despairing....

Tashja

We also live in a retirement area and there are always adverts up in the post office, etc for elderly people needing someone to do their cleaning, shopping, pet walking, etc. Or how about if you advertise to do ironing in your area ???

What are health costs - dont you get free prescriptions ???

Even if you got a job in the hospital and it did close down at least you have been earning for the 2/3/4/5 months before it closes down - every little helps !!!

Good luck and I hope things work out for you soon

T xx

System

Inhell

Have you tried Payplan or CCCS?

Lenny

lynzpower

InHell wrote:

I can't as you need to be a registered carer (and due to location witha full car licence) as they are council owned residential homes (which are also going to be closed within the next four years to make way for 'warden' managed accomodation....)

No, thats not the case. You need to be registered for someone you care for to recieve benefits for it, not to work in a residential setting.

I work with paid carers daily,and i can tell you, yes you need to be CRBcleared ( your employer does this) but nothing else AFAIK.

Why would you need a full car license if you have a motorbike. Most of the carers I work with do the shopping for clients on the bus or on foot with a whellie trolley.

Bloke_with_a_simple_life

In Hell....

I feel pained reading about your situation. Just looked at your SOA, got a few questions...

1. Please break down that £250 Housekeeping figure in to some detail - explaining where that money actually goes. How much food, how much cleaning, where do you shop etc etc etc etc.

2. Pets - may seem harsh - but can you actually afford to keep them? I don't think so. If you have been told to spend max of £10 but hiding the costs else where - sorry, they cost you too much and are a luxury.

3. Life insurance / Pension for husband - please break this down in to both component parts. Life insurance is esential, but maybe you can get cover else where cheaper? Pension - might been seen as a "nice to have" at this monent given the financial stress you are in - or is it part of your husbands Terms of Emplyoment (ie. must contribute £x to get £y from the employer)

4. In general, can you get cheaper assurance/insurance elsewhere from other providers. Try the insurance info page at http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance

5. Electricity/Gas seems far too high. Try looking for an alternative supplier - again look here http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities Look to switch heating down, thermostats down have it on for less time each day etc.

6. You have not mentioned insurance for the bike / car or tax for these items. How are you paying for that? Under "travel expenses" - how much of this £100 is insurance, how much tax, how much petrol? How does your husband get to work? What is so bad with publich transport in your area, or walking a bit?

Good luck!

chevalier

Welcome to the boards. If you dh is a financial advisor then I am sure you have thought of all these, but it pays to restate them anyway.
1) Are you on the cheapest deal for your electric and gas. £50 for the electric sounds like alot to me. Perhaps you could go on one of these fixed cost plans where the cost of gas and electric are fixed for x number of years. That way you could plan a definite amount into your budget.

2) Is your life insurance the cheapest that you can get? Martin Lewis did a very good article on here about why going for the cheapest is the best in this situation. Might be worth a read.

3) Is it worth switching to an interest only mortgage for a couple of years, so that you have more money to throw at the debt? I know you said you are on a fixed regime, but your lender may be sympathetic if you explain.

4) Again not something that I would recommend usually, but is there any family member you could borrow some money off to throw at the debt? I know it is embarassing but better than maybe losing your house.

5) Have a look at the Old Style board. There are loads of ways of cleaning the house without buying cleaning products. Plus there are ways of cutting down on food shopping there.

6) I have become a convert to my local market, for vegetable buying. I often come home with a weeks vegetables and fruit from there for about £2.50 and that is for me plus hubby and 2 children. It would cost that much just for the fruit I buy at the supermarket. And have you switched to value brand or the cheapest brand of tinned stuff? This will cut down on the house keeping.

But the most important thing is to BELIEVE THAT THERE IS A WAY. I firmly believe that if you think it is hopeless then it will be. If you present to your creditors as confident and in control, they are much more likely to take you seriously than if you are wringing your hands.

And remember that you have each other and that is the most important thing.
Best of luck and I hope this helps
chev

tesuhoha

I note that your travelling expenses are £100 per month but if you walk to work and your husband cycles one way, how can that be? Even 16 miles per day would not cost what you are paying. How does the bike get home? Does he get a lift? Is he paying someone? How are you managing to spend £25 a week on travel expenses. Also it does sound harsh I know but as another poster said, I do think that the animals are costing you a lot of money you cant afford. If you lose your house, then you wont be able to keep them anyway. I think you should seriously consider rehoming them. Cancel the pet insurance and pay the money into a savings account, then at least youll have the interest and if you dont use the money, then itll still be yours. As others have pointed out, your electricity seems very very high. As you are in the country and like animals have you thought about keeping chickens and selling the eggs? Could you grow fruit and veg and put a board out on the roadside?

tesuhoha

Also have you thought of doing B & B if you have a spare room? As its near a marina I would have thought people would be looking for reasonable accomodation. I also think you could cut down on that household bill. Where do you do your shopping? I wish you all the best and good luck. Its a lot of debt for someone so young to have to cope with stay strong and youll get through it.

nadnad

InHell wrote:

Pot o'gold- I already work for the council and so does my husband. Most of the pubs only employ temp positions which the students snap up straight away. There are no cafes or restaurants where I live- I live near a marina so basically the only things here are boats and they are often from foreign countries so don't employ anyone locally.

