Where to begin?

willing2learn_3

Hi everyone, i'm new here and posted in the 'Loans' forum.....it was suggested i post again here....so here's a copy of what i posted. I'd be grateful for any advice or experiences anyone can give. Thankyou!

The copy from the other forum:

I am new to this forum and would appreciate any advice anyone can give. I have a debt of approximately 4,000. Roughly a quarter of that is two separate CCJ's, the rest is not.

I don't own my own property and am currently earning 10,777 per annum. I am looking for an unsecured consolidation loan to pay off this debt. This would clear up bad debt, wipe my slate clean and allow me to focus on maintaining a clean financial record from now on.

The debt arose from bad management of finances in the past. I was a lot younger then but i realise that is no excuse. There were other circumstances that made it hard to deal with my finances but overall i accept responsibility for this situation. I just want to find the best way of dealing with it now. Hopefully i will increase my salary soon but for now it is what it is.

Any advice would be appreciated. I've read some of the articles on this website. I don't think i would be able to get a loan from the Nationwide at this point in time, although they look good. My other bank felt it was a bad idea to do a credit check for me right now as it would come up bad and then this would make my record worse. They suggested an outside loan company.

Thankyou for any advice you can give. I'm hearing about people having huge debts all the time and still managing to get credit and live their lives. I have a relatively small debt but am struggling to get finance to sort it out.

Thanks

file_wizzard

Looking at the details you have provided i.e 2 CCJ’s and relatively low income you will be hard pushed to obtain any further credit full stop

Also

(1) is it a wise idea to commit to further credit at this time?
(2) if 2 CCJ’s have been issued and you are undertaking a repayment schedule then there is no real “need” to pay them off in full at this time.

Perhaps if you provided details of your income and expenditure then the rest of the board can advise on any savings that can be made to give you some extra spare cash to throw at the remaining debts

willing2learn_3

Thanks File Wizard

The only reason for wanting to clear the debts immediately is then i am improving my financial record very quickly. If i pay them off bit by bit that doesn't really improve my record.....am i correct in thinking this?

My income is currently 10,777 per annum. I'm looking to improve that. As far as expenditure's go i really only pay 250 pounds to my parents (where i am currently living) per month. Often i'll buy a week's food shopping here and there as well. i also have car insurance at 21 pounds a month, certain hobbies amount to 50 pounds per month , roughly 100 pounds per month petrol and 60 pounds a month parking fees.

That leaves me with roughly 280 pounds a month spare. That's with not doing anything else, like going out or anything - i don't go out much anyway......

I was considering just paying off the debts bit by bit but have never had a loan, hear of so many people getting credit to sort out their problems and thinking that such a small debt should be cleared quickly. I shouldn't let it ruin my credit reputation any longer.....well that's how i was looking at it anyway.

Thanks for your response, i will seriously consider your thoughts on this

jellycat40

To improve your credit rating I think you just have to keep making payments reguarly. I am not sure how CCJ's work but surely they have to end sometime. If you are making payments to a debt recovery company they are usually more than happy to accept higher payments. CCJ's may stay longer on your credit record i am sure someone else on the forum will know the answer to that. However you have a very small debt in real terms taking into consideration your earnings and your living arrangements. So just keep making the payments and increase them if you can and if the creditors will let you.

Good Luck

Louise

willing2learn_3

Thanks louise!

right now i feel as though everything is against me because of decisions made when i was a lot younger. I'm sure it's not really that bad, just my perception....but my income's not good for a woman in her thirties. There are reasons for this but right now it just feels as though nothing is going right.

yes my credit score will improve with regular payments but if paid off in full it will be satisfied on the credit record. Also the monthly payment i have to make to a loan company will be one payment and less confusing.

Thanks for your response. i think i will phone a couple of loan companies that have been recommended by friends and see what the outcome is......

I value any further thoughts or advice. Thanks everyone

Bargain_Rzl

I am no expert on this subject but I do know that any activity on your credit report lasts for six years. This means that you're likely to find it difficult to obtain credit from any reputable source for six years exactly after the issue date of a CCJ. However, here's a hypothetical situation. Let's say you had a CCJ a little over six years ago and you only finished paying off the bad debt five years ago. The CCJ would have come off your file, but the final year of repayments of the associated debt would still be visible for another year - what I don't know is whether the visible information on these repayments is still seen as adverse debt once the great big black mark that was your CCJ is no longer visible. I'm sure somebody on here has the answer.

mummytofour

IMHO you would be better off just increasing your payments to your ccjs.

If you are finding the payments hard to cope with, do you have them all set up on standing order or dd, that way they will go stright out of you accont on payday and you dont have to worry about sorting them out.

willing2learn_3

thanks for those replies......the thing about increasing payments to the CCJ's is that, if my income doesn't increase any, then it will take me about 5 years to pay those off - so then they are not satisfied for another five years. To get a loan to pay them off means they are satisfied immediately and my credit record is repaired.

Also i was advised by one debt counsellor not to have direct debits because the creditors may take more than i've agreed....don't know how true that is but i just decided not to do it that way as a result.

I suppose the answer to all this is first to see if i can get a loan...

file_wizzard

Bargain_Rzl wrote:

I am no expert on this subject but I do know that any activity on your credit report lasts for six years. This means that you're likely to find it difficult to obtain credit from any reputable source for six years exactly after the issue date of a CCJ. However, here's a hypothetical situation. Let's say you had a CCJ a little over six years ago and you only finished paying off the bad debt five years ago. The CCJ would have come off your file, but the final year of repayments of the associated debt would still be visible for another year - what I don't know is whether the visible information on these repayments is still seen as adverse debt once the great big black mark that was your CCJ is no longer visible. I'm sure somebody on here has the answer.

Not quite correct, if a CCJ had been issued then the debt would of already been previously defaulted, so the "default mark" should technically always expire before the CCJ in most cases roughly a year ( dependant on how keen the creditor was ) , apart from that you are absolutely right all information naturally expires after 6 years after either the Date of Default, or the date of issue in the case of a CCJ.

I have never seen a CCJ repayment schedule which runs longer than 6 years, but technically it would be removed from your files even if repayment schedule was still active. ( payment history for CCJ’s is not updated by the CRA’s other than when the CCJ is satisfied, i.e paid in full )

file_wizzard

willing2learn wrote:

thanks for those replies......the thing about increasing payments to the CCJ's is that, if my income doesn't increase any, then it will take me about 5 years to pay those off - so then they are not satisfied for another five years. To get a loan to pay them off means they are satisfied immediately and my credit record is repaired.

The repayment amount is set by the court, it cant be varied up or down, all you can do is "satisfy in full" once you have the full funds available

having a satisfied CCJ is marginally less damaging than an unsatisfied one, however even when satisfied you will still be limited to the sub-prime market for up to 6 years until all of the data falls off of your file.

the only suggestion I can make if you are keen to add some positive history to your file is to obtain a "secured" capital one credit card with the minimum available ( £200 ) providing you behave with this and make your payments on time then it will soon start to add positive history to your file which will help to counter act the negative information.

However this option should be treated with care as the potential pitfalls are there if you are not disciplined with the repayments

donnalove

just reading your post you are paying £160 in petrol and car parking?

60 pound for parking your car is a hell of lot couldnt you use public transport to work at least this would save quite a bit you could throw at your debt