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

i have come up with a few ideas - the only way I can see us to moving forward is to get another job paying more money.

I am looking into doing an 8 month contracting job which would theoretically pay off a good 70% of the debt, after the 8 months is done (or well before I will start looking for a permanent job again) lots of people in the area I work in do contracting works it’s not something I’ve explored before but the money is very lucrative at the moment over double my current income.

whilst this is risky I think it’s a risk I am going to have to look into it in much more detail.

I have also started applying for jobs as well.

in the mean time I have applied for a weekend bank care assistant job (I have done care work before) doing 1 x Saturday a month and 3 x Sundays have an interview Friday all money from this will go at the balance transfer below. Whilst it won’t be mega money it will help around £300 a month.

Dh is also looking and applying for jobs he started last night, whilst he won’t earn the money I can earn contracting he can certainly up his money, he applied for a few jobs at 50-55k every penny counts from now on.

I have been through both our bank accounts and cancelled some things we don’t use Disney bloody plus and spotify I am keeping Netflix as we have no Ariel into the house so can’t get terrestrial tv. I also had no idea but Dh owes around £100 on klarna.

I have applied for a balance transfer and will put the 2 big credit card debts onto it (credit cards will be closed down) and start throwing money at it, so the repayments we already make and when money from the internet hits my account that will go onto it as well as the other cancelled direct debits. The monthly costa habit my Dh has will stop so that’s another £60 as will his daily meal deal, that’s another £70 a month and he will be making sandwiches at home (I don’t really eat during the day) which will go directly onto it as well. We did spend £40 this month on a takeaway and we do seem to be doing this each month so again that’s stopping and will be thrown at another debt. It’s a small start but I am slowly unpicking it all. I am sure I will find other ways and means to do things.

I have made a list of all the I can sell and will start with either eBay or Facebook (kids toys and clothes they have outgrown) which I will then split half onto the debt and the other half onto Christmas this year. I have told Dh that it will only be presents for the kids nothing more.

if all else fails I will approach a debt charity at the moment I feel we can manage it.

DH and I have had a full and frank chat about money and I will be taking over control for a while….

Wow I bet you feel so much better compared to this time yesterday OP!!

There was another thread on here earlier in the year from someone who had (I think) about £20k debt, they also paid off the majority by taking a temp contract paying a lot more so that is definitely something to explore.

Even with the care home shifts and cutting out the unnecessary expenditure you have found so far, that will be at least £500 a month going towards the debt! Even more once you add in your usual repayments and selling bits and bobs.

Amazing what you can find in 24 hours

Contracting will be a long hard slog for me but it’s doable short term

I’m so peeved at Dh to be honest, I didn’t know about the Klarna and I didn’t really know about his lunch habit, I’ve always said I’ll make him something from home as I do the kids 🤦‍♀️

so far it’s a small amount but I will get this sorted

I found it really useful to print a visual for myself. When you’ve worked out your total debt you can make a printed grid of squares,say one square is £100 or £50, 10 squares on each row, each row a different colour.
I printed it out and it really really helped wean off the impulse and wasted buying. Every time I saved £50 I crossed a square off. Every month on payday I got to cross lots of squares off.

yesterday's work you did on your finances is probably in the long term the highest earning day of your life so far, it will save you hundreds if not thousands going forward though you have a big hill to climb you know have all the right gear, before you were like those that going mountain climbing in flip flops and shorts with a vague idea where the top is, now you have the walking boots compass and map and correct clothes it is still a long hard slog upwards but the goal is in sight

WELL DONE so far💐

I haven’t worked out the actual amount in ££ yet saving on the apr

If you can, do leave some space on your budget for a monthly treat. It doesn't need to be extravagant. You could time it so that you have that treat just before pay day so you are saving for it through the month.

Well done on your work so far.

Re Costa, I told my eldest before she went off to uni not to get into a Costa habit as it is easy for a quick coffee to turn into coffee, brownie, panini etc etc etc. Before you know it you are £££s down and calories up without having had a proper meal.

When youngest was heading off to uni I heard eldest pass on the same piece of advice.

A costa coffee and a drink is around £10 a go

i may have one occasionally if I go into town but I’m not that bothered by them.

