I'm back again - this time I'm terrified

tartanterra

iwanttobreakfree wrote: »

Couple of problems - I can't get a DMP as my loans are in my mums name so technically I dont have enough debt in my own name to get one (or at least I believe not).

I did think about selling my car but due to my job I have to have a vehicle. I have a PA system that I need to transport about and my classes are at different gyms in the area and the bus would make it extremely difficult for the gym based classes and impossible for the community classes where I need my PA - also my OH put his car up 4 months ago to sell and he has had no interest whatsoever and his car is older than mine so therefore cheaper.

I think I'm pretty much stuck on the car front sadly.

Don't give up so easily!

As I said before, the car is costing £313.46 a month (and that's BEFORE any servicing or repairs). If you only need it for your second job, how much are you making at this job? After deducting car costs it can't be that much, so why not look for something that won't require a car?

iwanttobreakfree

Well in a good month and when I dont keep booking training courses I can get quite a fair bit of money.

Gym classes around £280 a month. Community I can earn anywhere up to £60 per hour minusing my room rent of £12.

They are a bit quiet at the moment and I've had training to book. That's why I'm reluctant to sell. I know it will pick up.

iwanttobreakfree

Sorry forgot to mention I have 4 community classes set to start in the new year so potentially £200 a week from those if they go to plan (fingers crossed)!

tartanterra

iwanttobreakfree wrote: »

Well in a good month and when I dont keep booking training courses I can get quite a fair bit of money.

Gym classes around £280 a month. Community I can earn anywhere up to £60 per hour minusing my room rent of £12.

They are a bit quiet at the moment and I've had training to book. That's why I'm reluctant to sell. I know it will pick up.

I think you may be over optimistic there. In a recession, the first thing people stop spending money on is the gym. Your hoping a solution to your money problems is going to come charging over the hill on a white horse, and that's extremely unlikely.
If you really want to clear your debts, then you have to steel your mindset to do it. You have to be determined and also realistic. And finally, you have to make sacrifices. I know that none of this sounds easy, but there are no easy answers.
I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT IF YOU TRY! GOOD LUCK.

Gemmzie

I would speak to the CCCS regarding the loans in your mum's name, they should be able to give you an idea of what's possible or not.

Jenna

Hey there,

Firstly ... it's always difficult to face up to debts and be honest with people so well done for coming back ... no one here will judge you for past mistakes since we'll all been there before!

It's not my place to comment on things with your family but I do know that it can place a big strain on relationships if you're keeping things secret from them ... it's good that your OH knows the real situation at any rate. Of course this is up to you but consider talking to your family about this too - even if not now - maybe in a few months time? But since you live with your parents (or I think you do from what you've said?) then maybe you can all pull together to get this sorted and you'll have moral & practical support too!

I'd just have a couple of comments on your SOA:

Rent.................................... 212.5
Is this paid to your parents as housekeeping? Would they let you have a month or two rent free to get back up to date with your re-payments?
Mobile phone............................ 45
This is high, I presume you're on a contract? Can you drop the tariff or get a better deal (when is your contract up for renewal)? Also if you're registered as self-employed (for the fitness classes) can you off-set some of the call costs on here as "business" e.g. if you think 25% of the calls are business related then you can use your business income to pay 25% of the bill (or at least this is my understanding of it!).
TV Licence.............................. 14
This should be slightly less, I think ours is about £11 a month?
Petrol/diesel........................... 60
This is very high - is it based on travel at your previous job, or is this the new figure? Again can you offset this cost against your business income?
Road tax................................ 3.5
Is this £3.50 or £35 a month? I guess that you save this up then purchase the car tax all in one go, are you using a high-interest savings account for this?
Car Insurance........................... 56.26
This seems high, what car do you drive, how old are you etc? (I'm 22 and have just passed - literally a month ago! - and my car tax is £48 ish / month)
Other insurance......................... 9.99
What's this for?
Entertainment........................... 18
Food needs to come above this!

Car(s).................................. 6000
You say that your boyfriend's car didn't sell even though it was older (and therefore cheaper) but sometimes people want to buy newer cars! Anyway, it's got to be worth listing in something free e.g. the Friday Ads or what about Autotrader - I think the online service is free? Someone correct me if I'm wrong here?! I appreciate you need a car for your work but it could be a much cheaper one and still be reliable and functional! My car for example is a Vauxhall Corsa which is 12 years old and cost me £600 from a friend - but it runs very well even on cold mornings & (fingers crossed!) has been very good to me so far!

