Yipe!

[denny]

Just went to get some cash out and found that my finances are rather more desperate than I realised. And I already knew they were desperate.

I'm £2300 overdrawn on a £1400 overdraft limit in my main account and £1700 overdrawn on a £2000 overdraft limit on my old student account (now being charged as a standard account). This is most definitely Not Good (tm), even before you start adding up my outstanding loans and credit cards (about £35k to £40k).

I need to start keeping track of what I'm spending all this money on - it's running away from me at a rate far in excess of that which seems reasonable, even given my consumer lifestyle. I was thinking of carrying a notebook around and just noting down everything I spend money on for a month, see what's going on - but every other time I've tried this I've found that I forget to make entries in it so often that it's completely useless. Admittely I've never been in this much debt before - maybe I'd be more conscientious this time...

Comments

[mhw.livejournal.com]

Look here (http://www.cccs.co.uk/index.htm). Now.

*gives you a reassuring hug* It's doable, one way or another.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Holy Fuck.
Okay, you are going to stop buying me stuff because "what the hell, i can afford it" right this second. You are in much more debt at much more interest than me. Therefore you don't need to buy me tickets for things and large quantities of food no matter how pretty i am bearing in mind you know perfectly well i'd sleep with you anyway.

What i think you ought to do, is decide out how much you can spend per week without getting further in debt, put it on a spreadsheet, and put into that whatever you spend via debit/credit cards/cheques/getting out cash. That would take care of the spending-running-away bit. Also put in any direct debits & that stuff.

You also ought to look at places you can move lumps of debt to so that you have to pay as little interest on it as possible.

[adjectivegail]

what mhw and firewoman already said.

besides that, i just wanted to say that when i started to get into financial difficulties last year, i sat down and worked out how much money i needed for regular expenses per week (being as how i'm a university student, this came to £30 per week *grin*), and i'd take that amount out on the monday, and it'd have to last me until the next monday.
since i'd made a conscious decision not to use my card to pay for things, and not to take any more money out of the cash point during the week, i was extremely conscious of exactly where every penny went.

but. what other people said, too.