Following on from Blah11's thread,

I hereby pledge to slash my debt in 2010 and support my fellow slashers to do the very same

If we can all join in the same way as above, it means I can easily identify you and add you to the list

Hopefully we can get together a nice little group, and I will kindly request one of the mods to make this a sticky!

I will post my basic statement of affairs in a moment to give you all an idea of where i stand, but if anyone doesn't want to disclose this information, you are more than welcome to join in and keep up update on your progress!

Here's to a better future for all of us!

Managing your debt

Don't forget that you are not alone. There are many people in the same situation. Why not share your experiences and get mutual support by joining our group? There are also places where you can get direct assistance from independent trained advisors such as the Citizens' Advice Bureau(CAB), Citizens' Advice Scotland (CAS), Citizens' Advice Northern Ireland, the Consumer Credit Counselling Service(CCCS) and the National Debtline.

What is an SOA?

An SOA is a simple document that lists all your monthly income, your monthly expenditure, your debts and your debt repayments. It gives you a clear picture of your financial position and is in a format that you can share with others (if you wish): a debt advisor, a lender or anyone else who may be helping you with your finances. If you are having difficulty in meeting your debt repayments, you may need to negotiate with your creditors, in which case they will actually ask you to send them an SOA.

If your SOA shows that you cannot meet your debt commitments, then you have a problem and you need to take action - the sooner the better. If your SOA shows that you can meet your debt commitments, but only by making minimum monthly payments on your credit cards, then you should still take action because you will be paying an enormous amount of interest and it will take years to pay them off. For example, if you only make the required 2% minimum monthly payment on a £5000 credit card debt at 15.9% APR, then it would take you 39 years to pay off the debt and it would cost you nearly £8000 in interest. However, if you paid £150 every month then it would take you less than 4 years to pay off the same debt and you would pay less than £1500 in interest.

What is Snowballing?

Snowballing is all about paying your debts in the correct order. Generally speaking you should attempt to pay off the debts with the highest interest rate first. Some people, suggest you pay the card with the smallest balance first, that's fine, and can help you feel you're getting rid of the debt quicker, but it's not the most efficient way. If you're considering a consolidation loan, think carefully about it. It's almost always cheaper to snowball your debts, and often people who consolidate their debts end up in more debt because they haven't addressed the main issue: They spend too much.


Useful links and resources

Make Sense of Cards

Snowball Calculator

Statement of Affairs Calculator

***Official list of debt slashers 2010***

#1 orange-sox
#2 Broody21
#3 Blah11
#4 Candeur
#5 FierceAngel
#6 Stephie 25
#7 needausername
#8 // arcadia
#9 starbucks101
#10 Jem
#11 Ell87
#12 whiby
#13 emz87
#14 golcarlilly
#15 katix333

#2 Broody21


:-)

Yay! Another slasher... ooo that makes me chuckle

Anywho, here's my kinda statement of affairs

Debt Breakdown
HSBC Loan........... 3302.46
HSBC Credit Card.. 1480.66
HSBC Overdraft..... 900
Total................... 5682

Monthly Budget Summary
Total guaranteed monthly income.............. 880
Expenses (including HP & secured debts)..... 638
Available for debt repayments................... 262
Monthly Unsecured debt repayments.......... 219.85
Amount left after debt repayments............ 22.15

My Plan of Action

1. Will be using any money left over each month to pay extra off my credit card.

2. Will be taking on extra shifts to increase the money I can pay off the dratted thing - it went in the confidential waste shredder at work months ago, so fear not, I will never ever use the sodding thing!

3. Will be as frugal as possible, and try to shave money off the shopping bill.

#3 blah11


Oh credit cards are evil! My OH is trying to clear his but he seems to just be paying off the interest

My plan of action is to not use any money out of my bank at all so my overdraft (£1500) will be paid off.
I pay for all the bills out of my account and my OH gives me money weekly to pay for his half so he gives me £90 a week toward them. I put £40 in my bank account so I'll have £50 to spend a week on food, nappies/anything amelie needs, and bus fares/food at work.



I spent £50ish at the shops today because I stocked up on baby stuff cos of the baby event so it'll save me in the long run but ugh, I am left with £46 and 40 of that needs to be put into my account on Monday so I have £6 for my fares when I need £15. I'll need to raid my £1 coin jar which is for Christmas 2010. Oh well!
So glad my free council tax months are coming up so I'll save an extra £300 over the 2 months

Brilliant that you will save the money from those tax free months :-D

If you keep a log of the £1 coins that you take from the jar, you could replace them during your tax free months maybe?

Good luck x

Yeah I could. To be honest the money is my jar amounts to about £150. I saved it for Christmas last year but didn't spend it

I'll be #4!
I've got so much debt I was a bit silly before I got pregnant and took out lots of credit, and things just got worse when I was on maternity and my wages went down, so I ended up spending on the catalogue for big purchases to furnish the house etc when we moved.

This is just my debt - OH hasn't got much in his name

Debt Breakdown

Debenhams Card - £400
Mothercare Card - £450
Next Account - £500
Great Universal Catalogue - £350
Very Catalogue - £700
Marshall Ward Catalogue - £700
PC World Credit Loan - £250
Currys Credit Loan - £300
Lloyds TSB Loan - £6500

Total - £10150

Total Monthly Income - £720

Total Debt Repayments - £350 (Some of the Catalogue debt is BNPL)
Household Bills - £200
Food/Baby stuff - £50 approx

Total - £600

Left over per month - £120

Ideally I'd like to keep about £50 min in my bank every month in case of emergencies. The rest can go towards paying off the debts.
I'm not too fussed on the loan because there's no way I'm going to pay that all off this year, I just want to get rid of the store cards, and catalogues.

Luckily I get £1500 in shares coming in September aswell which will go straight to debts so that's a big help.

Main goals -

Pay off £3650 by the end of the year
Stop any unnecessary spending ie Clothes and toys for Seren, takeaways.
Take sandwiches to work instead of buying out at lunch time.

Lesson Learned - STORE CARDS/CATALOGUES ARE EVIL!

GL Candeur

I want to only take out sensible loans like for a new kitchen, or boiler or for a car and to pay for everything else out of my own money so if I want a new TV or whatever, I need to save for it!

I just came into £5,000 of inheritance. My Grandma is still alive, but she wanted to give some now.That cleared our credit card which was £3,300. And the rest is being put into over overdrafts.

My overdraft: 1750
OH's overdraft: £1500
Owe my dad: £3,000 (car) = £6250

However, we still have £1700 of inheritance and we just sold my OH's saxaphone on ebay for £1050. Meaning our debt will be £3,500. We're paying £50 a month or more to my dad until October, clearing 500 (possibly more) of that debt. And then OH gets a golden hello for teaching this autumn of around £4,000 so that will clear all the remaining £3,000 of debt! So all being well (providing OH passes his first year teaching) we'll be out of debt!!!

We're then possibly gonna move back with his mum, she's on her own now with 3 cats and a dog. We get on really well, I want to go back to uni to do a masters for 2 years, which means i can't work, but OH can. It would mean we'll pay her rent, but it'll be cheaper than now!

Sounds like you have it all planned out Broody What on earth is a golden hello though?!