1st step taken I hope......

pottsy_79

WeeklyMonthlyYearlyMonthly Total
Income From Employment / Self Employment£1,290.00£
Benefits (Including Child Benefit, Child Tax Credits & Income Support)£605.00
TOTAL£1,895.00

Mortgage/Rent: £465.00
Buildings & Contents Insurance:£25.00
Overdraft Cost: £40.00
Council Tax:£130.00
Water Rates/Meter: £35.00
Gas £30.00
Electricity £40.00
Cleaning Products/Cleaner-£5.00
Home Phone £20.00
Internet £25.00
TV Licence £12.00
Mobile Phone £50.00 (This is for 2 mobile phones with contracts up to the end of Dec)
HOME TOTAL£877.00

Pet £5.00
INSURANCE TOTAL£5.00£5.00

Food and Household Shopping £250.00
Eating Out £10.00
Meals at work £10.00
EATS TOTAL£270.00

Rail/Bus/Coach/Taxi £10.00
Car Maintenance £20.00
Car Insurance £35.00
Car Tax £15.00
Petrol/Diesel £80.00
TRANSPORT TOTAL£160.00

Car Loan Repayments £100.00
Personal Loan Repayments £528.00 - one of these is a payday loan type thing which is nearly paid off
REPAYMENTS TOTAL£578.00£628.00

Childcare/Play Schemes £6.00
Nappies/Baby Extras £15.00
School Meals £5.00
Pet Food £7.00Other
FAMILY TOTAL£33.00

Satellite/Digital TV Subscription £45.00Other
FUN & FROLICS TOTAL £45.00

Dentistry £5.00
Haircuts £5.00
HEALTH & BEAUTY TOTAL £10.00

New Clothes£5.00
New Children's Clothes £5.00
TOTAL CLOTHES £10.00

Christmas £12.50
Summer Holiday £29.17
Birthdays £5.83
BIG ONE OFF TOTAL£570.00£47.50

Newspapers & Magazines £5.00
ODDS & SODS TOTAL £5.00

Total income £1,895.00
Total spend £2,040.50

Hi all,

I am new to the DFW part of MSE, but I think Martin is fantastic at what he does and every thread I have read on this forum section gets such great advice and help.

A brief background of my story.

I split from my ex a few years back, had no debts, but had a daughter in tow. I then bought a house and took out 2 loans to help pay off family loans and do up the house. I then met someone else, got married and we moved again, to a cheaper house, but not paying off the loans, just putting down a large deposit. My husband then lost his job of 2 years as a civil servent and he got very depressed as he loved the job and he couldn't understand why they had made him redundant. It took him a long time to find another job, by which point I was 7 months pregnant. The new employers were quite funny about him needing time off etc, and eventually, after my baby boy was 3 months old and I was on maternity leave, he got made redundant. During this time we took out a consolidation loan to get outselves straight, which we did, but then I had to go back to work full time and my husband stayed at home with our son and my little girl, who by this time had started school (anyone bored yet!).

Anyway, once I had gone back to work we soon worked out we couldn't pay everything we needed to. The figures above are everything we pay - the deficit usually means we don't pay the council tax - and yes, i know we are going to get heavily fined and possibly imprisoned for it. I have taken on extra jobs at work, which help to pay little things off but can't guarantee any extra income. My husband got a temporary job for about 2 months in April this year which also helped us pay off bits and pieces and then started with chronic headaches and has been off until now.

I have today started my plan of action as I have had enough of feeling like !!!! and knowing that people are demanding money off us. We havne't paid any catalogues or credit cards for about 3 months (which aren't listed above). I have today filled in the online form with CCCS and am going online on Monday to discuss it with them. I have also sent all creditors that are demanding money from us a standard letter I found on the net stating that we are getting advice about our debts and please give us 28 days to get back to them and please don't add any charges etc etc.

My husband is back to finding a job and has sent off a couple of applications and has registered with the agency that found him both of his last jobs - it isn't his fault that one made him redundant and he became ill whilst working for the second, they are quite hopeful that they should be able to find him something, but it all takes time.

Sorry to vent, it is just good to know that there are people out there that are happy to read/listen and give advice. I does look a lot scarier in black and white, rather than stuffing all the letters in a draw, which we had done up until this evening when I got them all out and wrote to all the companies.

(I couldn't find the correct form sorry, so I made this one up.)

~Beanie~

You MUST pay your council tax. Along with a mortgage / rent, this is a priority debt because as you are aware, you can get sent to prison for non payment! You would be better of getting into arrears with one of your loans.

You don't have the credit cards or catalogues included in the above, can you add these - include the amount outstanding, the minimum repayments and the interest rates if possible.