I think Dh attitude towards money and spending has been given a massive wake up call £130 a month on nothing is a lot of money when you have zero in your bank account 😞

Daily meals deals at £3.50 plus whatever other junk he gets.

the treat money is a good idea maybe £10 a month to buy a book

Dont buy a book - use the library!

it’s those kind of rethinks you need to do.

Just wanted to chip in and say well done so far!
I've recently cut our Tesco shop by a third by meal planning and reusing left overs.

Exactly!

Take a travel flask with homemade coffee and sit on a park bench to drink it.

Stop using "buying" as your treat. You need to reverse that mentality. Repaying extra on your debt is your treat.

@dizzygirl1

Also buying a second hand car at the moment is horrendous as they are so so expensive therefore you're paying more than previously and getting a worse car which will cost you more in repairs and upkeep.

Cars last an average of 13 years. They only start to cost a lot in repairs etc towards the end of their lives (assuming properly serviced and well driven) in most cases. We've one that's 14 years old and another that's 8 years old. Neither are costing us anywhere near what a new or more modern car would cost. Neither has had a repair bill over £1,000 (in fact I think around £500 was the biggest which if I remember rightly was a service including cambelt change), annual services are typically £250, and neither has needed anything "big" such as a new clutch. I record all our expenses, and total repairs/servicing for the last 10 years was £4,845, so an average of £485 per year, and that's for both cars, so just £243 per car per year on average! That's less than a single monthly lease payment for most new/newer cars!

Yes, I know some people get stung badly with car repairs, but often that's down to buying expensive brands (apparently BMW are notorious for expensive repairs), and high performance cars where things like turbos/injectors are expensive to fix, or just ridiculously high mileage cars. Second hand "performance" cars are also riskier as previous owners could have abused them with speeding, handbrake turns, doughnuts and other general abuse, especially if they are within the "boy racer" categories! We've always just stuck to bog-standard (boring) mainstream makes/models, not only less likely to have been driven badly, but also usually cheaper/easier to fix. Sometimes we've bought new, other times we've bought used, but if used, we only go for low mileage with full service history - the price differential isn't as much as you'd think compared with similar car but high mileage without FSH - maybe 10% or so, the real trouble is sourcing a low mileage/FSH car in the first place.

@GnomeDePlume

Re Costa, I told my eldest before she went off to uni not to get into a Costa habit as it is easy for a quick coffee to turn into coffee, brownie, panini etc etc etc. Before you know it you are £££s down and calories up without having had a proper meal.

Yes, I told my DS the same, but he didn't take it on board at first. He'd just glibly buy his meal deals from Greggs, Subway or Spar every lunchtime and often nip into the Costa for a mid morning/mid afternoon drink between lectures. Now we're in an almost cashless society he'd just swipe/touch his card and didn't realise just how much he spent. He couldn't really understand why he kept running out of money in his "spending" account and had to keep doing transfers in from his "feeder" savings account. I got him to take a data download from the online banking app and put it into a spreadsheet and analyse all the payments into categories. He was absolutely gobsmacked at seeing he was spending hundreds each month on drinks/lunches!

Now, he's probably too far the other way. Whenever he facetimes me, he tells us which "yellow sticker" reduced items he's bought from the supermarket, what he's bought reduced to freeze for later, and what kind of sandwich he made to take in his lunchbox as his packed lunch (along with a bag of crisps from a multipack - whichever brand were on offer at the supermarket that trip), and his couple of bottles of tap water! I almost feel sorry for him now as he seems to have adopted a very austere lifestyle! But, having said that, he's happy to go for a meal or get a takeaway with his flat mates without obsessing about the cost, so I suppose he's got the balance right now!

