In a real mess :(

Stressed_Mess

Hiya,

I'm new to the board and just want to try and get my problems off my chest, so here goes:
I have an overdraft of £4000 which I have recently gone over (dreading the bank charge!!),and unsecured debts of over £20000 (2 loans and 4 cards). I'm a homeowner paying a mortgage with no equity in my household. I'm stuggling to pay off my monthly payments and support my wife (We got married in march) and don't know where or who to turn to. A lot of friends have recommended this board to me so I thought I'd give it a go. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Sorry if I haven't given very much info at the moment. I'm really ashamed of my problems and I struggle to open up to people about it.

Thanks,
Stressed Mess.

Lorne

Hi there,

welcome to the boards, you have definitely come to the right place for advice and support. First step is to do a statement of account, incomings and outgoings - like for an online version is at the top of this board. Post it on here and you'll get lots of advice about how to cut costs. It is how I started out, don't be ashamed we are all in the same boat and will give you all the support that we can.

Take care, Lorna

Ex-Spendaholic

Ok well first and foremost welcome to the boards. You have come to the right place and you have taken your first step to sorting out your finances.

Secondly you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. Debt is not a crime, it is not illegal - it is a problem and for problems there are solutions. Sorry that is not my line but I read it on here last night and I think it is brilliant.

Can you post up a Statement of Affairs of your income, expenditure, debts etc. People can then look at it for you and give advice.

poorandindenial

Hi there

First things first, welcome to the board and well done for posting. It feels pretty crap when you first start talking about it but after a while you will get used to it. Oh and no-one on here will judge you for the debt you have (unless you get unlucky and get a troll but they get pretty short shrift on here anyway), you will just get people that genuinely want to help you.

The easiest way for us to give you advice is for you to post a SOA (statement of affairs) there is a handy tool to help you put this together at www.makesenseofcards.com. If you can post this on here it then lots of people will try to help you to find ways to meet your repayments or alternative solutions to your debts if things are not so straight forward.

Doing this ^^^ can be a bit scary, laying your finances bare and then having a load of strangers pick over them, but don't worry, you are as anonymous as you want to be on here.

You can see from my signature that I have quite a bit of debt and there are people on here with a wide range but the thing we have in common is that we are trying to repay it.

Let us have a bit more info and we will see what we can do to help. There is ALWAYS a solution, it might not be easy but it is there are lots of people here willing to share their experiences to make it all a bit less like walking into the unknown.

All the best to you in your bid to regain control of your finances

Merlot

Stressed_Mess wrote: »

Hiya,

I'm new to the board and just want to try and get my problems off my chest, so here goes:
I have an overdraft of £4000 which I have recently gone over (dreading the bank charge!!),and unsecured debts of over £20000 (2 loans and 4 cards). I'm a homeowner paying a mortgage with no equity in my household. I'm stuggling to pay off my monthly payments and support my wife (We got married in march) and don't know where or who to turn to. A lot of friends have recommended this board to me so I thought I'd give it a go. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Sorry if I haven't given very much info at the moment. I'm really ashamed of my problems and I struggle to open up to people about it.

Thanks,
Stressed Mess.

Hi and welcome to the board.

In order for us to help you further, if you could post an SOA (incomings and outgoings) we will see if we can reduce your outgoings for you.

Is your mortgage interest only, or repayment? If repayment, you could ask the lender to put it onto interest only for a while, this will help out.

How is your credit rating? I ask purely for the reason, if you can balance transfer any of the high APR debts onto 0% or low apr cards. DO NOT CONSOLIDATE WITH A LOAN, IT RARELY WORKS.

As far the bank charges, take a look at Martins advice on reclaiming them, (they are on hold at the moment due to the test case, but as Martin says it is best to submit the claim now, you can reclaim upto 6 years in England).

Do you have PPI (payment protection insurance) on any of your loans, if so, consider reclaiming this too, usually this type of insurance isn't worth the paper it is written on, take a look at Martins advice again on this, under the reclaim 1000's red tab at the top.

Merlot.x.

RichOneday_2

And once more, welcome!

£24k of unsecured debt is nothing unusual and you probably won't be feeling guilty about pretty soon it after we've had a good thrash about with your SOA.

It's difficult to get started without the SOA, but first thoughts are you have no assets so you probably have only one concern - keeping a roof over your head (or getting another one).

Anyway, will have another look in when the SOA arrives.

rluc

Hiya,
I am pretty new to the board to just wanted to say £24K is where I am at now and still going down hopefully. The people seem great on here and noone judges!!
Good luck with it all!!!!!!!!!

smashedbooboo

Hi rlucm welcome. Yes the peeps are all really lovely. And no we do not judge. We are all here because we have ended up in a mess for one reason or another. But we all support each other. And long may it continue
Boo xxxxxxxxxxxx

RichOneday_2

Awwww, its all so cuddly tonight around here!

smashedbooboo

:kisses: :kisses: :kisses: :kisses: :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: Like how huggie can we be. This is for everyone in need of a hug tonight. Plenty more where that came from xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

smashedbooboo

And dont forget stressed, do you have any late or over limit charges on any credit cards that can be reclaimed. Its only the bank charges that are on hold. Credit card charge reclaim is business as usual xxxxxxxxxxxx