Advice needed, please help!

pinkpunto

Hi

Thanks for all your advice. I've just had a look through my spending and have noticed that Food actually totals up to about £100 per month and not £150 and I've also missed off Gas which is £39 per month.

I'm going to look into seeing if I can cut the cost of my Gas and Electric and also reducing my Sky and try and cut down my food bill.

I still think that remortgaging is still my only option to get my life back, and pay extra each month to reduce the time to pay it off rather than only paying off the minimum on the CCs. I need to look at remortgaging any way as I'm paying 6.5% APR.

I never want to be in this position again watching every penny, losing sleep, having panic attacks and I now have an eye condition which is caused through stress, which is due to my financial situation. My boyfriend's on his own now, he can have my emotional support, but not my financial support anymore.

I'm so glad I found this site and can actually talk about it and don't feel that I'm the only person in this position.

Thanks.

If anyone else has any advice, I would really appreciate it.

pinkpunto

jobbingmusician

Hmmm, I'm still not convinced that remortgaging is the best thing, and from reading these boards I would certainly ring CCCS or Payplan to see what they've got to say - at the end of the day you don't have to go with them, you'll just have extra information. I can see the attraction of 'having your life back', but my main reason for advising against it is that this board is full of people wishing that they hadn't taken out a consolidation loan

If you DO decide to remortgage having done all the research, make sure you are with the best mortgage company for your circumstances. If you become a complete mortgage tart and make sure you are ALWAYS on the lowest rate possible and repaying the maximum you can afford. I'm sure someone will be able to post you a link to a site which will do the maths for you and show you that remortgaging will cost you tens of thousands of pounds more over the next years in total if you just pay the regular repayments, but if you are really disciplined and always throw as much as you can at the payments, it could in theory cost you less.

muddled_midget

I just wanted to say well done for admitting to the extent of the problem, and for wanting to do something about it. And you must be a great girlfriend, cos as much as I love my boyfriend, there is no way I would wrack up £36,000 of debt supporting him while he wasn't working (unless he had a damn good reason for not having a job). I know you've said he's on his own now, and I think that's probably a wise decision in the circumstances, but is setting up his own business really the best way to go about solving his debt and paying you back? It's just that reading through the posts on here a number of people are self employed, yet do not seem to make any money from it. I'm just concerned that he's going to waste several more years of his life trying, getting further into debt and you're going to end up bailing him out again. If I was him I might put these plans on hold for a while, and get a proper job to start paying you back, as what he's done for you isn't really fair.
Just my thoughts
midget

Verbatim

Hi Pink Punto,

It is thought to be a bad thing to transfer unsecured debt (credit cards) to a debt secured on your house (mortgage). If you can't pay the former you can arrange to pay lower amounts over a longer period often with the interest frozen. With a mortgage the lender has the much better, (for them not you), option: they can repossess your house to sell it and repay the debt.

If you do remortgage think how you would cope if interest rates doubled,(unlikely but it has happened as those with mortgages in the late seventies and early 80s remember).

Also as others have commented the temptation to think "problem sorted" is strong and with it the feeling that it's OK to carry on spending as it's now within budget.

I wonder why your boyfriend can't make more of an effort to pay you back? Can he get a job? I realize you said that he wants to start his own business but many a debt has been run up that way and although Bill Gates and Dyson started out from their garages(?) many thousands of others did too and have nothing to show for it years down the line , except the aforementioned debts. A regular wage or salary takes some beating and perhaps he could start the business in his spare time.

Hope all this doesn't sound negative. Best of luck to you whatever you decide.