My debts - in need of good solid advice plz..

shaun-in-debt

Hi everyone - this seems like an excellent resource. Like most here we are struggling big time.

First up, 2.5 years ago my wife had our first daughter. We knew things would be tight so we cut back on lots of things but we were always about £200 a month short of meeting our bills etc so we ended up taking a bit off of the credit cards most months. I tried many money making ventures on the internet, some with success others with none, and ended up costing me! Some were making about £800 a month but I got greedy and ploughed it all back into them - turns out in the end I got majorly scammed as most of these sites closed and took my money as well as many others. I've tried for years now to work for myself, be self employed and provide for my family. last year I became a self-employed taxi driver - well it's a start.. :rolleyes:

My wife found a part time job and was just about to start but then she had a second child 2 weeks ago!

Any way to cut a long story short, i'm no further forward, and the taxi income was only HALF that of my previous self employed job, so last year I ended up maxxing loads of credit cards and overdrafts, Im so ashamed to say.

I have a credit card with halifax £6000 owing
I have a credit card with tsb £10,000 owing
I have an overdraft at tsb £1500 owing
I have now gotten an overdraft at hsbc at £2500 (MY LIMIT IS £1500)
I have got a 'further education loan' for a computing course I never even completed with computeach - the payments start in May £4000 owing.

Finally my mortgage is £96,000 value of house is £115,000

My debts (not including mortgage) is: £24,000

My total outgoings are at £1907
My income varies wildly...
The shifts are 12 hours and I can earn between £300-ish and £400-ish a week.

So working hard I can usually "manage" about £1600 on top, and I take out about 20% for tax, so thats roughly £1300 in 'usable wages'

At the moment we get some benefits, child tax credit and working tax credit - the child tax credit, fair enough we will keep with the 2 kids but the working tax credit is only here because we told the tax office my income was extremely lower than expected for the past 10 months - I know that I will lose the working tax credit when my income increases again - talk about catch 22 !!

Basically being self employed has cost me much more than I thought, but finding a job which pays enough to meet even my bills is very hard.

Weve cut back on loads of stuff.
Weve put our house up for sale, in the hope that a sale can release about £20,000 - we would aim to keep back £5000 for a deposit on a new house in a year, and then rent for a year, while paying off £15,000 of debts.

Sounds good, if the house would sell!

Anyway we had a financial advisor involved and after 3 months he turned round and said he could not help us simply because i have not been self employed for long enough (10 months), and nobody would give us a remortgage .

So, right now Im struggling like mad JUST to pay the bills.

Im only paying £1 a month to the creditors at the moment but I was on 6 month agreements with them all and that would be that

because my overdraft is £1500 OVER the agreed overdraft limit, I have to try and get that down within 2 weeks - because in 2 weeks all my bils will try and come out of my account again, like this month, but then will get returned as unpaid, and I will get charged again like this month

Im on a very slippery slope, and running as fast as I can. I feel like no matter how hard I try I dont sem to be gettin anywhere.
To top it off I have just had forms through to renew my taxi licence before end of april - £300 and I have to get my car tested - I have no means to find this money, so Im at my wits end..
good job the jobs paper comes tomorrow.

Im seriously thinking of a return to employed status because I will then get paid holidays, and I will be able to get remortgages after 3 months.

Non-one looks after the self employed!

Can anyone help? (£40,000 loan would be nice )

I thought, I know knuckle right down, and work 6-7 days a week at 12 hours... I dont want to but I tried hard yesterday and had a staggering great day - earned £167.. then guess what.. someone broke into my car overnight, stole my mobile phone (DOH! - I never normally leave it in there) - lost me a days wage AND cost me £50 excess on my insurance..

talking of insurance.. mine is £280 a MONTH for the taxi - should be much cheaper next year but Im thinking of not going back to taxi work - its costing me too much so far this year..

Im sure ive got much more I can add.. I will be really brave here and post below all of my outgoings and income for all and sundry to see..
THANKS

SHAUN and family!


