Debt question from newbie

UN17ED

milliemonster wrote: »

ah, that makes sense then, what about CT is that paid for aswell?

How come your grocery bill is so high?, how many do you need to feed in your family? this could surely be drastically cut

The groceries is for 6 people and 2 pets.
As I said I am looking into cutting things down, spreading the shopping to all the supermarkets we have near us and by also looking on the moneysaving old style board.

UN17ED

I was thinking of going bankrupt, for 2 reasons, first becuase of the disgusting way the bank has treated us and secondly because its going to take forever to repay the amounts owed.
Would this be the best action to take?

GeorgeUK

Missing one months payment is not that bad. Having a monthly income of only £253 may go against you slightly?? If you're not going to need to get credit in the near future, there's not much to lose by asking.


Electricity............................. 50
Gas..................................... 40
Check the price comparison sites to see you are getting a good deal. (uswitch, moneysupermarket)

Telephone (land line)................... 12.5
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 22
Internet Services....................... 9.99
Is this a package?

Groceries etc. ......................... 750
That's alot. Have you moved down a brand (shops own). Good to see you're looking at the old style board. meal plans can save quite a bit as you go in knowing what you need and don't pick up lots of extras. Also cooking in bulk can cut some costs if you can freeze some meals for later.

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 160
Every month? cut this back a bit.

Bankruptcy is not an easy option and should be looked at as a last resort. It's taken you years to get into debt so may take years to get back out. I'd advise putting the figures into the snowball calculator to see how long it may take to get out of debt. You have almost £100 surplus each month. If this is not the case you need to keep a spending diary so that you know exactly where your money is going.
https://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

Have you tried reclaiming bank or credit card charges?
Have you got PPI on the loan - was it missold?
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/

UN17ED

GeorgeUK wrote: »

Missing one months payment is not that bad. Having a monthly income of only £253 may go against you slightly?? If you're not going to need to get credit in the near future, there's not much to lose by asking.


Electricity............................. 50
Gas..................................... 40
Check the price comparison sites to see you are getting a good deal. (uswitch, moneysupermarket)

Telephone (land line)................... 12.5
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 22
Internet Services....................... 9.99
Is this a package?

Groceries etc. ......................... 750
That's alot. Have you moved down a brand (shops own). Good to see you're looking at the old style board. meal plans can save quite a bit as you go in knowing what you need and don't pick up lots of extras. Also cooking in bulk can cut some costs if you can freeze some meals for later.

Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 160
Every month? cut this back a bit.

Bankruptcy is not an easy option and should be looked at as a last resort. It's taken you years to get into debt so may take years to get back out. I'd advise putting the figures into the snowball calculator to see how long it may take to get out of debt. You have almost £100 surplus each month. If this is not the case you need to keep a spending diary so that you know exactly where your money is going.
www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

Have you tried reclaiming bank or credit card charges?
Have you got PPI on the loan - was it missold?
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/

The telephone/sky/internet is all seperate, i have looked at cheaper options but as of yet there is nothing, but I was advised that in January I will have an option to change which will knock some off that amount.
We do actually get all the stores own brands, eg. asda smartprice but things are continuously going up in price for example milk has gone up 65p in the last 6 weeks. It also isnt just for food its for toiletries and cleaning things, we will continue to look for ways to cut the amount we pay down.
The amount we pay for christmas/birthdays is way too much but it will be going down by at least half if not more.
Not sure if i have any bank charges as I used to work for them and have a staff account so I only get charged debit interest. Would I be able to claim that back? And also what could be claimed back on credit cards?

milliemonster

You won't be able to claim interest charges on your accounts, only late payment charges/returned DD fees that kind of thing I think.

When you say your grocery bill is for 6 people and 2 pets, is that 6 adults?, our grocery bill for the 4 of us used to be £600 a month but I have got that down now to £200, I think you should easily be able to reduce yours to around £400 -£450 a month, including toiletries/cleaning stuff etc.

You have to try shopping around, yes milk has gone up but I get my milk from farmfoods, it's £1.50 for 6 pts and has been for months, I also get my bread in the reduced section in Tesco's and freeze it, I pay only about 40p a loaf, Tesco's are also doing milk at £1.06 for 4pts, so buy more than you need and freeze it.

I get my toiletries from Lidl or Aldi, they do Pantene rip offs for 69p a bottle, it's just a case of shopping around a bit more

Also look at cooking from scratch, home made pizza's are so much cheaper and taste fab, and they're dead easy to make so you can still have that 'take away' without the take away price tag.

Try writing a meal plan for the week, this is one of the best bits of advice I was given, it really helps you as you don't have to worry about what to cook and you can get write a shopping list of what you need and stick to it when you go shopping, yeah ok its boring and takes the spontaneity out of eating and fodd shopping, but needs must and all that

Also, you can get rid of Sky and put that £22 a month to something else, we did and got freeview and yes it took a little getting used to but after 2 months now we've got used to it and I don't miss it at all, when our debts our paid we'll get it back and that's one of my incentives

UN17ED

milliemonster wrote: »

You won't be able to claim interest charges on your accounts, only late payment charges/returned DD fees that kind of thing I think.

When you say your grocery bill is for 6 people and 2 pets, is that 6 adults?, our grocery bill for the 4 of us used to be £600 a month but I have got that down now to £200, I think you should easily be able to reduce yours to around £400 -£450 a month, including toiletries/cleaning stuff etc.

You have to try shopping around, yes milk has gone up but I get my milk from farmfoods, it's £1.50 for 6 pts and has been for months, I also get my bread in the reduced section in Tesco's and freeze it, I pay only about 40p a loaf, Tesco's are also doing milk at £1.06 for 4pts, so buy more than you need and freeze it.

I get my toiletries from Lidl or Aldi, they do Pantene rip offs for 69p a bottle, it's just a case of shopping around a bit more

Also look at cooking from scratch, home made pizza's are so much cheaper and taste fab, and they're dead easy to make so you can still have that 'take away' without the take away price tag.

Try writing a meal plan for the week, this is one of the best bits of advice I was given, it really helps you as you don't have to worry about what to cook and you can get write a shopping list of what you need and stick to it when you go shopping, yeah ok its boring and takes the spontaneity out of eating and fodd shopping, but needs must and all that

Also, you can get rid of Sky and put that £22 a month to something else, we did and got freeview and yes it took a little getting used to but after 2 months now we've got used to it and I don't miss it at all, when our debts our paid we'll get it back and that's one of my incentives

Thanks for the advice, I or should I say we will put it to good use and will hopefully cut our costs.