Feeling low and needing advice on reducing payments

lallyaya

Hmmm, the first thing I will say is do you really need your car? You live in Manchester and work for the Council I assume, do you need your car for work or can you sell it and pay back your parents? You can get really cheap buses in Manchester as there are so many different companies (Oh for the Magic Bus and Finglands - only 50p!) I used to live in Manchester and even though I hate public transport I had to concede it was the better option. Or maybe the train what with the bloody traffic!

You say you just want to get the payments under control but do you want this debt hanging round your neck forever?

Lally
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Dora_the_Explorer_5

You can't afford to spend anything in the pub whilst you have debts like these. If you want to be at the pub, get an evening job in a pub which will also help to pay off your debts and may be easier to find than a freelance programming job. You mention that you put your head in the sand. It might be a good idea to sit down and ask yourself why you do it and when you do it so it doesn't keep happening. Hope this helps.

d11wtq

Thanks

I do need the car unfortunately yes. I work for the council as a programmer writing a behaviour management system for schools. The car gets used to travel around to various schools in the area during the week. I don't need it every day though. Where I'm living right now I could technically walk to work in approx 30 mins but when I move to Salford I would need to get a bus... two buses actually I think. I should start doing that on the days I know I won't be using the car. Selling the car would instantly scream out that I'm having money problems to my parents and my dad is a big worrier who gets annoyed pretty quickly, he'd just end up putting more pressure on me. I'm 22 I know and it's not really their concern but that's hard to get through to them.

Once I move to salford, using a bus would prob cost me around £4 a day to get from salford to the City centre, and then from there to Didsbury and back. That's the Mega Bus prices these days (1 pound each trip). Hmm... actually you can get some sort of weekly ticket :rolleyes:

I'll call PayPlan and see what they can do for me too... from what I've been reading it sounds as though I can actually pay my creditors less than half I'm paying now and they'd find it very hard to take legal action too since I'd be showing that I'm being cooperative. Next month my rent would be 160 GBP a month which is a big drop... I'm still not 100% how much the council tax and bills will be yet though. I need an internet connection for my job too because I'm "expected" to do work in my own time... I doubt my boss would be keen to count this as "expenses" though.

EDIT | By the way I've considered the evening job in a bar. I used to work in a bar during the summer and quite enjoyed it... the problem is that the eages are so low (4.50/hour) and you only ever get approx 12 hours a week. Freelancing I've just given someone a quote for £700 with a 30% deposit of £210 for something that will take me approx 3 weeks of my spare time. He hasn't confirmed yet though. I also have another client who's assessing some of my past work before providing details for me to give him a quote. You're right about the unreliablity of freelancing though.

lynzpower

A word of advice, dont bother what your dad will say/do. If you have to make financial decisions that scream " Im skint" well, thats because you are, and not to do his head in.

Im from manchester and would say, those journeys seem like they might take a long while, so keeping a vehicle might be an option. Look on these pages there are people making small but real sacrifices, like walking instead of driving places, taking lunch in, value food, and very limited budgets.

Im intrigued about your job- could you use some of the principles of "behaviour management" to your own situation?

Taking on a part time job might not be a bad idea as well, if you can.
EDIT- i saw your edit, and the fact is, if they pay you 4.60 an hour for 12 hours, in a year thats an extra 2870.40 before tax.

d11wtq

lynzpower wrote:

A word of advice, dont bother what your dad will say/do. If you have to make financial decisions that scream " Im skint" well, thats because you are, and not to do his head in.

Im from manchester and would say, those journeys seem like they might take a long while, so keeping a vehicle might be an option. Look on these pages there are people making small but real sacrifices, like walking instead of driving places, taking lunch in, value food, and very limited budgets.

Im intrigued about your job- could you use some of the principles of "behaviour management" to your own situation?

Taking on a part time job might not be a bad idea as well, if you can.
EDIT- i saw your edit, and the fact is, if they pay you 4.60 an hour for 12 hours, in a year thats an extra 2870.40 before tax.

Yeah you're right about the buses. It would prob take around 90 mins in rush hour to make a 6 mile trip. That's all it is from Sally to Didsbury! I could even buy a bike and cycle that which would be healthy too... but then I'd have to buy a bike! Grr...

Yeah I wasn't saying I wouldn't do bar work because I would do, and would no doubt enjoy it depending where I worked... I was weighing up whether freelancing would pull in more cash

lynzpower

could you not do both? I mean the freelancing might not "come off" so its better to be earning more than not while you are waiting

lallyaya

Hiya,

Are you getting essential car users allowance and mileage? I'd find out about expenses, councils are notorious for trying to get out of paying these, I know as I work for a council! I think the first thing to do is to fill out the budget planner and put everything in! Then post it up here and we can see where we can save you money, put all your debts, outstanding balances, APR's, minimum payments the lot. Its amazing where it goes and how much you can save. Payplan will want to see a similar list of debts also. My outgoings are much higher than yours, all my expenses food, rent, glasses, petrol, tax, servicing etc comes to £745.50 - and thats with all the savings I made - although i'm still trying to squeeze more and def going to slash phone and petrol costs. But I still manage to go out, have fun and a good life while still chucking £600 a month at debt. Whilst I take home £200 per month more than you my rent alone is £140 more, I don't get to split my other bills either as I live alone.

A word of warning though, don't expect PayPlan to slash your outgoings to creditors too much, the creditors will want to see a statement of outgoings and if you want to pay them a small amount back leaving you with a lot of disposible cash your offers won't be accepted. You're expected to make sacrifices also... They only have to back down when its clear that you can't afford anymore, a court would not see £200 on going out as being co-operative when you're in the debt that you are.

You can do it and you will feel so much more in control.

Lally
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d11wtq

lynzpower wrote:

could you not do both? I mean the freelancing might not "come off" so its better to be earning more than not while you are waiting

Yes and No. The job I quoted 700 for would consume most of my free time, I'd miss the deadline if I had another job. However, if I already had the bar job I would have set a longer deadline

d11wtq

lallyaya wrote:

Are you getting essential car users allowance and mileage?

I'm not sure what this is :? I don't get my petrol expenses back from work generally because last time I mentioned it my boss essentially said that he himself doesn't even claim those!

With regards to going out I'm going to try and bring this down to £20 per week. I could put this into a "pot" at the start of month and if I spend it faster then it's my own tough luck :P See, this is all very easy to say but actually doing it is another thing! Hopefully talking openly about my situation here will be a big help

lallyaya

If you are expected to use your car for work you are def entitled to claim mileage for each mile driven for work, when I was at MCC it was about 40p per mile - all adds up. You may be entitled to car users allowance as well - this pays for the portion of your business insurance. Your manager is either an idiot or he is keeping you in the dark to keep his budget down! If they expect you to have broadband they should be paying for a portion of this at least. Also check with your local Tax Office as you are able to claim some tax breaks for use of your own car and working from home.

Also, do you have one fixed place of work? If so and they then send you to a different place for the day then you may be able to claim subsistence.

Check with your union rep, HR or else on the Intranet do a search for mileage etc and claim it - mileage can pay your petrol costs for the month even if its a fraction of your useage.