Secured Loans - anyone own up?

Cantdance_2

(This is not about Martin's petition!);)

Well I've been reading this board for a couple of months now and not seen anyone talk about or even own up to having a secured loan.

Just wondering whether there are others of you out there like me that took what seemed like a last resort at a time when you didn't know about this site and places like the CCCS and if so, would you do it again?!

You'll notice I don't have a secured loan mentioned in my signature below and I guess therefore I'm kidding myself about our real levels of debt... this is because I'm trying hard enough to manage the unsecured borrowing that are listed below that I imagine that the secured borrowing is just part of the mortgage and therefore something to be worried about later.

We have a secured loan of £17,000 with First National which is a lot of money, but nowhere near the amount that we wanted to borrow at the time which would have reconsolidated all our unsecured borrowing but left us with 125% secured borrowing on the house.

I'd like to say that if they'd lent us that 125% then we would have paid everything off, been sensible and been better off, but I suspect that we would have paid everything off, then been short again and racked it all back up again, only this time we'd be in serious negative equity.

But I really really wish we'd found this site before taking out the secured loan. As much as I try and see it as a second mortgage, the interest rate is way higher and I'm pretty sure if we tried to pay it off with a lump sum down the line we'd end up being clobbered with thousands of pounds of penalty charges...

Anyone else want to own up?

James

lazy&indebt

Erm...I haven't but reading your signature - did you manage to sell your acr for more than yuo owed on the finance? Just a question cause I wish I'd never gotten my car on finance now!

magni

I very nearly applied for one:eek: . There seemed to be no other alternative. I posted a question about it on another site I use and someone kindly pointed me in this direction. I have since done a credit card shuffle instead. Now my debts are managable. It will be quite tight for about a year but then i'll start to see daylight. This is my 3rd month and I'm doing ok so far:D

tamtam10000

Yup, an evil Ocean Finance loan at stupid % interest with a whopping end-payment when I came to pay off my loan early.

I borrowed £15,000 and over 2 years paid back (inc. end payment) about £23,000.

...and 'no' I didn't know about this site at the time...

I wouldn't want anyone else to have to go through it, but it did get me out of a very sticky hole at the time.

blt

I've got one with First National too. There'as about £4000 outstanding on it but I'm focussing on my credit card and Next Directory accounts first. Then that one is going to get a right old kicking!:T

Donedoingdebt

I had one with First National as well. Not what I'd do now but it served it's purpose at the time. Luckily I managed to keep the monthly payments up to date until the end of the loan even when everything else was falling apart.

scottishspendaholic

Hi Cantdance,

I'm not sure of the ins and outs of it - but I know we borrowed more than our house was worth at the time we bought it - I think it was 125% and the worse thing is that this is over 30 years and we only moved in in September last year so its all paid off when I'm 55!

I am focussing on ALL the below - then will work on this secured loan and the mortgage - which we pay in one monthly payment and is easy just to think of as part of the mortgage.

This seems a bit too much to take in at the moment and even with all my new knowledge, I'm honestly not sure if I would change anything. I LOVE my house and we wouldn't have been able to move in (paid off more joint and personal debts, moving fees and more) without this borrowing.

I don't like to think about it so I think that my head is probably a tiny bit in the sand about this one - but my figures below seem enough to be getting on with and if it all becomes too overwhelming, I'd just give up...

scottishspendaholic x

wendym

Hi scottishspendaholic

Just had to let you know that my daughter cleared her student loan 2 weeks ago, got married and spent her honeymoon in New York!

She's not exactly debt free, but on an OK track.

scottishspendaholic

Hi wendym,

I would thank you if the button was there! Anyway - thank you for that - I feel terrible about it but can't deal with it just now. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel!

scottishspendaholic x

mountainofdebt

but inorder to buy our house 10 years ago we needed to borrow to pay off the negative equity we had in our former home.

(Basically bought at the top of the 1990's market and sold low....yes that's the way to lose money!)

However we considered it to be an investment as we got the house cheaply and since then we've been lucky in the fact that because of house price rises we have a mortgage for only 30% of the house's value.

wendym

Hi again scottishspendaholic

By the end of the week all they could afford to do was eat hot dogs and go for free walks in the park, but she got there and so will you.

Wendym x

Sorry everyone else, but the coincidence of ssaholic's sig was too much to ignore:

I also hope to save to get married and to go to New York in February 2010 (30th birthday)!