£28,000 debt,maternity leave and frightened!!!

pennies2pounds_3

Quote :
my partner earns £36,000 a year and i earn £15,000 but now im on maternity i only receive £100 a week, so as you can imagine were struggling! ive tried everything and really need help, especially now i have a baby, we know that we earn enough not to be in debt, but it's obviously too late, we no longer spend on things, all our cards have been cut up, and we have been this way for over a year, so where are we going wrong!!!


My wife is going to be on maternity from july end . Will she actually get £100 a week . I thought you had to pay tax , national insurance and pension out of the £108.35.
Am i correct?

mountainofdebt

goldrush1984 wrote:

thanks for the advice,

ok here goes!!

we have £10,500 remaining on alliance and leicester at 5.9% loan

credit cards!!
-barclaycard £2699.15 2.9% life of balance
-lloyds tsb £803.71 15.9%
-morgan stanley £2774.76 5.9% life of balance
-virgin 1 £1350 15.9%
-virgin 2 £4702 15.9%
-sky card £5722.00 0% till july
-texaco £2500 15.9%
-egg £1900 15.9%
-mint £2000 14%

but do you have any spare limits on your cards at the moment? The reason I ask is that it MAY be worth you finding out if there are any special offers on your account at the mo to try and temporarily reduce the interest rate.

Say for example that mint has a special offer on your account so that balance transfers are at 5.9% then I would transfer the balance to on of your other cards (BUT NOT BARCLAYCARD OR THE SKY CARD OR THE MORGAN STANLEY CARD) and then transfer as much as possible back to Mint so that the whole of the balance is only attracting interest at 5.9% instead of 14% - so you've reduced your interest rate by 8%.

The only problem I can think of at the mo is that you will probably incur a balance transfer fee (I'd stake money on Virgin and Mint charging an uncapped fee) and obviously you will have to take this into account when calculating to see if it beneficial to do it.

(BTW does anyone know if there is an online calculator to see the potential cost/saving of a BT with a fee?)

When is your anniversary month with Egg and when did you get it? The reason I ask is that you may have up to 5 months at 0% with no balance transfer fee akthough your balance prior to the start of the anniversary month should be nil so a little moving around may be required.

Obviously these ideas may decrease the amount of interest you have to pay but why not post your outgoings/income so that we suggest other ways of helping you to reduce your debt?

lallyaya

Hi,

Are you claiming Tax Credits? Check out http://www.entitledto.co.uk, as even on your combined full salarys you should be entitled to some child tax credits. If you are not claiming you can claim on line at https://www.hmrc.gov.uk.

Lally
-X-

kalfy1

pennies2pounds wrote:

Quote :

My wife is going to be on maternity from july end . Will she actually get £100 a week . I thought you had to pay tax , national insurance and pension out of the £108.35.
Am i correct?

The £108.35 is the actual amount which is paid whilst on maternity leave and ispaid for up to 26 weeks, alkthough I know this period of time will be chaing soon, so not sure exactly when. But deductions are made form that by way of national insurance and tax. Although becuase of the small amount in the first place, it will probably amount to take home £100 approx.

Hope this helps

nej

pennies2pounds wrote:

Quote :
My wife is going to be on maternity from july end . Will she actually get £100 a week . I thought you had to pay tax , national insurance and pension out of the £108.35.
Am i correct?

What we found so far is that whilst it is subject to tax/ni (plus deductions for dental insurance and pension in my wife's case), because she was paying tax based on her normal £25k income for part of the year, when it came to getting the £106 per week, the tax last month was actually a refund of about £5.

goldrush1984

WOW thanks for the response!!! been a great help

thanks for all the advce im going to try my hardest tonight to sort out the credit cards, will contact cc companies to arrange something, andfigure out the incurring charges. my highest limit os on lloyds tsb of £9,000 i could phone them up, ask what deals the do and try to throw part small cc amounts on that. as for the mortgage its only around £150. with 8 yrs 2 go but ive sent off the letter to claim the endowement , we were seriously mis sold we'll see what happens

with regards to the £106 weekly i dont pay tax onthat, and have had to get thatmoney from the benefits agency, not through work because i hadnt been there long enough, but i will check on working tax credits though, my parnters outgoing are at roughly £900 before getting his wages!!!!!

ive started my spending diary today so ill see how that goes, and will start doingmy food shop online and NO MORE TAKEAWAYS especially after having little ted!!

your support has been amazing, i will keep you all updated on my progress!!!
THANKYOU!!!!!