Help Please!

Quincifer

Hi all,
It's been ages since I've been on here but I am back and unfortunately it's because I need some help!

Basically I lost my job 31st March, knew it was going to happen since the New Year and have been applying for jobs steadily since January (50+ applications now so far). As yet I haven't had single interview which is tearing me apart and god knows when I will get something.
Anyway, I live on my own so have rent and bills to pay, along with a nice sized loan and I'm almost at breaking point.

Can anyone give me any help on how to get some money???!!!

I am getting £200ish a month in JSA and £200ish a month in Housing Benefit (I would get £400 a month in Housing, except I am 24 and you have to be 25 to get the full amount, effing ridiculous!) so £400 is my income at the moment, and I am exempt from Council Tax while I'm unemployed.

I managed to get my landlord to halve my rent for the next few months so that is only £175 at the moment (thank god) so that added to water/electricity/tv licence/contents insurance/phone/internet is just about covered by my £400.
Only thing is, my loan. It sets me back £135 a month and I have no idea how I am going to cover it.

I don't have anyone I can borrow the money off. I have already rung everyone to see if I can lower my bills or postpone payments (to no avail). I have nothing I can think of that I can sell. Anyone have any ideas?

If anyone can think of where I might get emergency money, ideas of things to sell, ANY IDEAS AT ALL then I would be grateful.

I don't want to lose my flat!
xxx

angelicmary85

http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Hiya,

Fill out your SOA with your up to date details and we'll see if we can help x

angelicmary85

Oh, and there's a thread called 'things you'd never thought you could sell' which could prove benefical to you!!

10past6

Borrowing your way out of debt is never a good idea no matter how tempting, amend and send the following letter to your creditors:

Dear Sir/Madam

Re Account No/Reference No:− xxxxxxx

Since making that above agreement with you, my circumstances have changed.

I cannot now afford to agreed monthly payments because ... [your paragraph added here]

I enclose a Personal Budget sheet which shows my total income from all sources, and the total outgoings of our household.

As you can see I have no money left to make offers of payment to my creditors.

In view of my circumstances, would you please accept no payment at present to be reviewed in six months.

If interest or other charges are being added to the account, I would be grateful if you would freeze these so my debt does not increase.

Should my circumstances improve I will contact you again.

Thank you for your assistance. I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

Yours faithfully

whitewing

Sounds daft, but a paper round would get you out of the flat, wouldn't affect your availability for jobs.

I know of someone who has a weekly round (ie a weekly paper) and gets about £9.

Don't know how it would affect benefits but at least you'd be able to eat.

Fire_Fox

Quincifer wrote: »

Basically I lost my job 31st March, knew it was going to happen since the New Year and have been applying for jobs steadily since January (50+ applications now so far). As yet I haven't had single interview which is tearing me apart and god knows when I will get something.
Anyway, I live on my own so have rent and bills to pay, along with a nice sized loan and I'm almost at breaking point.

I don't want to lose my flat!
xxx

Why are you thinking of paying the loan at the expense of your rent?

If you are not getting interviews from 50 applications, it probably means your CV and covering letter/ additional information section needs brushing up. Do you have any friends or relatives who know about the interviewing process? Or is there a charitable organisation locally who can help with design and wording?

firesidemaid

just a couple of pointers.

are you trying for any jobs or for certain ones? ie. have you tried just walking into mcdonalds, tescos, asda etc etc?

also, re job applications (sorry if i am preaching to the converted here) - each job generally has a person specification and a job specification. you will be selected for interview based on how well you meet those criteria. in this current climate you will need to meet them all and add more.

also, have you thought about doing voluntary work - go to your local centre, animal charity, charity shop etc. not only will it get you out of the house, it will add to your cv and you never know what job opportunities will appear because of it.

are you sure re. the housing benefit - have just checked entitled to (age 24) and it says you should get the whole amount - ask again?

