we have tried to stay local to their schools

im going to have a good look at everything in the morning I’ve a lot to think about 😞

I will add that it’s not been a champagne life style dh being made redundant during covid and only living on my wage for 6 months made the issues worse but I didn’t pay attention to closely and now we are in a pickle…

we got a shed due to having no garage I needed something to put the lawnmower in 🤷‍♀️ the summer house is the home office as I did a lot of wfh

sofa well I can’t really explain that, all other appliances are owned outright and paid with cash.

childcare is also a good few hundred a month going to see if we can cut it down a bit

there has been some great advice thank you 😊

Well done on getting it all written down and acknowledging it OP. I’m sure it feels quite overwhelming but you’ve got this 👍🏻💪🏼

There’s lots of really great advice been given already (and some not so great 🙄) and I don’t have much to add but just wanted to suggest having a look at Instagram too. Just search “debt” and there are lots of great accounts where people have documented their debt repayment journeys. It may give you some inspiration for ways to help reduce your outgoings or make a but extra money to put towards your debts!