Another tale of woe

milkybars

What's freeview like in your area? Maybe this could be a compromise for a while?

A one off payment for a set top box (maybe someone has one on freecycle) is surely better than £20 a month for sky.

You can after all only watch one channel at a time and many are similar!

MrsTinks

FYI you can use the Sky box as a freeview box after you cancel the subscription...

bench0_1

benbenandme wrote: »

Have a look at the Up Your Income board too, join all the survey sites, cashback sites etc, do the clicks ... it might seem to only generate pennies but put them all in a tin and use it for birthdays / christmas etc and its one less thing to have to find form your budget

I am a member of a few survey sites (some are con artists) and I save up points from them during the year for christmas. As a rule I usually have enough for 1/2 my presents. The rest sometimes come from all the comps i enter fom the forum here. It can be time consuming and at times feel like your banging your head against a brick wall but like you I cant afford to go out so might as well spend my time trying to earn extra.
Good luck

KittyKate

It might sound harsh but I would lose the Sky; you might not have much of a social life but you can't afford any luxuries when you have debt in my opinion. There's plenty to watch on Freeview, Sky's all repeats anyway. You can have loads of fun for free, your local council's website will have free activities on it and a bit of fresh air will benefit (and de stress) you all.

You should be able to cut that grocery spend with a combination of OS (bulk buying, cooking at home) and vouchers (it's amazing what you get when you just ask). I would think you can almost halve it.

Ebay everything you can - you might not have a great deal you can live without but be harsh, I was, and made £900 in a month! OK I have very little else left to sell but it was a great cash boost at the time.

Do survey sites - try DooYoo for a start, Lightspeed, Toluna, and points and cashback sites like ipoints, Pigsback, Quidco. My partner and I make £££ on this and it means Christmas is virtually free - which is a huge weight off our shoulders.

It won't solve your problems but you should start looking at things in a different light - this website has totally changed me and now I see frugality as fun (sad but true!!!)

Go on the freebies board and get as much free stuff as you can.

milkybars

MrsTine wrote: »

FYI you can use the Sky box as a freeview box after you cancel the subscription...

Neat, I never knew that. Although I've never had Sky.

Getting rid of the Sky might hurt but maybe you could divert your time to raising extra cash through online ventures instead. Once you have your debts under control again you could bring Sky back as your reward fo being a successful moneysaver. Or you might find that freeview isn't that bad after all!

Best of luck

jellybean08

I'd really think about a dmp if i were you, or even just ring one of the charities up and get some advise. If you could get your repayments down to about 5-600 a month and also cut down on your spending using the tips these guys have given you, you'll be able to live more comfortably. The sooner you get rid of your debts the better. If you're over spending every month it's gonna snowball really quickly.
Your mortgage seems really high, how long have you got till a review? I'm don't know much about mortgages but mine is for the same value and i'm paying 200 a month less and i haven't got the best credit rating. The gas/electric seem really high too, even with arrears, for just the 3 of you it could be more like 50-60 a month all together and check out the cashback sites. Sky is a luxury you can't afford right now, that 20 a month could go towards christmas or food. Keep the box and watch freeview instead, its not totally different to sky's basic package.
Good luck though!

gggareth

Dont take this the wrong way but you have taken out 2 loans over 12k each.
What did you spend this money on.?

MyLastFiver

OK - my take on this...

Your situation is tight but not hopeless. In order to balance your income and expenditure you need to reduce your debt repayments by about a third.

On a Debt Management Plan your creditors will almost certainly accept this reduction and, most importantly they will almost certainly suspend interest charges, giving you a chance to get the capital paid off.

Going onto a DMP requires a major change in your thinking and priorities. Your credit rating will take a severe hit, so you have to come to terms with the fact that you won't be able to get another mortgage or get any more credit for several years. But let's face it - given your current income/expenditure you would hit your credit ceilings and default soon anyway. Your current budget is unsustainable but I think you realise that.

Forgive my directness but lose the new Honda, pay what you can off the finance and include the remaining balance in your DMP. Buy a cheap car for cash. When I went onto my DMP I sold my BMW 525 and bought a Peugeot for £1000. It's cheap to run, cheap to insure, cheap to service and perfectly reliable. It isn't flash, but I can't afford flash any more.

Lose the Sky too. It's a luxury I'm afraid,and your creditors will not like it on your SOA. However, the budget you negotiate with CCCS or National Debtline will take into account leisure costs. You are not expected to live like a monk while on a DMP - you are entitled to a reasonable quality of life. In other words, when you are on a DMP you will be able to afford a bottle of wine and a DVD, and the odd curry :-)

Ring National Debtline tomorrow, and print out the standard letter from their website which you send to creditors, advising them you are in fin diffs and until you are in a position to make a repayment offer, you will be making token payments of £5 per month.

This sounds drastic and scary but they don't care. Honestly, nothing bad will happen. If you make token payments for 2 or even 3 months, you will save yourselves in the region of £900 per month, so £1800 or £2700 in total. You could use this to buy a cheap runabout to replace the Honda, or pay any other major expenses you have coming up, or buy Krugerrands to put under the bed for a rainy day :-) The breathing space is invaluable.

There are two downsides to doing the above: 1 - you will get collections calls. Once you explain the situation to them and send in your letter and token payment, the calls will stop for a while as the clerks will "forward" your account on for a month. The calls are nothing to worry about. You explain the situation, they say "OK thanks very much" and you don;t hear from them for another month. 2 - your credit rating will be affected, but once you are on the DMP your credit rating will be screwed anyway. But once you are on the DMP you will be living within your means and won't need credit. Besides - not being able to get credit for a few years is exactly what some of us need!!!

Good luck.

savingholmes

Hello and welcome

Looking at your SOA - you don't have enough room in it even if you do make the suggested cut backs. It seems to be that you need to potentially do something radical which in your case would seem to be either a dmp through a charity like CCCS or Payplan or increasing your family's income through a payrise, additional job etc...

I do think that in your position I would sell the car and give the money to honda but I appreciate that if you couldn't then find the cash to go and buy another car that could prove difficult...

Similarly I wouldn't keep the sky - I get DVDs on ebay or play.com from time to time instead.... If you are going to keep sky see if you can get on the deal where phone calls and internet are included...

We moved to talk talk for internet and phone -total cost £17 for 40 gig a month broadband. If we'd done it via quidco we would have been paid £50... If when you've settled in here, you look at the £10 a day challenge and up your income board - you can try and find ways of increasing your income...

Is it possible to move any of your debts to 0% and decrease the minimum payments...

Whatever route you choose, it will involve significant lifestyle change if you want to stop adding to your debt and want to start paying it off instead.

HTH

firesidemaid

in summary of what a lot of posters have said there are sort of 2 options really.

either go for it in increasing income and saving money - extra jobs, selling car for a runaround, reducing spending to the bare essentials for now (cancel sky, use freeview) plus either go interest only on mortgage or take a payment holiday and throw the money at some of the debts.

or contact one of the debt charities to discuss the way forward with a dmp.

there is probably not much inbetween, except to look at the root of the debts/spending (?is there anything to sell - most stuff sells on ebay, including stuff from your childhood)

good luck x