Any help gratefully recieved

underpressure_3

Evening people sorry to stick this problem on you and on only my 2nd post

Have always been fairly prudent until about 2 years ago when my girlfriend of 5 years cheated on me (loved her to bits). i ended up moving out of my flat and leaving her in ,hoping for a reconcilliation and rented a 2nd flat. a couple months passed she rang up begging for another chance which foolishy i gave her. i ended up lending her £2k to pay off her debts she had ran off,only for 3 months later her to run off with my best mate.
i was devastated and went on what can only be described as a 12 month bender taking out a £12 k loan to buy fast cars,holidays and nights out on the town.however money started getting tight so i moved back in with my parents,and foolishy with the money i saved on rent spent on cars and nights out on the p~ss.
Have met a lovely girl who has settled me down (doesnt know how much i owe though) and have finally sarted to sort my finances out canceling all non essentials,selling my fast car after 2 years of pretending i had no debt.

so at the moment i owe

bank loan £10995
and nearly £8k on credit cards (paying £200 a month interest on)

i also have 2 other cards which i got for %0 interst transfers
the problem is what to do now?luckily i have never missed a payment so have been offered a £2000 loan at £400 a month over 5 years or is it best to take another route?

sorry to bother you with all this but lately i feel i am under so much stress with this it is crushing me and i have kept it all to myself, although finding out that other people are in the same boat of me has helped.

Any way thanks for any replies and good luck with sorting your own problems people :beer:

CLAPTON

You have just made the first most vital step in recognising the problem and posting here
You need to post more complete discription of your situation before people can offer proper advice.

So can you post a Statement of Affairs SoA
If you browse the bulletin board you will see examples but the general format is

: statement of income:

: statement of expenditure
this should be quite detailed but excluding debt repayment
: a subtotal to save us all having to add it up

: statement of all debts including
outstanding amount, monthly repayment , APR
a subtotal to save us having to add it up

underpressure_3

At the moment i take home around £1400 a month

Rent £130 a month
abbey loan £373 a month (7.9apr)
rmint cc £99 a month (16.9apr)
egg cc £99 a month (15.9apr)
car insurance£60 a month
Fuel £100 a month
food £80 a month
so nearly a £1000 a month before i get to touch any cash :eek:

skintchick

No bills? What about council tax, water, gas, leccy, car tax, car servicing/repairs, going out, etc??
And HOW MUCH is your car insurance!!!!! Eeek! I guess you are young?

We need to know ALL the gory details really, but here's something you can try:

https://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

Stick your debts in that and it works out which to pay off first! Genius.

If you don;t have other bills then I reckon you can pay it all off relatively quickly.

CLAPTON

I'm sorry if this seems pendantic but there is reason in the madness.

The SoA format I suggested is necessary because it would show
a. your income ....which is ok
b. your expenses without the debt monthly repayment

hence by subtracting monthly spend from income, one can see how much there is to pay off the debts

c. then the debts with debt, repayment and APR .


Its also very important that your expense are fully written down so e.g. you have made no allowance for car tax&MOT&serving, other travel , lunches at work, any dental or optician costs, going out. etc.etc....I know it seems very detailed but without it, its not possible to see the way forward

skintchick

I agree with Clapton.

Have you done the budget planner at the top of the page? It helps you remember all those costs we forget cos they arent' monthly, and then adds it all up for you!

Give it a go.

underpressure_3

Income £1400 a month


Expenditure
Rent £130 a month
car insurance£60 a month
Fuel/running costs £140 a month
food £80 a month

Total £410

Debts
abbey loan(£10995) £373 a month (7.9apr)
rmint cc (£4000) £99 a month (16.9apr)
egg cc £(4000) £99a month (15.9apr)

Total £571

Is that the layout for the soa,am new to this so still learning

Back living with folks now thats how my rent is so low and have no other axpenses like council tax etc.

CLAPTON

Yes much clearer but can you add (you can edit you post so every thing is still together)

a. add in the debt section the size of the debt so it goes
...debt, montly repayment , APR
and the total debt so it reads.......total debt, total monly repayments


Your monthly expenses must include everything you spend ...so if you have yearly cost divide by 12 and add them in, similarly quarterly costs should be divided by 4 and added in to a complete picture can be gained

At the moment it looks like income is 1,400, expenses are 410, debt repayment is 571 so you have £419 to spend as you like...this makes you appear rich but i guess this isnt correct.

Chortle_2

CLAPTON wrote:

Your monthly expenses must include everything you spend ...so if you have yearly cost divide by 12 and add them in, similarly quarterly costs should be divided by 4 and added in to a complete picture can be gained

sorry for being pedantic, but a quarter is 3 months long, not 4.

underpressure - use Martin's budget planner, it should work a lot of the 'odd' bits we all forget out for you

underpressure_3

Chortle wrote:

sorry for being pedantic, but a quarter is 3 months long, not 4.

underpressure - use Martin's budget planner, it should work a lot of the 'odd' bits we all forget out for you

Cheers will give it a whirl. I have only just moved back in with the folks so thats how i have no other expenses like council tax etc. But you can imagine how tight things were when i was paying £400 a month rent it left me with nothing to live on . Have also cancelled sky tv (£35 a month) and mobile contract(£35) a month

My main fears are those credit cards i am paying , £200 a month and thats mostly interest :embarasse

Thanks again for all who have posted

fairylights_2

underpressure wrote:

i also have 2 other cards which i got for %0 interst transfers

Hey underpressure

Does this mean you have two cards at 0% with nothing on them at present? What are their limits? I'd transfer as much as you possibly can from the bad interest cards to them. That's if I've understood you correctly. Also, is that loan for £20k or £2k? Might be me misreading it ...

Essentially the loan's probably not the best idea. If you can manage to pay this debt down without it, then do it. It might make you feel richer, but you're still going to be paying a lot more interest than you do on your current loan or on two potentially 0% cards.

One last thought - are you paying ppi on those cards? That might not help matters if you are ... between the ppi and interest this time last year OH's card minimum payment was only covering about £3 of his actual balance.