DawnW

you need to prioritise certain outgoings over others. Your rent is the most important as you need to keep a roof over your head, and this should take priority over loans and credit cards. You say that you 'don't have to pay council tax' at the moment - is this official, ie is it being paid for you by benefits etc? You need to double check this because council tax is another priority debt, and if it is not being paid via benefit (which it may well be), you will need to sort this out. Other important bills are gas and electricity and water rates. Unsecured debt comes bottom of the priority list, not top.

Your LL won't be able to accept reduced rent payments indefinitely, and TBH I am surprised that he or she agreed to this. I suggest you reinstate your rent payments, as getting evicted will be an added stress that you can do without.

Do contact one of the debt charities such as CCCS for advice in the first instance, and doing a SOA as someone above has suggested is a good starting point, as CCCS will ask for this. It will also lessen the feeling of powerlessness, as you will be taking additional positive action, however small it seems, to alleviate your situation. And keep posting on here for moral support and advice.

I do sympathise and totally agree that the rule that allows under 25s less benefits than over 25s is ridiculous. The age of majority is 18, not 25.

Good luck with your job hunt, you seem to be making a lot of effort.

Quincifer

Hey,

Right in reply to some of your questions/queries -

• My council tax is being paid by the council at the moment due to me being on JSA and Housing Benefit, they have written me a letter to confirm this and I have had an altered council tax bill through confirming it so that is out of the equation for now.
• I wrote to my landlord explaining my situation, including how much I am entitled to in benefits and how this will affect my outgoings etc and he agreed to halve my rent for May/June/July, after this he is raising it again to the full amount. He has agreed this with me because I have been a tenant of his for almost 4 years and never missed a payment or cost him a single penny in repairs other than the normal call-outs (leaky pipes etc). I told him that if I cannot find a job within this time then I only have myself to blame and he has every right to evict me and he agreed. I got advised by the council to ask him because I had nothing to lose, so at the moment re-instating it to the full amount would only mean me having to move out right now as I cannot afford it.
• The amount of Housing Benefit I am entitled to (being 24) is £48 per week/£192 per month. This is because being under 25 means I am only entitled to the Shared Room Rate and not 1 Bedroom Rate (Basically the assumption that I should be sharing with someone else and therefore not have as much rent to pay). This, along with my JSA of £50.95 per week/£203.80 per month gives me £395.80 per month income.
• My rent at the moment is £175 (for the next 3 months payments), as I said I am exempt from Council Tax due to the above and I then have electricity (approx £40), water (approx £15), tv licence (approx £35 quarterly), contents insurance (approx £12), telephone (£18), internet (£10) and my mobile phone (£40). I have rung all the utility companies already to try to postpone/lower my payments and all of them have said no. Basically, you have to get in debt to them first before they can sort something out!! (seems silly to me when I am already aware of my situation)
• I know someone will ask about my mobile bill, basically I have it high because my family live abroad so I have an international call tarriff added on, plus my partner lives in scotland so I have unlimited texts so I can keep in contact with him too.
• So add the above to £135 for my loan and that is more than I have coming in, before food and money I will need to get to interviews etc.

This isn't a lightbulb moment, I have had that before and have already taken the action to sort out and pay my debt and everything so I don't think digging out all my bills etc to work out interest rates and do an SOA is what I need right now.
I just really want some advice on what I can do/sell/etc to get a bit of money in now to cover things. The council are dragging their feet with my Housing Benefit and I don't know when they will be paying it to me, so I don't think I'll be covered for my next loan payment - thats why I need some advice.

Sorry, I don't think I explained it well last time so hopefully this makes a little more sense.

Thanks everyone for all the advice so far!

Oh and Angelicmary85, where is that thread? I could do with some selling ideas!

xxx

Quincifer

Oh and P.S.....

I have an interview on thursday for a local job, full-time with a good salary so fingers crossed for me!!!

lopacka

just a thougt but if you just pay 50% of your rent ,, and you get housing benefit for 100% ,, be carefull or you have an overpayment in housing benefit for 3 month :-))