Help - Bankruptcy or not ?

bangers7

Hi, I need desperate help !! I have mounting debts and spend more than i earn every month due to the financial state ive got myself into, its completely my fault and i accept that, i beat myself up about it regularly but now comes the time to stop doing it !! It is down to personal reasons which i dont want to discuss here, but need help with what options to possibly take, thanks for any advice offered. I tried to sell my house as i now work 260miles away from it but no-one bought it and after 10mths on the market i had no option but to rent it out otherwise it would have been reposessed, it doesnt cover the mortgage but hey least i still have it. If i could sell it then i would be ok but i cant make someone buy it and i dropped the price by £30000 and still no luck, dropping it further would just leave me in debt still by to much !
Right here goes, a list of all my monthly debts:
375 rent on flat
375 covering the mortgage on the house i own after rent from tenants
70 council tax
20 electricity
366 bank loan (owe 25000)
100 child maintenance
180 credit card (owe 9000)
7 credit card (owe 400)
20 credit card (owe 1000)
30 water rates
20 house insurance
70 car costs (not incl fuel)
200 (fuel - cant cut costs as travel to see my son and not cutting back on that)
35 telephone/broadband
150 food
35 sky tv (i know someone will say get rid of that but bear in mind that my social life is completely non existent as i cant afford to go out so i stay in every night watching tv, therefor 35 a month is better than going out socialising)
50 money spent onmy son every month just taking him out, food etc ...
Total = £2103

My takehome income = £1800
I have no money to go out with so sgtay in every day apart from when i see my son, not much of a life and i'm stuck as to what to do, considering bankruptcy as i cannot see a way out but dont want to do that lightly as its not an ideal solution, i gotmyself into this mess and i want to try and get out of it, please help !!

crossleydd42

Don't panic but don't be complacent, either. The only way you can get out of this is to increase your income (part-time job) and decrease your expenditure. Be ruthless and decide what is ESSENTIAL and what is INESSENTIAL or, in your situation, LUXURY. Do you smoke, drink? Cut it out. Don't say that Sky is your only poeasure - if you can't afford it, then the five terrestrial channels will have to do for the moment. Oh, and I see no mention of your TV licence - do you have one?
bankruptcy is NOT the way out. You will lose contorl of enerything and lose your house. Loans are no the way out, either. Look at the adice sheet here:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/n6w/d_basic_debt_advice.pdf

Use Martyn's 'budget planner' at the top of this page and read his useful advice. When you've done this, go to the local Citizen's Advice Bureau where trained debt advisors' can help you. Goof luck.

Entrepreneur_en_faillite

crossleydd42 wrote:

bankruptcy is NOT the way out. You will lose contorl of enerything and lose your house. Loans are no the way out, either. Look at the adice sheet here:
.

Very sound advice! One other port of call is the Consumer Credit Counselling Service on 0800 138 1111.

They can advise you fully on whether bancruptcy is an option, possibly an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) may suit you better.

One other thing; is your mortgage repayment, if it is, temporarily swith it onto interest only, although you will not be repaying any capital each month at least the payment may be more comfortable. Another option is to call your mortgage lender and ask for a short payment break, say six months, to give you time to sort out your finances.

If you still think bankruptcy is a good idea, read this, it will scare the willies out of you...

http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/bankruptcy/whatisbankruptcy.htm

Keep an eye on these borads as there are many others in a similar position (like me - see my thread bankruptcy woes and pro's)

And above all

KEEP SMILING and don't let the b*gg*rs grind you down.

southernscouser

Hi bangers. Well done for confronting your problems. You definately are not alone.

Have a read of this thread as we need a bit more info regarding your debts.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=107280

Have you considered getting a part time job? A couple of evenings a week maybe!

Also, what is your credit record like? Are you up to date with all your payments? Have you missed many/any recently? Any defaults? You maybe able to reshuffle your debts sop you pay less interest!

Entrepreneur_en_faillite

One other thing to bear in mind - If you can reshuffle your debts as sothern scouser suggests (very sound advice that is too - why pay more than you need to?) by transferring onto interest free cards for example - make sure that you write to the credit card company where you are transfering from and cancel the card. Don;t do what I did - I transferred balances around time after time but never cancelled the original cards, I simply just ran up the debt again. Eventully I ran out of cards to get! (pretty stoopid huh! - Doh!), and I wouldn't wish my experineces onto my worst enemy!

Bossyboots

£150 per month is half what I feed a family of four on. Look for cutbacks there.

Entrepreneur_en_faillite

Bossyboots wrote:

£150 per month is half what I feed a family of four on. Look for cutbacks there.

How do you manage that, in our family we have two adults, one child of 13 and my granddaugther (aged 3) who stays for four days a week, and we can't get the weekly shop down below £80 (including household bits and bobs)

Blimey - I'm impressed :T

bangers7

Thanks so far for all the advice,esp entrepreneur and southernscouser ! I have already got the mortgage on interest only and the credit cards are 0%, trying so hard not to go bankrupt but spending £300 more than i earn and cant see it getting better !! So far no missed payments on any debts somehow !! keep the advice coming, its much appreciated !

Entrepreneur_en_faillite

One more idea, as your credit rating is good, try a consiolidation loan for the credit cards. Not only will the monthly payment most likely be less than the minimum payment on the cards, but the debt will reduce quicker as the interest rate will be lower than the normal rate on the card. Of course if you do that now you will be losing the 0% transfer rate, but hey, these rates are usually only for 6 months and at least your monthly outgoings will go down!

Sometimes its difficult to balance the scales.

asharon

I'd have thought a consolidation would be the best but also some costs have to be cut. Why not have sky but loose the movies and sport and go for a basic package for £15 a month. Or even phone them threaten to cancel and ge a reduction for a few months and then do it again later. If you get someone who says ok they will cancel with no offers you can always call back as you have one month and say you changed your mind.

good luck with all this. I hope you sell the house soon as that looks like it would be a good solution with the outgoings.

hobo28

Hiya. Do you have a spare room in the flat you could rent out?

Could you drop a package with Sky? Perhaps just the basic set of channels?