Help please

tesuhoha

Goku2010 has written a very long story on my thread What Caused Your Debt in The First Place. Hes a newcomer and I think he needs some expert advice urgently but im sure he wont want to write that all out again. Could some of you please advise him what to do. I'm not as good at it as some of you guys.Please could you give him your usual warm response.

mountainofdebt

Goku2010 wrote:

Hello all,

My first post and I have only recently discovered this site and forum. Pleased to meet you all!

My tale of debt begins as follows:

1. left uni in '99 with £9000 of student loans and £3300 overdraft. Took out a graduate loan from Barclays worth £6000 and paid off part of the OD taking it down to £1800. Still not sure why i didn't clear it all. Started a £21k IT job immediately after leaving uni and moved out of my mother's house. Also managed to get a couple of credit cards along the way. Also rented a house (unfurnished) for a year and had to furnish it and had the hassle of paying things like leccy bills and council tax for the first time. Needed help from mum almost each month to manage the bills once the loan payments had come out and I had lived my champagne lifestyle for the 2 weeks following pay.

2. Quit job after 2 years because they wanted me to relocate out of the UK. Didn't have a job to go to as I assumed I would take a month off, then quickly find work again. I had no savings and only had my final pay packet to live off of. It took my 5 months to find another job and during this time I saw the CAB about my debts and they gave me the usual advice, so I contacted everyone and told them to please hold off for a few months till I found work. Sure enough I started work again at £28k and was back on track with the payments. At this time I left the rented house and moved back in with mum.

3. Took out an RBOS credit card to consolidate 2 previous credit cards. Hehe, fell into the trap of not cancelling the old ones , maxed those out again.

4. At Xmas 2002, I decided to use end of year bonus to put a deposit on a new car ad a dealers, a hot hatch (but really not that hot) which swallowed fuel like I swallow water and was now paying £250 a month just for the car repayments along with all the rest of the loans and ccards. Also managed to put a major dent in the car within 48 hours of bringing it home from the dealers! :-(

5. Xmas 2003, traded in the car after a year for the same model, but new, and also ended up paying £350 a month for it. Ah, the new car smell suddenly seems so unimportant now.

6. Middle of 2004, still working, still paying off student loan, graduate loan, and perhaps 3 or 4 credit cards. Still have £1800 over draft, credit cards alone must add up to £6k. Eventually pay off graduate loan. Yay, happy. However, getting letters from credit card company and Barclays about my account performance and that I should contact them regarding. Sure enough I do, and end up with an £8k Barclaysloan with about 14% interest over 3 years. At this point I thought my credit rating would be so shot that I wouldn't get a loan anywhere, so I was 'thankful' to Barclays for giving me the loan. I also took out payment protection! :-( Loan was intended to cover the overdraft and credit cards. Paid off credit cards and cut them up, but still do not pay off £1800 od.

Ah, also applied for an Egg card on advice that it would positively affect my credit rating as opposed to having no credit cards. I thought I wouldn't get it and if I did i thought I wouldn't spend it. Not only did I get it they threw me a £7000 limit I also got £1500 on a Mint card. Jeez, I don't know how to stop myself.

Oh, just a little thing of getting married to girlfriend as well! Egg card helps pay for holidays and a small wedding as well as gadgets like a flatscreen TV and car insurance for the whole year.

7. Almost £1000 a month on loans and the car and card payments.. For some reason the rest of my pay packet just disappears on stuff. Manage to breeze through the latest credit cards in under 6 months.

8. 2005, at home with wife and mother :-O. Having problems saying no to the wife when it comes to buying things. Its not that she's demanding, but I obviously want to show her that despite the debt I can still look after her. Find out that wife is pregnant! Happy news and we start to plan on the future, namely moving out of my mother's house and into my own place. Also trade in 3 door hot hatch for 5 door conservative model. It wasn't new, but was from the dealers, on finance, and back to paying £250 (over 5 years). About our own place, I spend months trying to convince her we can't afford a place, even after doing the sums over, taking to account everything, possible mortage, council tax payments etc. Then eventually give in and apply for a 2 bed flat on shared ownership. Didn't think I'd get the mortgage but I did. After 2 months we get the flat in September 2005.

Here's the kicker, in April 2006, we have still not moved in! >:| The house broke me, almost £1000 just for the combined rent and mortgage, bills extra, plus the loans and car payment totalling almost another £1k. One snag, i take home just under £2000 a month without expenses or overtime. Something's gotta give.

Since the house, I was not able to meet the other commitments so in Dec 2005, desperate, but still trying to hold it together (considering I now have my own flat but can't furnish it to move in) I contact the CCCS. Consultation was in Jan 2006 and first payment to DMP started in Feb 06.

Barclays accepted the DMP, as did Egg and Mint, but car finance company (Blackhorse) did not, in fact, they passed my case onto another company (Close Assitance) to meet me last week to 'discuss' the account. CCCS warned me not to sign anything, i.e voluntary surrender of vehicle as I need the car for work. I didn't, but the only options presented to me by Close Assistance were pay the £1300 in arrears and resume full monthly payments of £250 a month for the remainer of the loan term (over 4 years left) or surrender the car to Blackhorse, they sell it, take the proceeds to pay off the loan (£13,000) and I can pay a minimal amount every month to clear off the rest of the amount however that may be. According to Close Assistance they may accept a lump sum in full and final payment even if it didn't clear the remaining balance.