Halifax Visa...................1316.74...32........25.97
This APR is high - any chance you can apply for a 0% BT deal on another card? (ditto for all other CC debts!)
Money lent from mum............359.63....50........0
Would your Mum let you have a re-payment holiday from this for a couple of months to help you get up to date with your other repayments?
Money lent from G..............400.......10........0
Ditto
Orange mobile debt.............98.45.....20........0
If they aren't charging you interest can you lower the monthly re-payment?
O2 Mobile debt.................359.71....59.95.....0
Ditto
Choice.........................132.......20....... .0
Ditto
Littlewoods Catalogue..........333.77....60........0
Ditto
Argos Card.....................578.95....17.36.....27.9

Surplus £ -25.64

Of course it's not great being £25 short each month but equally, it's not the end of the world, so long as you can get some freelance work too! If you can make a couple of changes (as outlined above) it would bring you back into the black each month just on your monthly salary - then any freelance stuff would be a bonus and could go straight onto the priority debt (have a look at the Snowball calculator at www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx - it will calculate what you should pay off first etc for you!). That should give you back a feeling of control over your finances which I think is an important first step .

Anyhoo enough practicalities as I get the sense you already know most of this stuff! Moving jobs is stressful enough for any of us without difficult colleagues / staff creating additional hassle; and with money worries on top things are bound to be causing you worry, especially since you don't yet feel able to talk with your family about this.

Some general advice would be to try not to let the staff there get to you - give it time, imagine how reserved you might be if you got a new manager, until you got to know them? They may just be reserving judgement. Alternatively if any of them are being really unprofessional e.g. being aggressive or something then speak with your HR dept. (even just an informal chat for some advice might help!). Also talk with your manager if you can and ask for his/her advice on how to handle the situation. Have you held a managerial role before? If not (or even if you have!) then it could definitely help to get some extra training / development - maybe even specifically related to handling difficult team members?

Also you mentioned that you were organised with your finances before (a few years ago?) but that you're not now ... can I ask what changed? I'm not being nosy (I promise !) but sometimes things that happen in our lives can have a bigger knock-on impact than we realise... have a think anyways!

Right sorry I've rambled on - hope some of that helps - let us know how you get on hey xx

PinkTwirl

Hi,

I think your mobile phone bill is slightly high. My Orange phone bill is £32 a month for free calls to any network and landlines and 600 free texts a month. I think it's the Dolphin package.

lola34

Don't know if this mighthelp, but I can see you are a Barclaycard customer- they are offering at the moment a transfer balance from other credit cards 2.5% transfer fee and 6.9% (I think) for the life of the balance until it is paid- at least if you could transfer the other cards onto it this night help a little bit. you can transfer up to 90% of your credit limit- it is advertised on their website.

iwanttobreakfree

tartanterra wrote: »

I think you may be over optimistic there. In a recession, the first thing people stop spending money on is the gym. Your hoping a solution to your money problems is going to come charging over the hill on a white horse, and that's extremely unlikely.
If you really want to clear your debts, then you have to steel your mindset to do it. You have to be determined and also realistic. And finally, you have to make sacrifices. I know that none of this sounds easy, but there are no easy answers.
I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT IF YOU TRY! GOOD LUCK.

The fees I get from teaching in gyms pretty much stay the same unless I have any days where I can't teach my class or they cancel the class if there is a bank hol or something else going on in the gym which doesn't happen that often so that fee I supposed you could say between £200 to £280 a month to cover the variances - I get this fee even if there are only 3 people in the class which is good.

Its my community classes (which I can earn up to £60 an hour) which tend to vary. Last week I made £32 for the hour but it is slowly declining with it coming up to Christmas and everybody doing their shopping and going on their Christmas do's! It will pick up in Jan once the holiday period calms down.

iwanttobreakfree

Ok I wrote a massive response to the post about my SOA but it took that long to type the site logged me out and I lost it all - aaaargh!!!!:mad:

Ok lets hope I can remember it.

The rent is my half of the rent with my OH for the flat we share. I'm just registered as living with my parents at the moment - I dont actually live there.

I cant change my mobile tarrif as I haven't had it for 9 months and they wont allow you to lower it until then.

The TV licence is just 1/2 of the standard rate on the website when we set it up??

The disel bit is puzzling me as it should be loads lower and I expected about £30-40 but it seems to be guzzling it down - my last full tank at £60 only got me about 480 miles which is crap!

Road tax is £35 for the year so £3.50 over 10 months. I could afford to not save that and pay it all out at once next August easily I should think.

Car insurance was the cheapest I could get. I drive a Peugeot 207 1.4 HDI 06 plate.

The 9.99 insurance is my mobile insurance - I learnt the hard way last time not having it. Its not something I usually get but I could do without the headache I had last time with CArphone Warehouse (dont bother buying from them lol!)

Entertainment bit is my gym membership as I could find anywhere more appropriate for it. I tried getting it for free but manager said no (tight git) and just offered me it cheaper so nothing much I can do there.

Mum and grandad wont let me off the money I owe them for a little time - they want it back.

I can't BT on credit cards as most are nearly maxed out and my credit is that bad they wont increase the limit - I've tried before.

Orange and O2 debt are like mini DMP so I can't amend the amounts on those. Sadly 02 said I had to pay £60 a month and I couldn't lower it - I did try as obviously that is a massive chunk every month.

I will negotiate with littlewoods and choices - fingers crossed they will let me make an arrangement with them!