My mother works for the NHS and she sends me the vacancy bulletins- difficulty is my NHS local hospital might be closing so even if I did find a job there it would be very unlikely to be secure.

I have been searching for a different job for well over a year- my last jhob before this one I had to travell 110 miles a day to get to it as thats how little jobs there are around here as where I live is basically a retirement area....

okay first of all surely a temp job in a pubs is better than working 2 hours a day. and if you went round all the pubs and left your name and told them you were willing to do anything my bet is that you'd get something.

Second of all so what if the NHS hospital might be closing if you had a job for a while it would be better than nothing.

Third, all the other suggestions about cleaning, ironing, home help whatever - all excellant suggestions but you don't seem keen - why not?

Fourth, you keep mentioned that you live in a rurual area and can't get about but then you mention you have a bike - surely this allows you to travel - so surely this widens you job search area to even 30 or 40 miles away at least.

I just am finding it very difficult to believe that theres absolutely NO jobs out there. In you situation you need to take what you can get, in fact you need to grab it, you can't afford to be picky and choosy, you can't find excuses such as temporary jobs or unsecure jobs - it doesnt matter, if the job was for 1 solitary day it would be better than nothing.

I'm sorry if I sound harsh but I can sense that you are depressed (understandably) and when you get into that mindset its very difficult to see the light, but you just have to pick yourself up, focus on your future and tell yourself that YOU can get yourself out of this mess - unfortunately you're going to have to work very hard to do so.

Please break down your living expenses further and your travel expenses and post how many animals you have. What are you qualified to do? and which area do you live in?

In_Search_Of_Me

Firstly big hug & well done for having teh courage to post. I hope you dont feel too despondent reading all of the above; remember that people on the whole are trying to help you - some just say it better than others but that does not mean that there intention to help is any less! Being relatively new to this I have found the simple things are the best! Keep a notebook of all you soend & tally them with receipts at the end of the month. That way you will also have a VERY clear picture of what you soend on what, down to the last penny. This will (certainly did in my case anyway!) also make you feel in control of your money, thus giving you a boost & in the long run enabling you to think more clearly...it is hard & you have to compleatly change the way you think & to a degree the way you live your life but it really is worth tackling it head on....the pets is a hard one & I know how hard this is. I had an almost hysterical conversation with my mum when I thought I would have to get rid of my 4 cats who I love to pieces. Fortunately I dont have to as can manage and there is no easy answer to this one...you dont say how many & what pets you have? I have just saved over £5 a month by changing from petplan to M&S cover if thats any help...am thinking of you & sending you a big hug... the only way is up from now on so hold on to that & just take it a day at a time, be honest with yourself & about your finances, do your utmost to get more work (only you know if you have done this!) & you'll find a way, with the help of ever so expert people here (not me tho, I'm crap with money which is how I managed to accrue over £34000 of debt in the first place!!)!

InHell

I am with M&S for pet insurance for one of my dogs- just waiting for the other policies to expire before I change the rest over..

Health costs are for opticians...

There aren't actually any positions available at the moment for me within the NHS (only highly specialist positions). Caring I would do but it is because they expect you to also to take the residents out and due to the location of shops, etc it would certainly mean taking a car...

The travelling is over 16 miles a day as that is just one way formy husband to get to work. Also, he has to travel for work quite frequently so he can't always cycle so we obviously have to pay fopr the petrol before he gets his travel expenses....

The life insurance is the cheapest we could find- and so is the home insurance- the life insurance was the one required by our mortgage company.

if we change mortgages we are liable for a £1500 penalty fee, which we can't afford and I doubt we would be able to get another mortgage anyway as the current provider was the only one who would accept us and that was only because it is over 30 years witha 10 year fixed rate with them...

I don't actually have an iron or ironing boar.

I thought our electricity was cheap- it was going to be £95 per month with british gas so we switched to swalec!

There aren't any family members that can help us either

As said previously we only have a one bedroomed terrace...

The animals would be ok if we were to lose our house as we could keep them at my parents or my in-laws house. I will NOT rehome them as they are the only thing which keeps me sane- without them I probably would of lost it a long time ago...

The £100 travel and housekeeping included insurance, servicing (which we try and do ourselves so its just parts), cleaning products, toiletries- everything really....

We already only have value products- hence only spending £10 per week on our grocery shop on the two of us (i.e. £5 each) We generally shop at Lidls as it is the nearest shop to us which we can walk to...

I am not qualified for anything- I only have 4 A-Levels and no experience.

One difficulty is that I can't actually ride my motorbike as I am too short for it- please don't bring this up, I feel bad enough about it as it is and I don't want to go into the situation now....

I am not picky at all about jobs- I appreciate it is hard to understand but in a town that only has 6,000 people and the nearest other town being well over 30 miles away I think you can start to see the problem- public transport is near non existant and very expensive...

The pension is part of my husbands employment unfortunately....

We are not allowed to keep chickens as we live in too close proximity to our nghbours (i.e. we live in a TINY terraced house with a miniscule yard)