Partner earning less than 8k but has debts of 18k - please help.
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pathtofreedom wrote: »Depending how far into his course he is, and his general IT knowledge, can he not look for IT jobs like helpdesk, noc/ops or something, to increase his salary and will help improve his experience. As even if he completes the degree it won't mean he's guaranteed to walk into a job at the end.
He is one week into his course and has limited general IT knowledge [hence the need for him to do the degree to obtain the knowledge needed for working in this field]. What you have mentioned is actually something he was thinking of doing once he is a couple of years into his course....to contact some companies and see if he could do a few hours a week voluntary work or something to gain experience as many IT jobs ask for this. Its all very well having the degree but if he has no experience hes !!!!!!ed! He knows he is not guaranteed a job out of all of this but its make or break.....his dismissal from his Personal Training job earlier last year prompted him to rethink his career path.0 -
matchboxfull wrote: »1) You are really on the ball with all those dates and figures so well done for that.
2) I'm no expert, but if you can find a work around for the credit card/fuel for work issue I think the DMP is worth looking at again. Monthly payments would probably be lower than now, meaning fuel costs wouldn't make it so tight??
The DMP we were "this far away" from applying for, its only because OH needs his car to carry out all of his jobs that we thought having no access to credit could pose quite dangerous. i.,e if something happens to car and he doesnt have enough savings to cover repairs, he wouldnt be able to get to work. Now we have established that whilst on a DMP you cant have any credit cards, it has changed our mind about pursuing it.0 -
Why on earth would he say no to 45 hours of work per week if he's 18k in debt? Couldn't he do his OU degree at a slower pace or just suck it up and work + study at the same time? I just don't see how he can justify it unless he hasn't had his LBM yet?
He was working as a Sales man for a self storage company where the store was required to hit daily and monthly targets as individuals and as a team. OH had never worked in a sales position in his life. At the time he got the job, he was applying for everything going including both part and full time work. It just so happens that he was offered this job...he stuck it out for 3 weeks and didnt make one sale in this time. His manager was on his back constantly, and it was only just above min wage. He was worried that he may of been dismissed again for lack of competence. So we both made a mutual decision that he should leave and get his old job back as a cleaner. He worked a weeks notice then started cleaning again the following week, He was not going to give the FT job up without having some work to go back to. His shifts were also all over the place, working days, evenings, weekends. which would of made it difficult to plan proper study times. If he was in at 8am working till 5 he was having to leave house at 7am and then not getting in till 6pm, by time he got showered, ate dinner etc he was absoultely shattered and thinking about the following day. It was no life at all. He has also never worked full time in his life so yes I think it was a shock to the system but I also think that trying to adjust to full time working of 45 hours a week PLUS fitting in 16-18 hrs of study a week would of been too much and would of been setting himself up for potential failure.0 -
Debtslayer wrote: »Okay; currently he has a smallish shortfall to make up; which could be made up if he follows the suggestions I have made above.
I know he his studying at the moment to better himself; but while he has so much debt I agree with Petal that he is in no position to turn down any work while he has these debts. He needs to fit studying around working; he needs to bring in money to pay off the debts; the quicker he can pay them off the better. Then he can start contributing to your living expenses
He could turn this around and get the debts paid off; it is not easy but it is doable.
Also what is the credit limit on the Barclaycard? When the other cards 0% ends in June it may be possible to move some / all of the outstanding debt to the Barclaycard if there is enough credit limit available (Barclaycard normally make offers to existing customers to do balance transfers)
thank you for analysing the SOA.
- The SIM only deal is not the lowest he could get, but one that matches his current usage of texts, data etc. May i ask what you get for £7.50 a month and where from?
- Car insurance - we already shop around at every renewal and use Topcashback when we do so.
- Car maintenance figure is so high as OH uses car for all of his jobs so this figure obviously includes MOT, one service a year e,g, £150 approx leaving around £450 spare for repairs. Tyres are not cheap nor are brake pads and discs as OH had to have 2 new tyres and 2 new brake discs in the last 2 months. This is why we save so much every month towards this incase he is caught short. If we did not he would be using his credit card to pay for repairs and so the cycle would begin again!!
- Dentist subscription - OH has had a lot of dental work done which was done by a very bad NHS dentist who messed his mouth up so I recommended the one he is currently with as I am with them. He has had no problems since joining them 3 years ago so we are not prepared to shift this as he needs his teeth to last him another 50 years!!
- Presents - yes fully agree that this should go, in fact he has had to skip some family members last xmas as he didnt have funds.
- Bank acc fee - this includes a whole lot more than just break down cover, it includes mobile insurance, travel insurance, stolen bank card cover etc. We looked into purchasing breakdown cover separately before and the level of cover that we would need to buy to match the one provided by Lloyds was a lot more than £30. It was more along the line of £100+ (as bank account covers all sorts of things, relay, home start etc etc).