OUTGOINGS:

T.V. LICENSE 10.49

julies pension (was about £54/month) 0

Life Insurance (£300,000) Tesco 28


Finsure DD house insurance / direct line? 17.99
Mansfield DC 91
sky 0
sky tv rental and internet 15
Severn Trent Water 17.65
Scottish Power PLC 87.5
mortgage 553
julies car insurance (Nissan Micra) 23.5
BURGESS Sickness & Unemployment MORTGAGE protection 18.4
Vodafone LTD 30
car shaun (to be paid until 14th April 2010) 212
car insurance shaun 262.5
NTL Telephone, + caller display at £1/month 11.5
Talk24 £15/month 15
Internet £18/month 18

SUMMARY OF DIRECT-DEBIT'S 1411.53

Sundries/Emergency 30
Clothing/Essentials 40
Car Taxes/maintenance 60
RE-INSTATE NEXT JANUARY 2006 AT £20/MONTH 0
Paper Bill 1.6
Druids dental care plans for both parents 16
Christmas (30) 0
Birthdays (30) 0
Haircuts*3 15
Petrol 20
Food (£320 normally) 260
CCard payments £300 (£90/m - halifax £5/m TSB until Aug -ish) 0
Savings (100 + 100 + 100 for 3 below) 0
General spend (To avoid C/C Spending) 0
Savings to lauren's account (Wedding etc) 0
SUMMARY OF OTHER ITEMS 442.6



TOTAL OUTGOINGS 1854.13


INCOME
Wages Shaun 1400
Wages Julie 0
Child tax credit 180
Working Tax Credit 135

child benefit (CHECK WE ARE GETTING THIS AS WELL AS CHILD TAX CREDIT!!!!!) 68
SUMMARY OF INCOME(MONTHLY) 1783

Total outgoings are: 1854.13
Less, total income: 1783
Gives a total monthly deficit of: 71.13
or a weekly deficit of 17.7825
so, to break even I need to take home, per week:- 367.7825
the tax, roughly 20% of this is: 73.5565
so, all in all I need a top line weekly take home amount of: 441.339
if I worked only 4 days a week, I need to make, per day: 110.33475
if I work 5 days a week, I need to make per day: 88.2678
if I work 6 days a week, I need to make per day: 73.5565
if I work 7 days a week, I need to make, per day: 63.04842857



As you can see, Ive also got a deficit of £71 a month and Im not even paying my creditors any real money yet, so Ive got the stress and worry of trying to find tis extra money just to stay afloat.

Well Ive given you everything here!

Thanks
Shaun

Ali-OK

Hi Shaun

I hope someone experienced reads your post and can offer you some advice. I'm a newbie here myself.

You've come to the right place - hang around - sure someone will come up trumps with some guidance.

Ali

bigdec

you have come to the right place for advice by people who have been there as well
and it does get better

shaun-in-debt

ok I just 'thanked' you for your kind words... I look forward to some pearly words....

MrsTinks

Wow what a lot of information! I'll have a quick stab but I'll need all my brain power to go through that properly tomorrow sorry

Finsure DD house insurance / direct line? 17.99
Mansfield DC 91
sky 0
sky tv rental and internet 15
Severn Trent Water 17.65
Scottish Power PLC 87.5
mortgage 553
julies car insurance (Nissan Micra) 23.5
BURGESS Sickness & Unemployment MORTGAGE protection 18.4
Vodafone LTD 30
car shaun (to be paid until 14th April 2010) 212
car insurance shaun 262.5
NTL Telephone, + caller display at £1/month 11.5
Talk24 £15/month 15
Internet £18/month 18

Have you tried finding out if places like Uswitch I think it is can get you better quotes than you have already? £262 is a lot for car insurance I know you said this is a Taxi and therefor it's a commercial vehicle but that still seems high to me? Someone else might be able to help more there...

Quick suggestions (I'll try to d better tomorrow) but is it possible for your wife to get a job, maybe part time? Could the children spend that time with grandparents to save on money? Tell your OH to have a look on the Old Style board and suggest looking at frugal websites I's amazing what people have managed to live on foodwise (I think some have got it as low as £2-3 a week per person...

Basically I think the long and short of it is this: You have a shortfall between your income and your outgoing. There are two ways of solving it: Increase income or reduce outgoings. Or even better= both!