I'm just thankful I got him to set up two bank accounts, i.e. the current account as spending money and an interest paying savings account as the "feeder" account. At least it flagged up to him how much he was spending when he had to make transfers too often - if he'd only had one account, I suspect he'd have just spent it all without noticing the dwindling balance.

so just from what you have said £95 saved on phones £1140 a year, £200 refund on internet, cancelling disney £96 assuming cheapest package £750 stopping lunch meal deals ( there will be some costs for making packed lunch)
total £2186

monthly saving from phone disney and lunches £163 to throw at debt

The examples she specifically gave, which were her own situation was bikes, lawnmower, christmas items, tools etc

No lawnmower - incur extra costs by either hiring someone to do the lawn or getting money taken off your deposit because you've let the lawn get out of control, weedy and probably get complaints from the neighbours too

No bikes - no cheap way of entertaining the kids, getting them to learn how to ride a bike, taking them out for the day cheaply, would have to hire bikes on a biking trip

I could go on, there are savings to be made for OP but waffling on about 'getting rid of stuff' is not necessarily understanding the issue for OP in this case or her needs or how cutting back and throwing out good stuff could incur higher costs later down the line. Even if she sold the items, they would need to be replaced at some point in the future. Penny wise, pound foolish.

The 28quid a month shed is not the thing that is irresponsible or breaking the OPs bank balance.

Do your due diligence. With a lot of freelancer/contractor jobs, they seduce you with a high daily/hourly rate, but you're paid through an agency(umbrella), who deduct tax, both employee and employer NIC, apprenticeship levy, holiday pay fund, etc., from your headline rate, meaning your "take home" is a lot lower than you expect, and there's often no other "benefits" such as sick pay, etc. If you join the workplace pension scheme, then they also take both your employee and employer contributions from your daily/hourly rate. On top of that, the agency/umbrella charge you a fee for processing your own payroll. A lot of people get caught out by it, so before you get in too deep, find out which agency/umbrella they'll use to pay you and get full/complete illustrations of what net you'll actually get from your hourly/daily rate. It's why there have been labour shortages with lorry drivers, locums, agency/temp staff etc. Basically all the usual "employer" costs are passed onto the worker so have to come out of the daily/hourly rate.

Reading your updates OP well done, you will easily solve this problem now. No need for IVAs or anything like that

If you’re 8 miles from the nearest school then school should provide transport. Will save you time and money.

I agree with @Badbadbunny you need to be really careful with what you're actually going to get. A friend got round this by agreeing a much higher daily rate, but you need to know you're factoring this in from the start.

Good luck with it all, this is an inspiring thread.

When we were drowning in debt we used Payplan who really helped us a lot. Took years,but we finally paid it all off. Now have second hand cars on interest free loans ( live rurally, need for work), just 14K left on the mortgage and 3 years credit plan we needed to install a new boiler last year. Probably still quite a lot but all necessity and manageable. It will be a tough road but you will get there

Hey lady, here's the thing
What you just did was awesome and totally changed your future.
Knowing your situation is so powerful.
This is the moment when you have the power to get things under control.

Well done!
My advice would be to find an independant financial advisor, my first stop would be the citizens advice centre.
You can do it.

OP you are being amazing! Well done 🙂

Stop using "buying" as your treat. You need to reverse that mentality. Repaying extra on your debt is your treat.

This is good advice. When I left exDH with a chunk of (his) debt I made it visual with spreadsheets and an app so I could see exactly how much I wasn't spending and how much I was chipping away at the debt, with projections for when it would be gone.

It turned out that I actually had plenty of money to service my lifestyle and pay down the debts really quickly - just not to subsidise his lifestyle as well.

Which brings me on to your DH. Is he really on board? Has he had his own "lightbulb moment"? I spent years having these chats with exDH but nothing ever really changed and he just didn't get it.

He does now, now he has to take responsibility for himself.

The current MrWeiss is the opposite. He's a fairly high earner (5 figs). Dresses like a 1980s geography teacher. Possibly some of his clothes actually date from the 1980s. Is using 30 year old golf clubs at the least expensive and least prestigious club in the area. Runs cars til they decompose. We're very happy.

How's it going today op? Well done on making the first steps and already making some savings!

@ZeldaWillTellYourFortune choosing to sit on the floor for 2 years despite earning a 75k salary is not delayed gratification. It's either jackanory or bonkers. Making yourself uncomfortable and being unable to have friends or family is not something to inspire to so I don't know why you are bragging so much.
Oh and by the way, I'm debt free with a great pension too - always had a sofa!