So here I am, married, with a beautiful baby girl (and associated costs), and in debt to the tune of around £31,000, with a flat, but still living at mum's house. All before I turn 29! Sounds crazy, but its true. On the upside, the flat is almost ready to move in, its decorated, even has leather chairs (whoops they are on interest free for 1 year also from Blackhorse), I bought a fridge last month and had to order a washer dryer this month from Next Direct with my credit account. I may even be able to buy a bed this month and get us moved in.

Oh, but I will probably have to give up the car. CCCS advised me not to and to stick to my guns with Blackhorse, but at the risk of CCJs and Attachment of Earnings, and I really do not want my employers in my business so to speak. Its such a small company and word can get around. So I may just give up the car. Ideally I would love to have some kind of replacement car, even just a banger, but looks like we will have to do without for a long while.

Mum has been helpful, but pride stops me from accepting large sums of money from her just to get through each month. She's not rich, she's almost near retirement age and still has to support her son and his wife I also cannot bear to ask my brother for help since he has his own family, but is doing well for himself. Its one thing when I know I can pay him back as I lent a sum of money from him to buy the flat, but was able to pay it back once the purchase was completed. That was only due to a bit of cashback from the housing association the flat was bought/rented from.

Oh well, so there we go. I have made some big time financial messups, that is plain to see.

Sorry for the essay, its taken me all of 2 hours to post this. Anyway, I am hoping I can dig myself out of the mire I am in with the help of some good advice from this forum and its members. I still keep positive, after all I still have a family to support! [/qoute]

tesuhoha

Thanks mountainofdebt for doing that

oops_a_daisy

i have added this link http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=107280 for newbies to post their SOA - hope this helps

tesuhoha

You are all so kind

lynzpower

The OP needs really to stick up an SOA now, so as that we can really see what we can do to help

First off, from reading this chaps story, im gessing that he will have things he can sell ( babies grow SO fast!) and ebay, carbooting might be a good idea!

Goku2010

Hi all,

I just want to say a very belated thanks to everyone for the help I received on this forum last year! This post has been a long time coming, and apologies for the hit and run style of my original posts.

The past year has been quite busy what with the arrival of my beautiful daughter, and eventually moving into our flat.

For anyone interested, I'll give you a quick update on where we are.

I may have already covered this in my original posts, so please excuse some of the repitition. At the beginning of 2006 I eventually managed to start a DMP with the CCCS. I had some amazing help from a chap there called Chris.

Eventually all the debtors came into line, including Blackhorse who threatened to attempt to take the car I bought with a personal loan from them.

We moved into our flat June last year, after slowly furnishing it over a period of a couple of months. Things have been ok since then. I got a new job last year which allowed me to wind the DMP down from 15 to 9 years, assuming the debtors freeze the interest (CCCS assures me they will.

Its been pretty tight money wise, we have no savings at all, but all the bills get paid on time, and we aren't in arrears for anything (discounting of course the DMP), I've been able to feed and entertain the family. I also spent some time drastically cutting the mobile, internet and tv bills which has helped too.

We bought the flat on shared ownership last year, a big mistake now, as the area is not great, and in fact we have decided to move back in with my mother for a while. Now we've come to sell the flat its been valued at £5000 less than what we purchased it for, which is just peachy! I'm in the process of trying to at least get back what we paid for it, but we'll be glad to get out of there anyway. I'll then be able to put a bit more money into the DMP.

I'm also waiting to hear on whether I get a new job which pays more, if this happens, coupled with moving back in with the parents, we should have some decent disposable income to really start attacking the DMP.

For the past year I have been banking with HSBC, and using their Basic Bank Account which comes with a self service card. All this time i haven't been able to get a current account with a visa card due to the fact they credit check. I tried and failed with HSBC 3 times and eventually got my credit report, of course, all the defaults showed up, plus apparently I'm not on the electoral roll for my new flat. We eventually fixed that and I guess I will give it a couple of months after i've moved back in with the parents and try again.

So it has been tough without a visa delta card, having to take out cash for absolutely everything, and not even being able to go abroad for work effectively - the self service card only works in the UK -bless mum's soul she let me use her visa anytime I had to travel. Of course, even then I was still limited to withdrawing cash at ATM machines in the U.S.

So all in all, we are in a better position than a year ago, and I couldn't have got to where I am without the support CCCS and certainly without all of you in this forum, and especially those who took the time to post and give me advice and send me private messages.

My mental health is much better than it was a year ago, my wife is great and my daughter is doing just wonderful.

I'm hoping now that I am in a better position, I can be a more regular contributor to the forum and share any experiences I had and hope that they benefit someone.

So thanks to all!!

poorbutrich

That's great news! Thanks for the update and best of luck with the job!

scaredy_cat_2

hi well done, just came across this - good luck with everything

whatatwit

Welcome back Goku.