Struggling with debt? Ask a debt adviser a question

Ghjl · 9 January 2017 at 8:11PM

Hi I've just received some letters a couple of days ago about my council tax bill from last year. I missed replying to the letter to pay by installments last march due to me being in hospital I rung up and told them but they wouldn't have listen now the debt recovery company want over £100 a month which is way to expensive for me I tried offering £50 a month but they wouldn't accept it what should I do now

StepChange_Rachael · 10 January 2017 at 9:40AM

Hi Ellie

Thanks for posting and welcome to the forum.

I’m sorry to hear your struggling with debt and to balance your income and expenditure. I can tell you’ve been looking at lots of ways to try and manage your everyday living costs with budgeting but as you're still struggling I’d suggest getting some tailored debt advice.

There are many solutions available if you’re struggling to meet your household bills and minimum payments to the creditors. As this often leads to further borrowing or falling behind with household bills it’s important to look at all the options available to you.

As a debt advice charity we can help you explore your options and make recommendations based on your financial situation and the debts you have. To do this we'd need a good idea of your income, expenditure and debts.

Our advice is free and impartial and to get the ball rolling you can find our contact details here.

We hope to hear from you soon.

Take care
Rachael

Ellie271989 wrote: »

Hi.
So this is my first step into asking for help and advice.
A little about me. I'm 27 and was always good with money. I've been lucky and fallen into a good career that pays well and by 25 became a home owner. Then things went pear shaped.
The bills and mortgage pushed me to the limit and I coped. I budgeted and managed. Then I met my boyfriend. He was in serious debt trouble and had creditors after him due to pay day loans. Fast forward a few years and it got serious. He had CCJs debt collectors the whole scary lot. So I took out a personal loan to pay off his debts and reduce his payments. He was to pay me. This is a life lesson people. Don't do it. No matter how much you love them it's their battle. If only I could tell the old me this. I wouldn't be in this situation. So we took out the loan including two extra months of payment in case he missed any due to any reason. That in case money went quick. The reason being (something I never considered) he is paid weekly. So I was always owed money. He was always behind. I paid it on the 1st he would pay me 4 times over the month. My against the wire became over spending very quickly. I wasn't used to this. Then problems happened. Then my roof leaked. I had no more reserves for the fixing of this. So I took out a loan to pay for it. It needed to be done urgently. Since then I've been borrowing to cover the gap and it's spiralled. I have frozen my credit card (literally) and tried to stick to tight budgets but the reality is I don't have enough to cover the expenditure. I'm now in a situation where a week after payday my bills are paid and I have nothing left. Nothing for food nights out. Even getting the petrol money to get to work is stressful and hard work. The money isn't going far enough. There's just not enough money to survive on.
I've done budget after budget. SOA's and it's always negative. My credit rating is getting worse month after month. I'm always in the red by a week after payday but the bills are paid which is a plus I guess.
So I've been looking into consolidation loans to try and reduce the monthly payments. But at the same time I want something I can overpay on in order to get debt free. The snowball method won't work for me as I literally do t have the money to overpay on anything at the moment.
Any advice or suggestions would be amazing. I need a way out to get back on track and stop stressing every minute of every day.

StepChange_Rachael · 10 January 2017 at 10:01AM

Hi

Thanks for your post.

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been unwell. I hope you’re recovered now. I can see how it’d be frustrating for you that this has led to enforcement agents collecting for the council tax debt.

Enforcement agents can be difficult to work with but you can only pay what is affordable for you. It’s important that you’re able to keep on top of your regular bills and pay an amount that isn’t going to cause you to fall behind with your general living costs or rely on borrowing.

If you send a payment directly to the enforcement agents with your details on they have to take the payment for the debt, they can’t send it back. You can send a payment however it is possible to do so such as by phone, online, standing order or even postal recipe, as long as you keep a record of that payment.

The enforcement agents are usually more understanding and negotiable if they are receiving a regular monthly payment with a budget to show them what is affordable if this is less than they are requesting.