You could begin by stopping eating meals at work, take sandwiches. Stop the savings for the summer holiday for the time being, cancel the satellite TV and get freeview. You also need to try and increase your income. Have you got anything you can car boot / sell on Ebay? Can hubby register as a Mystery Shopper and earn a little that way?

pottsy_79

Thank you for replying

I know I need to pay the council tax, we have actually officially only missed 1 month, but once it is missed it is very hard to catch back up.

I don't know the APR's for anything, but I can certainly list companies and amounts as I still have all the letters they have sent in the last month next to me!

I have never missed a mortgage payment, in my head that is the most important thing as my children need a roof over their heads.

Anyway here goes:

Littlewood £1130.71
Grolier £17.79 £46.27 £21.78
Naturally Close £673.91 £20p.m payment plan set up
Barclaycard £488.62
Studio £397.63
Mint Card (RBS) £1578.82
Shapely Figures £414.81 £10p.m payment plan set up
Vodafone from previous contract £67.02
La Redoute £168.52 min payment £30
Great Universal £389.33
Vodafone (from DH previous contract) £139.85
Premier Man £710.05
Vertbaudet £250
Barclays student overdraft £3150

It has got to the stage where the letters don't ask for minimum payments, just the whole lot or court action.

As for sky, we haven't had it long so we wouldn't be able to stop it, but can of course reduce the package about now, we got a special offer for 3 months and got the installation and box free or something if we had movies and sports. We are planning on reducing the internet cost as well as it is currently with Virgin and they are ripping us off and every month when I ring to complain they just say tough!

We have looked in to Mystery Shopping, and have looked at the threads on MSE, but never seem to get accepted. Don't know whether it is because my DH doesn't drive. We do competitions and stuff as well, and so far my DH has made about £20 from pinecone.

We have sold everything that is sellable on ebay (baby stuff etc), given away stuff on freecycle, but never seem to be able to get anything from freecycle as it always seems to go quickly.

urg123

Dear Pottsy,

Thank you for sharing. It must have been difficult for you to do.

I am fairly new to posting on this site but I just wanted to say well done for getting this process started. There are so many wonderful people here who will help you along this way.

I have a couple of ideas and suggestions for you.

Firstly - your water bill looks quite high? Are you on a meter? Can you look into ways to save on this (i.e. a hippo in the toilet), timed showers?

Secondly, think about joining a couple of the challenges they set on this site: No Spend Days and the Grocery challenge are two that I have joined. The old-style board is really helpful and there are lots of ideas for saving money and making healthy meals cheaply.

I hope the meeting with CCCS goes well on Monday. Everything I have seen about them is brilliant.

Keep posting and sharing.

URG x

pottsy_79

Hi Urg,

Thanks for replying.

We aren't on a water meter. The £36 is 10 monthly payments, rather than 12, so don't know whether that makes it sound less. I personally didn't think it was that high as everywhere I have lived over the last few years have been round about that much.

I will have a look at the challenges, thanks for suggesting it. We have started going to the supermarket with meal plans so as not to buy anything unnecessary.

pottsy_79

Morning all,

I have been thinking about the figures I had submitted above and have changed a couple- one is I have added £50 per month to my personal loans as I have one of those payday type loans where they come to your house every month and you pay the nice man who then offers you more money after a couple of months and you think 'what the hell'. I think I have nearly paid off the latest one and am certainly not going to be taken any more money.

The second is I have added my dh overdraft to the extra bits that we haven't paid anything to. Barclays don't seem to have requested the money back yet even though he hasn't paid anything in it for months and they just keep adding interest on.

pottsy_79

:cool: I have had my chat with CCCS who have agreed that a low-payment DMP would be best for us. They were very helpful and said that I am best including my overdraft as well (£500) to the creditors list and then getting a basic bank account.

My question is, am I best getting a joint account with my husband (as he obviously needs to close his bank account because of the £3k overdraft) and wouldn't it be sensible to do it this way so that we can see exactly what we have coming in and out and keep better control over things?

pottsy_79

All the paperwork came from CCCS yesterday so our job this weekend is to get it all copied and sent off to our creditors. I have a loan that I haven't missed payments on but is being included, so I need to find the paperwork for it.

Have also opened an account. Went in to Lloyds for a basic bank account but appears that at the moment my credit isn't too bad so I got there Silver bank account with 'benefits' which are free for the first 3 months. If I decide after this I can't afford to make the £7 p.m payment then I can cancel the benefits, but it includes breakdown cover and travel insurance, so will have to have a think about it.

mummytofour

Wow sounds like your moving in the correct direction.

Good luck

nicnacnoo

well done you for tackling your debt, it all seems to be coming along smoothly, so far so good, good luck.

pottsy_79

Thanks mummytofour, hopefully we are.

I have just read on another thread the advice of getting phone numbers changed in these situations. We are currently with Virgin Media who are ripping us off, and have managed to persuade Sky to refund is the BT installation fee, which is actually only £30 at the moment, so we are getting a new BT line and new phone number on Thursday, so no more putting the phone on silent to ignore the calls!