Newbie Panic following bright lightbulb moment!

fleur123_2

Hello everyone!
I am a new user to the forums, but must say that I've been trawling through them for quite some time.

I have had a rather bright lightbulb moment, and I hope someone can help me stop panicking :eek: !

After coming through a recent break-up, it suddenly hit me that I had to start coping on my own again. Not just emotionally, but will all the bills and my huge debts. I am only 26, so I find it very depressing to be in a mess at such a young age

Here's a list of my monthly outgoings:
Mortgage: £423.25
Secured Loan: £293.81
Car loan: £187.57
Petrol: £80
Food: £60
Council tax: £50
Gas & elec: £60
Barclaycard: £52 (on payment plan)
M&S Card: £30 (on payment plan)
Social: £40
Capital one cc: £30
Car insurance £20.91
Home insurance: £24
Next cat: £15
Freemans cat: £30
Sky: £18 (no freeview in my area)
Phone & broadband: £17
Boiler care: £9
O/D interest: £20
Account fee: £9.95
Water: £10.50
Dental insurance: £9
Pet insurance: £7.93

Total debts:
M&S £2,800.71
Barclaycard £4,803.68
Next £148.60
Freemans £377.52
Capital one £456.98
Park Motor Finance £6,534.57
Overdraft £2,000.00
Student loan (inc interest) £6,955.07
TOTAL £24,077.13

I earn approx £1700 after tax, which is a good wage at my age, but unfortunately I am constantly using it to pay debts. I want to have a life, and would love to travel one day, but it all seems so out of reach at the moment :mad:

I believe I have got all my outgoings down to the bare minimum, and I do my best to make more moeny with surveys, mystery shopping etc. I've found ebay to be a bit slow lately though, maybe I am doing something wrong.

Any advice would be great! I would love to be debt free within 2 years (currently looks like 4 years).

Thanks
xxx

MissKJ

Welcome, but believe me it feels worse when you have been working and paying a mortgage for years and you have nothing to show for it! best get yourself into good habits now, then you will enjoy it all more later. Have you tried putting your debts into the snowballcalculator on www.whatsthecost.co.uk

sparky0107

fleur123 wrote: »

Hello everyone!
I am a new user to the forums, but must say that I've been trawling through them for quite some time.

I have had a rather bright lightbulb moment, and I hope someone can help me stop panicking :eek: !

After coming through a recent break-up, it suddenly hit me that I had to start coping on my own again. Not just emotionally, but will all the bills and my huge debts. I am only 26, so I find it very depressing to be in a mess at such a young age

Here's a list of my monthly outgoings:
Mortgage: £423.25
Secured Loan: £293.81
Car loan: £187.57
Petrol: £80
Food: £60
Council tax: £50
Gas & elec: £60
Barclaycard: £52 (on payment plan)
M&S Card: £30 (on payment plan)
Social: £40
Capital one cc: £30
Car insurance £20.91
Home insurance: £24
Next cat: £15
Freemans cat: £30
Sky: £18 (no freeview in my area)
Phone & broadband: £17
Boiler care: £9
O/D interest: £20
Account fee: £9.95
Water: £10.50
Dental insurance: £9
Pet insurance: £7.93

Total debts:
M&S £2,800.71
Barclaycard £4,803.68
Next £148.60
Freemans £377.52
Capital one £456.98
Park Motor Finance £6,534.57
Overdraft £2,000.00
Student loan (inc interest) £6,955.07
TOTAL £24,077.13

I earn approx £1700 after tax, which is a good wage at my age, but unfortunately I am constantly using it to pay debts. I want to have a life, and would love to travel one day, but it all seems so out of reach at the moment :mad:

I believe I have got all my outgoings down to the bare minimum, and I do my best to make more moeny with surveys, mystery shopping etc. I've found ebay to be a bit slow lately though, maybe I am doing something wrong.

Any advice would be great! I would love to be debt free within 2 years (currently looks like 4 years).

Thanks
xxx

Hello fleur123
Welcome to the best web site on the planet, do you have your APR's to hand for your CC's loans etc, can you transfer anything to 0% credit cards or life of balance cards, I have one at 4.6% with Barclaycard, also have you tried the snowball calculator www.whatsthecost.com this will give you an approximate debt free date. Some really great people will be along soon to offer you some fantastic advice & help, well done on having your LBM

poorandindenial

Hi there

Firt of all, breathe...in.....out....in....out....in....out....

Right, your SOA shows that you have £1500 in outgoings so in theory you should have a surplus.

You might want to double check you haven't missed anything using the SOA calc at www.makesenseofcards.com

BUT as you do have a surplus this is good news. Do you really have that left at the end of the month?? if so proceed directly to the snowball calculator at www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx and this will show you hoe to reduce your debts fastest. If you don't have it left you need to find out where it is going by keeping a spending diary you can use a notebook, spreadsheet, whatever suits really.

I promise you that there is a way out of this, and now a few comments on yor outgoings...