Making some payment also limits the further action they can take as it shows you're not ignoring the debt.

Enforcement agents do have further rights of collection but you also have rights. As I’m not sure if the enforcement agents have attended your property or not I’ll include this link which gives you more information on what enforcement agents can and can’t do through each stage of the enforcement process.

If you’d like help to build a budget you can use with the enforcement agents to show them what is affordabale and for help and advice regarding this and any other debts we'd be happy to help.

You can contact us and our contact details are here.

Thanks
Rachael

Ghjl wrote: »

Hi I've just received some letters a couple of days ago about my council tax bill from last year. I missed replying to the letter to pay by installments last march due to me being in hospital I rung up and told them but they wouldn't have listen now the debt recovery company want over £100 a month which is way to expensive for me I tried offering £50 a month but they wouldn't accept it what should I do now

Biffy70 · 16 January 2017 at 8:56PM

Hi. Everyone just joined
Really could do with some advice. I've accumulated 30k of debt due to online gambling. I've hit my limit.woken up and now want to dig my way out (Really I've had enough living like that )
At the moment I'm paying £355/ month over 2 loans(£7100&£9700)
£55 MIN PAYMENT on £5600 money transfer credit cards still got 40 months 0%
About £90 on credit card / month ,balance £3700.
And £99 / month on my overdraft which is almost max out at £5000.
So is it worth me applying for consolidation loan of about 25k which could save me £200 / month and save me from missing direct debits which I've never done before and I'm worried if that happens my credit rating will be damaged so bad I'll be left with no get out. I'm self employed and earn about 27 to 32k after tax but it's bad at this time of year depending on weather and I've only got 2 weeks to sought something before the bills go out.
Sorry if this is to long and much appreciated.

CIS · 16 January 2017 at 10:58PM

Biffy70 wrote: »

Hi. Everyone just joined
Really could do with some advice. I've accumulated 30k of debt due to online gambling. I've hit my limit.woken up and now want to dig my way out (Really I've had enough living like that )
At the moment I'm paying £355/ month over 2 loans(£7100&£9700)
£55 MIN PAYMENT on £5600 money transfer credit cards still got 40 months 0%
About £90 on credit card / month ,balance £3700.
And £99 / month on my overdraft which is almost max out at £5000.
So is it worth me applying for consolidation loan of about 25k which could save me £200 / month and save me from missing direct debits which I've never done before and I'm worried if that happens my credit rating will be damaged so bad I'll be left with no get out. I'm self employed and earn about 27 to 32k after tax but it's bad at this time of year depending on weather and I've only got 2 weeks to sought something before the bills go out.
Sorry if this is to long and much appreciated.

Are you managing to pay your council tax ?

Craig

marco_1 · 16 January 2017 at 11:37PM

Any advice out there i have about £6700 in debt between a loan and a credit card ,basically 5 years plus to clear the amount .I have a good job and pay more than the mininum monthly payment i have consolidated with a loan allready! but looking to do this again.? I want to have one payment for everything but also need a car so looking to include cash for this in the new loan if i get it .
Currently am paying 220 a month for both so looking to borrow to clear the card and loan but also finance a car looking to pay the same amount say over 5 years but lose the card and other loan .Omg you are thinking am i mad any advice appreciated the car cost can be small does not need to be a huge amount .My concerns are the fact i have consolidated before will this affect me also APR don,t wan,t to be paying back a fortune .Regards Mark.

Brad1991 · 17 January 2017 at 1:06PM

Well i've just received my letter of comfirmation from StepChange stating that i've made my final payment and my debts are finally cleared off after been on a DMP for 5 years !

I'm so thankful for all the work StepChange have done for me and i can finally feel free and not tied down !

Does anyone have a postal address i can send a thank you card to ?

StepChange_Kirsty · 17 January 2017 at 1:16PM

Hi Biffy,

Thank you for your post and welcome to the forum.

First of all, and if you haven’t already, I’d recommend speaking to an organisation who can help you with the gambling problems you’ve experienced. Gamcare is a charity who can provide you with free support and counselling for the prevention and treatment of problem gambling.

