£35k+ in debt and not coping please help!

butterfly_in_debt

Hi,
I am new on here and was hoping some-one could help me! I got married (in march) and brought a new house (in july). We paid for our wedding in cash J but we have lots of credit cards which have got out of control. We have finally realised we can’t go on and want to become debt free! We want to have a baby but can’t, and won’t, until we can afford to, so please please help!!
Below I’ve listed our debt and our monthly in and out goings,

DEBT
£3,027.64 - Buy and Fly credit card
£5,683.68 – MBNA - 34.9% APR
£5,372.01 – Mint
£3,631.44 - Barcleycard - 16.9 APR
£7,317.17 – MBNA - 34.9% APR
£3,834.51 – Virgin
£5,464.09 – Virgin
£492.49 – Barcleys Loan
Egg card - £2,900

In goings
My wage - £1,700
Husbands wage - £1,400

Monthly Outgoings
Morgage - £906
Water - £15
Pet insurance - £25
Food - £200
Sky - £28
Phone - £5
BT land line - £17
Petrol (2 cars) - £150
Car insurance (both cars) - £152
Electricity - £20
Gas - £20
MBNA - £130
MBNA - £140
Buy and Fly – £61
Mint – £235
Barcleys Loan – £25
Virgin – £130
Virgin – £100
Barcleycard – £80
Egg - £100
Pet supplies - £50
Mobile bills – (both) - £100
Council tax - £200
life Insurance - £14
tv licence - £11
house insurance - £25
Total -£2,943
Money left - £164

If any one can help please please do as we are stuck and cant see a way out! We are hoping to transfer our credit cards onto 0% intrest rates as we are paying lots of intrest on them all. I will phone and find out the
APR on the credit cards tomorrow.
Any suggestions will help, Many Thanks!!!

Deep_In_Debt

Hi and welcome
I'm not really an expert at this but one thing that jumps out at me is your Sky - £57???

Can you get rid? You can get Freeview through your Sky box.

Car insurance also seems high?

beaujolais-nouveau

butterfly_in_debt wrote: »

Hi,
Dog food - £50

I am not an expert, either, but what jumped out at me was fifty quid a month for dog food. How many dogs are you feeding, and on what?! (I have a dog, and it costs me a tenth of that per month to feed him.)

butterfly_in_debt

Hi Deep in Debt,
we have only just moved in and signed into a 12 month contract with sky however when its up we are going to re look at it.
but i agree with the car insurance, we have a multi policy with admiral, we have only 1 no claims and we are both young drivers which explain the cost. we did shop around at the time but we do need to re do it when it comes up again.

katie2407

mobile phone are they contract
pet insurance do you really need that or try to reduce the cost

Food for month is high - you need to reduce that
your mortgage can you go to interest only for a while

Deep_In_Debt

Hi again

Are you tied into a contact with Sky? Can you downgrade to their basic package for they term of the contract?

butterfly_in_debt

Hi,
thank you all for replying so quickly

Beujolais - we have one dog and 3 rabbits and the £50 covers all our pet suupplies. i will alter this to say pet supplies. we have a choc lab and we feed her on dried puppy food, how do you feed your dog so cheaply?

Katie - mobile phones are contract but we will shop around. We do need pet insurance as she has been ill recently but will look at reducing the cost, will shop around, thank you.
with the food i thought we'd been doing really well but obviously not as we've already cut back hugely. Any tips?

Deep in debt - yes, tied into a year contract, i think we are on their basic package.

savingholmes

Basic package for sky is about £20... Can you ring them up and say you are struggling with your payments and you would rather reduce your package than go into arrears... it might work.

Some for your contract mobiles - a lot of people have had success with that strategy...

You definitely need to try and get on 0% don't apply for too many at once tho - see if you are successful with one before transferring to another. Also if you threaten to transfer your money away from them they may offer you a good deal - certainly Barclaycard offered me their rate for life which is more like 6.5% you are probably on at least 18% currently...

HTH

bonsibabe

sweetie, we are on a reduced package with sky (no sports, but including movies and kids) and we pay £38 a month for that. are you subscribing to HD channels?

when you are shopping around, use a cashback site like quidco. that way if you take the insurance out online you will get something back for it. same with pet food and pet insurance, you can get some decent money (it does take a while)

Can either of you take on a second part time job? Or do some overtime? That may help to alleviate some of the hardship. You might want to try martin's supermarket tips on reducing the amount you spend on your shopping.

Good luck

beaujolais-nouveau

butterfly_in_debt wrote: »

Beujolais - we have one dog and 3 rabbits and the £50 covers all our pet suupplies. i will alter this to say pet supplies. we have a choc lab and we feed her on dried puppy food, how do you feed your dog so cheaply?.

Until your dog is about six months old, it is probably best to give her proprietary puppy food because it is specially formulated to contain the things that puppies need. But after that you might want to do something different. I used to feed my dog (now 8 years old) dried dog food but earlier this year I made a point of reading the list of ingredients on the side of the packet and found that it was half rice! Now I cook four ounces of brown rice a day (he is a terrier so eats a bit less than your dog), which he has divided between two meals and mixed with two soupspoonfuls of porridge oats per meal and something like (a) two sardines or (b) two spoonfuls of cooked minced turkey or lamb or baked beans or tuna or a couple of ounces of grilled/fried lambs liver (incredibly cheap, compared to other things but it isn't good to give them that every day).

It might sound like a lot of work but it isn't, really, when it becomes part of daily routine. Your dog will still need to eat some hard food, for the sake of her teeth, like a chunk of raw carrot or a few dog biscuits.

butterfly_in_debt

i will ring sky in the morning, thank you for that info!!

Im looking at doing Martin’s credit card shuffle, we are up to our limits on all cards, do you have any advice on how best to do this? We are having problems getting any 0% credit card deals.
for our credit cards i think our APR is over 20% for all of them but need to double check