Cant make a decision - help please! (with budget)

dmcd06

I am unsure whether to go to National Debtline for help with my debts (I have personal loan/credit cards mainly built up over 10 years (about 25,000) I only work part time and cannot work more hours due to family circumstances. I am hesitating about getting help as I can just about meet the monthly payments (but it is a struggle getting through the month/buying food etc) or whether to try Martin's advice - moving credit about/balance transfers etc. The problem with the second option, is I have moved a couple of transfer balances amongst my cards but ended up then with about 6 credit cards and only a bit less debt. My worry is that if I go to National Debtline or any other agency that I wont have any credit card in the future and as I have no savings, I am worried that I wont have any way of paying for an emergency. Any advice please?? thanks

Here are my details:-
Income £1855 per month (£227.93 of this is my sons disability allowance he is under 16 so it is paid to me)
Outgoings:-
Entertainment (for my son, not me) £100
Savings/birthdays - £50
Insurances (life/buildings/contents) £52
Council Tax £98
Electricity and gas £58
Fuel for work/rented garage cost £72
Home phone and Mobile - £77.84
Credit card repayments £384 (total for 6 cards)
Housekeeping (2 adults/one child) £300
Tv License £10.49
School meals £40
Bank loan £227.92
mortgage (I own 75% of the house) 447.46
Total Outgoings £1830

miseter

I am not brilliant at advice but the only think I can suggest is if you sell another 25% of the house to the person who owns 25%...?

wigginsmum

Is it possible to cut back on the entertainment costs? I appreciate your son is disabled and needs some leisure items, but does your local library do a video borrowing scheme or similar? Even if you only spent half what you currently spend, that's an extra £50/month.

Your housekeeping bill does seem high - pop over to the Old Style board for help with food budgeting. You should be able to easily halve this with wise shopping, given that your son also has school dinners.

The home phone and mobile seem very high too.

So by my not very strict reckoning, with a few lifestyle changes you should be able to raise an extra £200/month with little hardship.

Jules

skintchick

Outgoings:-
Entertainment (for my son, not me) £100This is very high, he needs to cut back on what he does for entertainment!
Savings/birthdays - £50
Insurances (life/buildings/contents) £52 This also seems very high. I pay £200 for house and contents insurance. Do you really need life insurance? Check out if you can get it cheaper.
Council Tax £98
Electricity and gas £58 Also seems very high. I pay £5 a month to Powergen. Check out a different provider.
Fuel for work/rented garage cost £72 Do you really need a rented garage? Can you street p[ark instead?
Home phone and Mobile - £77.84 Ouch! VERY high! I pay £30 a month for all pohone calls and line rental. You need to cut this down.
Credit card repayments £384 (total for 6 cards)
Housekeeping (2 adults/one child) £300 The Old Styleboards might be able to help you cut htis down a bit. Reckon you could probably shave £100 off it
Tv License £10.49
School meals £40
Bank loan £227.92
mortgage (I own 75% of the house) 447.46
Total Outgoings £1830[/QUOTE]

Hope that helps x

Entrepreneur_en_faillite

miseter wrote:

I am not brilliant at advice but the only think I can suggest is if you sell another 25% of the house to the person who owns 25%...?

I am working on the assumption that dmcd06 has a shared owership property.

If this is the case dmcd06, are you paying rent on 25% in addition to your mortgage?


:santa2:

elona

Tesco and other places will send 3 dvds at a time for about £14 a month and you can keep them for as long or short a time as you want.

Lots of places offer free trials for a month as well.

System

dmcd06 wrote:

I am unsure whether to go to National Debtline for help with my debts (I have personal loan/credit cards mainly built up over 10 years (about 25,000) .. My worry is that if I go to National Debtline or any other agency that I wont have any credit card in the future and as I have no savings, I am worried that I wont have any way of paying for an emergency.

Hi dmcd06

Two things:-

Firstly, you're in no way committing to anything by going to National Debtline or CCCS - you're just after advice. A consequence of that advice could be that you contact your creditors and arrange a payment plan, but the decision is still yours. You've got nothing to lose by asking them for help.

Secondly, and I'm someone who built up £20k debt over 10 yrs, your worry about no credit cards in the future is understandable and I've been there recently myself! The hard truth is that you can only just manage at the moment and are £25k in debt, so relying on cards to pay for emergencies isn't going to help you get out of debt - it's only going to get your further into debt.

The only way out is to sacrifice as much as possible and get your spending right down. Build an emergencies fund into your monthly budget so that the money is already there (be it sitting in the bank or in cash at home).

It's hard, particularly during the run-up to Xmas, but it's the only way to turn things around.

Good luck
Dave

PS - If you were to work out a payment plan to your creditors, remember that you'd be removing the combined £600 bank loan and credit card repayments from your outgoings and paying instead what you could truly afford after accounting for all bills and making provision for emergencies, repairs etc. The idea is to get you on a realistic budget that accounts for ALL your annual expenditure.

Is your bank loan secured on your share of the house?

Also, as noted by another poster, do you pay an element of rent? What about Water Rates/Charges too?

bonnie_2

another thing to bear in mind is they will not include your dla in payment plan.
also are you getting tax credits as you would then get a dissability premium.

Penny-Pincher!!

Hi

I have no comment as such, but feel it is unfair to use sons DLA for paying debts that are not his problem! DLA is paid for the disablilty and costs associated with this and if this includes £100 pm for entertainment-then so be it.

Other areas that could be cut back are food shopping, utilities and insurances. Think you could trim these back quite abit.

The above is not meant to cause offense in anyway.

PP
xx

dmcd06

All of your comments were very interesting and helpful! It has helped me!.......now back to tweaking my budget!! thanks!!

FriendofDorothy

bham-dave wrote:

Hi dmcd06

Two things:-

Firstly, you're in no way committing to anything by going to National Debtline or CCCS - you're just after advice. A consequence of that advice could be that you contact your creditors and arrange a payment plan, but the decision is still yours. You've got nothing to lose by asking them for help.

Secondly, and I'm someone who built up £20k debt over 10 yrs, your worry about no credit cards in the future is understandable and I've been there recently myself! The hard truth is that you can only just manage at the moment and are £25k in debt, so relying on cards to pay for emergencies isn't going to help you get out of debt - it's only going to get your further into debt.

The only way out is to sacrifice as much as possible and get your spending right down. Build an emergencies fund into your monthly budget so that the money is already there (be it sitting in the bank or in cash at home).

It's hard, particularly during the run-up to Xmas, but it's the only way to turn things around.

Good luck
Dave

PS - If you were to work out a payment plan to your creditors, remember that you'd be removing the combined £600 bank loan and credit card repayments from your outgoings and paying instead what you could truly afford after accounting for all bills and making provision for emergencies, repairs etc. The idea is to get you on a realistic budget that accounts for ALL your annual expenditure.

Is your bank loan secured on your share of the house?

Also, as noted by another poster, do you pay an element of rent? What about Water Rates/Charges too?

Just thought I would post why I thanked Dave for his post.


I really do worry about having emergency credit cards too and like Dave says they are going to get me further into debt.
Thank you dave for this wake up call : )