Advice on large Unsecured Debt

tigrex

Hi All,

I would appreciate any tips or advice anyone could give me as I have £14K of unsecured debt on credit cards with 5 different lenders. Although I am paying back between £400-£500 per month, I am on no interest free deals and I do not appear to be paying off any of the real debt after interest payments.

If you have been or are in a similar situation please give me your thoughts as feel it is time I need to do something about this, I always make all my payments but cannot afford much more than the minimum on each card and the only loan option to pay it all off has been turned down by lenders or I am offered the money but at a riduclous rate.

Thanks JD

poorandindenial

Hi JD

Been there, got the T-Shirt (all of my debt was credit cards and consolidated credit cards.

Have you tried the snowball calculator??? It will show you how long it will take you to repay debts. Work out the max you can pay towards unsecured debts, then get all the details of your debts (outstanding amt, apr, min payment £/%) and pop them in, then see what it sayd (take a deep breath before this stage, mine came out at over 100 years when I put in just the minimums)

Then find ways to throw more money at the cards (without racking up more debt) to do this you need to know where you stand (pull together an SOA - handy calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com and then identify places where you can cut back (if you are feeling brave then post it up here and let us [strike]rip it apart[/strike] give helpful advice) and set yourself a new budget to work by.

All the cash that you free up you then throw at the debt in line with what the snowball says (each time you free up more cash you update the 'available for debt payments' cell) and watch your debt free date drop

ETA: foprgot to say the snowball calculator is https://www.whatsthecost.co.uk/snowball.aspx

tigrex

Thanks for that will check out those calculators