When it comes to the debts which have accrued, at StepChange Debt Charity we can definitely provide you with free and impartial help and advice.

I wouldn’t recommend taking out a consolidation loan as this will often leave people in a worse situation than when they started. An impact on your credit rating doesn’t mean there will be no way out. There are various debt solutions which we can look at with you to see which the best option for your individual circumstances is even if it does mean an impact on your credit rating.

The best way to get started is via our online Debt Remedy tool where you can complete details of your budget and we will give you advice which is tailored to your individual situation in the form of a personal action plan.

Debt Remedy usually only takes around 20 minutes to complete so it will give you plenty of time to consider your options before your payments are due in a couple of weeks.

I hope this is helpful.

Kind regards

Kirsty

Biffy70 wrote: »

Hi. Everyone just joined
Really could do with some advice. I've accumulated 30k of debt due to online gambling. I've hit my limit.woken up and now want to dig my way out (Really I've had enough living like that )
At the moment I'm paying £355/ month over 2 loans(£7100&£9700)
£55 MIN PAYMENT on £5600 money transfer credit cards still got 40 months 0%
About £90 on credit card / month ,balance £3700.
And £99 / month on my overdraft which is almost max out at £5000.
So is it worth me applying for consolidation loan of about 25k which could save me £200 / month and save me from missing direct debits which I've never done before and I'm worried if that happens my credit rating will be damaged so bad I'll be left with no get out. I'm self employed and earn about 27 to 32k after tax but it's bad at this time of year depending on weather and I've only got 2 weeks to sought something before the bills go out.
Sorry if this is to long and much appreciated.

MrsTinks · 17 January 2017 at 1:30PM

Brad1991 wrote: »

Well i've just received my letter of comfirmation from StepChange stating that i've made my final payment and my debts are finally cleared off after been on a DMP for 5 years !

I'm so thankful for all the work StepChange have done for me and i can finally feel free and not tied down !

Does anyone have a postal address i can send a thank you card to ?

Make sure you join the Debt Free Roll of honour post

StepChange_Kirsty · 17 January 2017 at 1:45PM

Hi Mark,

Thank you for your post.

As I mentioned in my reply to Biffy above, I wouldn’t recommend taking out a consolidation loan because in my experience as a debt advisor, they usually don’t work and people often end up in a worse position than they started.

The fact that you’ve tried to consolidate before confirms this to me as consolidating hasn’t seemed to work for you once already. As you’ll be borrowing more money in order to buy a car as well as paying the debts, this will put you in a worse position than you started as your debt level will have already increased.

The other point you mentioned is the APR. Often the interest rates on loans that people use to consolidate will be quite high. You’ve hit the nail on the head there as you could end up paying back a fortune through interest.

An alternative way of looking at this is to see if it’s possible to put a little money aside each month to pay for a small run around car whilst also looking at ways of dealing with the existing credit card and loan. At StepChange, we can provide you with free help and advice for dealing with your debts.

As well as our online Debt Remedy tool, we also have a Helpline team who can help you to put a budget together over the phone and will then get you through to one of our specialist debt advisors who will talk you through the options for dealing with your debts. You can find our contact details here.

We hope to hear from you soon.

All the best,

Kirsty

marco_1 wrote: »

Any advice out there i have about £6700 in debt between a loan and a credit card ,basically 5 years plus to clear the amount .I have a good job and pay more than the mininum monthly payment i have consolidated with a loan allready! but looking to do this again.? I want to have one payment for everything but also need a car so looking to include cash for this in the new loan if i get it .
Currently am paying 220 a month for both so looking to borrow to clear the card and loan but also finance a car looking to pay the same amount say over 5 years but lose the card and other loan .Omg you are thinking am i mad any advice appreciated the car cost can be small does not need to be a huge amount .My concerns are the fact i have consolidated before will this affect me also APR don,t wan,t to be paying back a fortune .Regards Mark.

Struggling with debt? Ask a debt adviser a question

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