I'll join in here if thats ok! guess that makes me #6!

Debt is about 12k

Oh sorry didnt see everyone else hehe!

we have:

£5-6k on a car
£1k and rising Halifax Student OD
£1.9k Barclays OD
£1k Barclay card
£500 cap one
£250 Vanquis
£220 Vanquis
£300 Provident
£175 Jacamo
£800 laptop
£150 OD HSBC
£1080 + rising! Edge card!

= £133795

Thats all i can think off the top of my head there is more though...
Its not the debt that kills you its the bloody interest!

I plan to pay everything off apart from the car this year! God nows how! But i will do it

our income is all over the place atm! as im about to go on MA, OH just got a new job after being unemployed for 3 weeks, Think i will wait untill were settled at the end of feb to work out how much we've actually got coming in!!

do you mean 13k instead of 130k?

lol yer i did... think if it was that much we'd just go bankrupt and start over!

Welcome to our newest slashers!

Stephie 25 - All of my debts are with HSBC too, they've been pretty good so far, the only thing I don't like is the fact that a lot of their callcentre staff have very poor english skills! Makes dealing with them over the phone somewhat difficult! That 10% discount sounds fab though, any chance to reduce your debt should be taken!!

Personally I wouldn't touch RBS with a bargepole, simply because I've worked for them before, and my bank knowing literally every single detail about me would freak me out! - I did have an account with them while I worked there, but I closed it the day I left!

needausername - Please don't feel disappointed with yourself sweetheart, we are all in the same position... it is so easy to get here, but admitting that it's a problem is the first hurdle in tackling you debt! It might be helpful to you if you put all your information into a snowball calculator (link to which can be found on the first page) so you can work out which debts should be paid off first, in order to minimise interest!

// arcadia - if the lesson is learnt, then you're half way there! Being proud of being debt free is great, and we'll all have that feeling soon!!

Definately great that you recognise that things like littlewoods and next shouldn't be used to their limit! I have a catalouge account that I use to get lots of different sizes, then I try them all on, send back what doesn't fit, or what I don't like, and they pay it off in full. The interest is so high I make sure I've saved up enough money to cover what I want to buy before I order it!!

starbucks101 - Brilliant that your OH has managed to get another job so quickly! What's he going to be doing? Maybe he could do some overtime (if they job allows) to pay a little extra off your debt each month?

As you have lots of smallish debts, it might be an idea for you to calculate how much you have each month to pay off your debt, and then after the minimum payments are made, use any extra money to pay off those with the highest interest rates... it's called snowballing and can shave months off your debt free date! There's a link in the first post to a snowballing calculator, that can show you where you money is best asigned!

xxxx

yer, its importnant to get the Vanquis's paid off first as they are ridiculasly high interest as is the Provident loan & the edge card, with the overdrafts as long as something goes in there every month we can leave them till last as they are 0% student ones. The car well TBH i don't think we'll get that paid off any quicker still another 4-5 years to go on the bloody thing... Why anyone would buy a car on finance I really dont know! (alot of this debt is from before we got together)

Anyway yes his new job is fantastic he's a Web Developer so a complete geek bless him! its £4k pa more than his last job for Aviva and £2k more than his first web dev job so he is a happy little chappy!

Not sure if the oppurtunity for overtime arises there, we've got aload of stuff together and i'm going to do a big old carboot when the weather clears up a little bit and stick it straight onto one of the credit cards.

My Vanquis £220 is going to paid off with my wages so I dont get any interest. I'm only using it to bulid up my credit score really so it will be paid off before any interest hits it every month. Thats how Martin Lewis tells ya to do it lol!

As long as Provident and Jacamo are paid off by the time bubs gets here i can concentrate on sorting out the others but they are the only ones that need sorting ASAP, hopefully by the end of feb i'll have those 2 paid off!

Wow starbucks101, just seen your AdSpace - go you hun! Earning those extra pennies!

Thanks hun lol

Orange sox - Barclays are awful I really urge you not to go with them Ive had millions of problems with them and their customer service is awful x

I think I did a breakdown earlier but just thought of a few more thing

*updated* killed my first credit card & npower debt!! woohoo!!


Credit card 2 (0% balance tf for 14 months - ends feb 2011) - 1400
My overdraft - 200
OH overdraaft - 1500
My Loan - 700

Total debt - £3800
Npower is due to be paid on 1st feb as is credit card 1 which will then be closed down.
Hopeing to pay approx 100 off credit card a month (although not main priority as it is 0% for a year or so)

Feeling more positive now. This time next year it will all be gone somehow!!!

Things Im doing to help:
-Every time I forget to make lunch & have to buy something Ill pay the same amount off my credit card (so in essense, a £3 lunch will cost £6 which hopefully will train me into remembering it each day). Same goes with choccy bars, pop, non essential food items etcetc (this is where Im worst)
-also same with ciggies, Im not a big smoker, maybe only 10 a month, but I dont NEED to do it so hopefully doing the same will persuade me to stop completely.
-Don't spend more than £10 a week on personal items
-NO MORE SHOES NO MORE SHOES (I needed to write it out twice so I could believe I'm actually doing this to myself ) Unless necessary (work shoes/new trainers)
-Planning shopping list carefully!!! Trying not to spend more than £30 a week on food & drink (including alcohol, but not milk coz we go through gallons)

Any more tips appreciated I dont spend a lot at a time but I do spend a quid here and there and it all mounts up. x