What would work for me?

crapwithcash82

Hi All, I'm after some advice on what to do about my debts!! As you will see on my signature I currently owe around £16k - maybe not a huge debt compared to some people on this site, but its big enough to be bothering me. I've had a look at the live on £4000 a year but I'm not sure that it would work for me, my rough statement of affairs is as follows:

Monthly Salary: £1350

Outgoings:
£200 - to my partner for a "tiny" share of our mortgage and bills
£200 - to my parents (they bought my car for me and I pay them back)
£200 - to my sister as she babysits for me while me and my OH are at work
£308 - to my debt management plan
£95 - for tuition fees
£30 - Car insurance
£50 - diesel (this is approx)
£100 - contribution to food over the month

So as you can see I don't really have much spare!! I am currently working full time and attend University at night to complete my degree in the hope that I get a good pay rise next year - this years one was pathetic 0.8% I think it was.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I could chip away at the debts any quicker? I'm using quidco and sell now and again on ebay when I have clear outs at home, but with homework etc getting more intense I don't have bags of time - especially as I try to spend as much time as possible with my 16 month old daughter when I'm at home.

I'd love to get married as we're currently living in sin but don't really want to with this hanging over my head!!

Any suggestions would be greatfully received!

10past6

Would your sister & parents be wiling to take a 50% reduction until your DMP is paid off, this will give you an extra £200.00 per month towards your debts.

Out of curiosity, who is your DMP with?

crapwithcash82

Hmmm, the DMP isn't actually going to be paid until around 2012 so I don't think they'd be too keen, plus they don't actually know the extent of my debts, I think they'd be gutted I've been so stupid. My sister is a 19 year old student so kinda relies on the poor wages we pay her!

My DMP is through a company that isn't too popluar on this site - I started it before I found this site and have been totally slated here for using them! I'll send you a PM with the name, just so that I don't upset any of the mods on here... I don't want to get kicked off, I kinda like it on here!! :P

10past6

crapwithcash82 wrote: »

My DMP is through a company that isn't too popluar on this site

There are many DCA / DMP companies that are slated on here, I wouldn't worry to much about the one your connected to.

Oh btw, I doubt very much you'd upset the mods, chances are you've upset some members with your choice of who to arrange your DMP through.

LilacPixie

CWC82

My advice would be switch you dmp to one of the free charities if possible. Have a look in 10past6's siggy.

My reasoning for this is fee paying debt managment companies often charge up to 20% of your monthly payment which in your case would be £61.60 a month. If you multiply that by 48 payments which would take us into late 2012 you will be paying this company just under 3k. 3k would go a long way to clearing your debt earlier.

Karmacat

Hello CWC

I can't help with the dmp advice, I'm afraid, but I'd take seriously the advice to look at switching to a charity-sponsored one - it doesn't make sense to pay charges if you can avoid it.

The thing that most people do first is cut down their outgoings - as you say, yours are more or less rounded payments set in stone. So, just off the top of my head:
- when items come up for renewal - insurance, whatever, use uswitch etc and quidco.
- stop spending on *anything* you don't have to! Budget a treat a month or something,
- use quidco for anything you can - e.g. I got three Xmas pressie books at M&S for two thirds off, and used quidco to do it - 75p! But thats lots of clicks per day! And clicks per day, etc, add up.
- survey sites will (eventually) hand you Amazon vouchers/paypal vouchers etc - either for your own use or for Xmas pressies.
- do you cook or buy takeaways/chilled meals? Groceries can be brought down amazingly in price.
- its tough about the levels of time you can allocate to debt busting. Mystery shopping is fair - and some of them are phone calls, which you could do from home. But there's no way round it, anything takes time, even matched betting.
- check out the Up Your Income board, and Martin's article Boost Your Income.

Good luck, and keep posting!

crapwithcash82

LilacPixie wrote: »

CWC82

My advice would be switch you dmp to one of the free charities if possible. Have a look in 10past6's siggy.

My reasoning for this is fee paying debt managment companies often charge up to 20% of your monthly payment which in your case would be £61.60 a month. If you multiply that by 48 payments which would take us into late 2012 you will be paying this company just under 3k. 3k would go a long way to clearing your debt earlier.

Hi LilacPixie, thanks for you post, I didn't realise they could take a percentage of your monthly payment. I get a statement in each month with the amounts they pay to my creditors and it totals the same amount as the direct debit I pay them. I think they took maybe the first months payment as their "fee" but I'll need to check and see. Thanks for bringing that to my attention