The limit on the Barclaycard is about £8200 [which is far too much]. I know what u mean about doing this as he is always sent stuff through the post advertising new offers. When we logged into his account last week they were only offering him one BT deal until August 2016, which would only give him another 3 months grace before we would be in the same situation again. Perhaps nearer June we could look again. TY for this suggestion though, it was one we had already thought of doing.0 -
Debtslayer wrote: »Also as your partner has spent 7 years working as a personal trainer would he not be able to advertise as a personal trainer? I would say if he could get a couple of regular clients a week that would earn him some much needed extra cash
Thank you for this suggestion. OH has already tried going self employed as a personal trainer shortly after he lost his job last year. He spent a fortune of buying his own equipment and on leaflets and business cards and did get one client in the 2 months he tried it for. It was at this point that he decided that he needed a "real" job instead of working for himself because at the time he was helping me pay rent in the last place we lived at [as rent was more here].0 -
I see no reason not to work full time and do an OU degree, my DD has returned to uni full time, she has a 2 year to look after plus a home and a partner, it can be done
Yes i agree that some people work full time and do an OU degree around this. I am also aware that this is primarily why OU was invented. It just so happens that the OH accepted a full time job AFTER applying and being accepted on the degree that WOULD NOT have fitted in with OU study. His week would of consisted of 49 hours work [as he was planning on keeping his Fri night delivery job to pay off the debts for information], 10 hours + a week of travelling plus 16-18 hrs of study.....in total a 77 HOUR WEEK of work and study. Enough to drive anyone over the edge let alone make them wants to sit down and learn computer code at god knows what time of the night after working all week!!0 -
this isnt very helpful i know... but i obtained a law degree whilst working full time with two children under 5. sounds like his priorities arent in line imho?
we are all different and whilst this may have worked out for you OH had never worked full time before so didnt want to set himself up to fail degree and risk poss of getting sacked from full time job all at once...0 -
You've just rejected every suggestion and justified the mess you and your partner are in. What did you expect people to say? There's no magic wand available unfortunately.
Your partner needs to earn more and spend less. Doing a degree with no promise of a better career at the end of it, is not the only option. It might be your partner's preferred option, but his debts and high cost of living mean that he will have to compromise on this ideal. I can understand why he struggled with the sales job, but then to chuck in the sensible alternative cleaning job because it was too much hard work, I can't see why this is ok at all.
My Oh has a £7.50 sim only phone deal, it includes 100 minutes, 100 texts and some data with EE. Again this might not be your OH's ideal but it is all he can afford until he pays off his debts and gets a better paid job.
There are some good NHS dentists out there, have a look for one in your local area by clicking on this link, you never know you might be lucky and find one that suits you both and you could save £36 a month. There is also information on the link below about claiming for help with dental costs. We all want our teeth to last a lifetime BTW but most of us don't expect to be able to get other people to subsidise our lifestyle choice to have private dental care.
http://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/dentists/Pages/find-an-NHS-dentist.aspx0 -
pathtofreedom wrote: »You don't need to have much experience to get jobs in 1st line help desk / operation's roles you see that's why I suggested those. Some of the hours can be shift work but this can pay better money. If he wants to work in IT he'd need to get used to working weird hours anyway really.
If he knows the basics and can use a computer, knows what an ip is say and could troubleshoot his own wifi at home if it broke, or add a new laptop to his home network that would probably be enough. The fact he can say he's doing the degree at the same time would show he's serious about learning.
I did the degree first, and even with work experience I ended up doing help desk and working my way up. The degree helped me work up faster, but the sooner he can start getting real life experience the better it will be for him. As even if he doesn't finish the degree in the end, nothing beats experience in IT.
If he doesn't have one already it is worth getting a raspberry pi as well to play with. Also look at courses on coursera.org and edx as they are degree level course, but just not officially counting to a qualification. This would again show willing as you have to be good at learning by yourself and outside of work, as very few places do official training courses, you're just expected to learn new skills in your own time.
I guess it also depends where you are in the country as to if you're in a location with a lot of outsourcing companies, they will be the best places to get in on the ground floor really and learn the extra skills he'd need like ITIL etc.
Some companies though like hsbc do apprenticeships in IT so it might be worth looking into them rather than or as well as the degree. http://www.notgoingtouni.co.uk/apprenticeships-223/filter/sectorFilter/it-16
Hi thank you for this post, a lot of useful info on here which we will have a look at. We have already taken your advice on board and started looking at entry level IT jobs. We have emailed one company currently advertising a position like this for further advice about what sort of person they are looking for. As OH has only been doing degree for one week, they may turn round and say he needs to study longer/gain more experience before applying for something like this. But I guess if u dont ask, you dont get.
We will definitely look into this raspberry PI you mentioned and OH has already discovered edx before whilst browsing for self taught computer related stuff. We are based in South Wales, do you know of any outsourcing companies that may be willing to take him on now?
We have also considered apprenticeships before, when he lost job last year but we were worried about him being out of work once the apprenticeship ended and obviously this is not an option with someone with so much debt.0 -
I have to agree with CTE he is living in Cloud Cuckoo Land, and why should he bother to change when you are supporting him. What jumped out at me was you saying he has never worked full time, why on earth not?If you go down to the woods today you better not go alone.0
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