Mortgage: £423.25
Secured Loan: £293.81
Car loan: £187.57
Petrol: £80
Food: £60 (this is either very good or underestimated... does it include toiletries)
Council tax: £50
Gas & elec: £60 (council tax is low, is this split between two fo you or you solo?? if split you can get it down)
Barclaycard: £52 (on payment plan)
M&S Card: £30 (on payment plan)
Social: £40
Capital one cc: £30
Car insurance £20.91
Home insurance: £24
Next cat: £15
Freemans cat: £30
Sky: £18 (no freeview in my area) - is it really essential??
Phone & broadband: £17
Boiler care: £9 - how old is your boiler
O/D interest: £20 - what APR is this and what is the balance?
Account fee: £9.95 - what on earth is this for?? you pay for your banking??? if so then ditch it
Water: £10.50
Dental insurance: £9
Pet insurance: £7.93

You need to pull together all the APRs for your debts, you should try to throw as much as possible at the ones with the highest APR (see snowball calculator)

I hope you don't think I am being harsh with my comments on your SOA, I would do the calculator if I were you though as there are a few bits missing, some car stuff and things like budgeting for xmas and birthdays, clothes and haircuts etc etc

fleur123_2

Hi Both

thanks for replying so quickly!

I am on the snowball calculator as we speak.

Unfortunately, due to me having so much debt against my name, I'm unable to get any further credit - especially at 0%. Both big CCs are on interest free payments plans so at least they will be paid off quicker. I have everything on the lowest rate possible for me I think. The thing I hate is my secured loan, I wish I had never taken it out - it's a really rubbish rate and it just eats up my salary. Been paying it off for a year, but the settlement fig is now higher than the original amount :mad:

poorandindenial

fleur123 wrote: »

Hi Both

thanks for replying so quickly!

I am on the snowball calculator as we speak.

Unfortunately, due to me having so much debt against my name, I'm unable to get any further credit - especially at 0%. Both big CCs are on interest free payments plans so at least they will be paid off quicker. I have everything on the lowest rate possible for me I think. The thing I hate is my secured loan, I wish I had never taken it out - it's a really rubbish rate and it just eats up my salary. Been paying it off for a year, but the settlement fig is now higher than the original amount :mad:

Are you on a repayment plan with them too??? Otherwise the original amount should have reduced?? What is the loan amount and APR?

doodledo_2

Hi and welcome to the forum.

You have definately come to the right place.

Is there any capacity to increase your hours at work, overtime or anything similar?

Have you got anything you could sell on Ebay or AMazon that would raise some cash to chuck at your debts?

Good luck with your journey.

fleur123_2

I must have missed something out, I never have any money left at the end of the month. There is always something extra to pay, e.g. tyres, car tax, haircuts etc.

believe it or not, my food budget is accurate! I make a lot of lentil soups etc and bean chilli - very cheap and can be frozen. also steal food from my parents house heehee

Council tax is cheap - single person discount, and is cheap in my area anyway.

O/D is £2000, have no idea what the APR is unfortunately. The account fee gives me preferential rates on my O/D, mortgage and free breakdown cover, travel insurance etc, so I don't mind paying that.

With regards to sky - It's not essential, but I think I would go insane without it at the moment as I live alone and am bored. Have cancelled the gym too boohoo

Ebay - yes I have bits and bobs I could sell, but i am finding it a bit rubbish at the moment. Is anyone else finding that?

Overtime is unavailable in work, although I am thinking of starting to give piano lessons soon

Numpty_Monkey

fleur123 wrote: »

Hi Both

thanks for replying so quickly!

I am on the snowball calculator as we speak.

Unfortunately, due to me having so much debt against my name, I'm unable to get any further credit - especially at 0%. Both big CCs are on interest free payments plans so at least they will be paid off quicker. I have everything on the lowest rate possible for me I think. The thing I hate is my secured loan, I wish I had never taken it out - it's a really rubbish rate and it just eats up my salary. Been paying it off for a year, but the settlement fig is now higher than the original amount :mad:

Have you got any PPI on this loan?, if you have read Martins article about mis selling
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/ppi-loan-insurance

poorandindenial

Well done on the food budget - the old stylers would be proud of you! (I still steal from my parents too, although when I say steal it is more like 'Mum, Dad, I am taking the xxxxxxxxxxx, cheers'

If you do the SOA calculator and estimate the things that are missing you will get a real picture of what you have, if it is looking close to the wire then you may want to fill out the debtremedy tool on the cccs website: link via here

fleur123_2

yeah I did the CCCS and the word "Bankruptcy" appeared, although I was on a lower salary back then. I don't feel my situation is that bad yet. I think if I've got myself into this, then I have to get myself out of it

The problem is that CCCS DMP doesn't look at secured loans/ HP (my car loan), which are really the biggest chunks that come out of my pay.

Has anyone ever spoken to CCCS, are they helpful?

Re secured loan - no I haven't got PPI thankfully. I used to work for Firstplus a few years ago, so I know not to touch PPI with a bargepole. I should have also known not to touch secured loans, but there you go!