I would recommend calling CCCS or CAP and speaking to them and explain what is going on and see what advice they can offer.

As I say that's all can think off tonight but chin up - hug your children and your wife and although the money problems have to be addressed then you still have your family

T

kathfisch

Shaun, I'm afraid I can't think of too much advice at this time of night either

I would say, though, well done for posting so much detail! It takes guts to get all the figures down and look at them in black and white, let alone post them here!

I would say that if you can get an employee (rather than self employed) job you would at least have the benefit of a stable monthly wage, and then maybe overtime on top. It depends though what you do and how much you could hope to earn? Like you say, then you would get holidays, sick pay etc. With a regular income coming in you would at least know what you were dealing with and would be able to budget for regular payments to creditors (even if its just a bit) and hopefully avoid defaults etc in the future.

I'm sure people will be along, if not tonight then tomorrow, with lots of helpful suggestions!

Best of luck

Kath

southernscouser

Wow! Thats a beast of a post! :beer: :rotfl:

Firstly the job situation needs sorting one way or another. Perhaps for the short time a full-time job may be on the cards. You really need to know what you are going to regularly be bringing in.

Regarding the remortgage I'd be amazed if you are accepted even in a year. If you having been keeping up with payments you are going to be issued with defaults which will basically make it near impossible to obtain credit for the next 6 years!

My advice would be to contact The CCCS or Payplan. Links at the top of this site. A debt management plan may be the way forward for you!

CLAPTON

just trying to understand the costs of running the taxi business
you have :
shauns car 212
shauns insurance 262
but I can't see petrol ?
MOT/tax/ serving?
any other taxi related costs (do you need a taxi license?)
how do people call you...any costs?

oops_a_daisy

Hi and welcome - Im a newbie here too but some of the things I have done to save money are as follows

1. Phoned mortgage company to see if they could put me on a better rate - saving will be £71.00 per month. Staying with same company.
2. Buildings and contents insurance - couldnt better the ones that I already have but switched to companies that matched what I was paying and gave me cash back to switch - £110.00 cashback earned. Barclays and Post Office are offering cashback at present
3. Gas and Electric - followed the links from this site £146.50 saving per year
4. Phone, Broadband and cable TV - all on NTL currently and changing to digital with NTL will be a 3.50 per month saving.
5. Currently spending half the amount I used to on shopping by budgeting and meal planning
6. To try to save water I have got some free space filler bags that go into the cistern to save 1 gallon of water every time we flush the loo - silly but Im on a meter so every little helps

Im sure other more experienced MSE'ers will get in touch soon with more advice on your debts

good luck

fairylights_2

My first and only thought (for tonight at least) is that your child benefit should go up. We have two tinies and get £113.60 every four weeks for them both. Also child tax credit should jump because you get an automatic baby entitlement (I think) of £545 in the first year - so essentially £40 every four weeks. You just need to get the paperwork done to claim those. Ring them both in the morning and tell them about new baby (congrats by the way) and they should sort it for you.

Will try to have a look tomorrow to see if anything else occurs to me,

Night!

fairylights_2

See? You got me thinking about your budget, and I can't switch off!

shaun-in-debt wrote:

sky tv rental and internet 15
NTL Telephone, + caller display at £1/month 11.5
Talk24 £15/month 15
Internet £18/month 18
Vodafone LTD 30

£89.50 a month seems a lot for telecoms - can you cut something down? two lots of internet, for example?

Scottish Power PLC 87.5

Also seems scary high - check this out!

Paper Bill 1.6

you're going to have to go to the library and read these for free!

Haircuts*3 15

can you cut back on these too? I get mine cut about once every three months (I'm a girl, so it probably helps) but OH gets done at the barbers for less than a tenner every couple of months, and fairylights junior is having his six monthly shearing tomorrow (if we can bribe him to sit still!)

Food (£320 normally) 260

Go to the old style forum on this site for ideas of how to cut back. We spend less than £180 per month - also try to avoid ready made baby foods and formula as they're hideously expensive - as are disposable nappies in the long run.

Cutting some of these will sort your deficit at least. Now I'm going to try to go to bed!