My SOA - Need extra money to pay outst bills this month :(

thecornflake

Hi,

I've been lurking around here for a while now but haven't really posted my situation. I've alreayd learnt some great money savign tips and so far I've worked out I could save around £900/year which is great.

So anyway, here is my SOA -

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Credit Cards
Egg 6500 currently min payment est 130/month
MBNA 300 unknown min payment
Mint 4500 currently 92 min payment

All 3 at limit, except Mint but card was cancelled.

Unsecured Loan
Northern Rock 123/month est 10k bal 6.5%

Secured loans
Mortgage 98k 506/month 2 yr fixed rate
Black Horse 17500 bal, 245/month
GE 67/month bal 3000 10yrs
GE 45/month bal 3500

Total other bills est 400/month

Petrol/food 350/month

Currently monthly situation -91/month

Outstanding this month (late bills etc) - 869

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Due to a mixture of not being able to pay and royal Mail not delivering half my post for the last two weeks I currently have £869 worth of bills to pay NOW in addition to my usual outgoings. I also have an extra £506 but this was a mortgage payment that the bank messed up and didn't take due to a technical error, so I should be able to arrnage a pyament plan with them for that.

I'm fairly clued up on how most things work like snowballing credit card debt and using 0% transfers but all of my cards are at their limits or cancelled. i recently took out the Black Horse laon to consolidate which lowered my monthly payments but I'm still in the red each month. I paid £5000 off the MBNA card but then got a letter saying that due to information from credit agencies they have reduced my limit to £300 (the amount left on the card). Therefore I assume I won't be able to get another card at the moment from anywhere.

I'm looking around the house for things to sell as my 1st priority is to get the immediate outstanding bills paid. Other than this I'm not sure what to do, so any advice would be great.

I don't want to get an IVA as we are trying to sell our house at the moment and I'm worried about them taking the profit from that or affecting our mortgage if we tried to transfer it.

I have looked at Payplan and think that a debt management plan from them could help but that is a last resort really.

I do have £2 in my £2 coin savings though!

I am also in the process of taking several companies to court over unlawful charges. Natwest owe me at leats £10,000 for the last 6 years although i will probably limit the claim to £5,000 so it stays in the small claims court.

I intend to change from my Natwest Adv Gold account (£10/month for nothing and I hate them anyway) to Conventry's first account. This would save me £18 on every failed DD charge for starters.

Anyway, as I said any advice would be most welcome and I'll update the missing info on my SOA when I get a spare moment.

CLAPTON

what are your family circumstances i.e. partner children etc?

what is your income?

how much is the mortgage and what is the house worth?

you say you are selling the house? what will you do then, rent or buy again ?

lynzpower

If you have been charged for failed DDs and going over your overdraft, you do know you can claim this back dont you?

https://www.consumeractiongroup.com

thecornflake

I think I stated in my post that I am in the process of claiming back bank charges. This will however take a little while.

Yes I am married with 1 child (3 years old).

Income is around £1900/month. My wfie does works Saturdays but her eincome is kept separate as she has various arrangements with family to do with carers allowance, child benefit etc. Basically she breask even every month so her income can't really go towards anything else.

Mortgage is 98k. House value from estate agents is around 130k.

The selling thing is a bit complicated but basically we may have an option soon to move into a house where we would only be paying bills and a little rent, which would become our house after a couple of years. This is a private arrangement with family and very complicated but the bottom line is we could then either sell our flat or rent it out. That's a little while away yet, probably abotu 6 months and it isn't definite.

We need a 2-bed house/flat but can't afford to move up the ladder as it wer eunless we move out of the overpriced are we live in, which we can't do at the moment (again because of complicated family stuff).

I still want to put it on the market anyway just in case somewhere affordable comes up and I'll be in a better position to offer.

So far I'm up to about £35 of my £1375 by selling mobiles online. Royal Mail owe me a £28 refund for undelivered mail, and I have £7.02 to withdraw from my Ciao account (paid surveys). Also if I change my breakdown cover to the supplier I was thinking about anyway I can get £10 cashback on linemypocket.

Much as it's very stressful I do enjoy a challenge!

CLAPTON

to summarise i make the situation
income 1900
spend 750
debt paymt 863

giving a monthly shortfall of about £90

if you would like to give a detailed breakdown of the £750 maybe people here could suggest ways of reducing the spend

can you increase your income ...overtime or second job or could your wife increase her income?

if, and i say if with some reservations, your monthly shortfall is 'only' 90 then it should be possible to reduce spending and/or increase income to close this gap. To consider an IVA or DMP would seem to be unnecessary unless the true shortfall is actually much larger.

if your flat is worth 130k then your total of mortgage and secured loans are 122k. if you cannot close the monthly shortfall in other ways then selling and renting would seem the best solution. although this would still leave you owing 21,000 you would have more spare income to pay it off.
Unless you can rent your flat for at least 863 per month it would be better to sell and clear the debts.

thecornflake

Electric - 35
Water - 17.28
Council Tax - 98
Gas - 65 (Yes i know I've already switched but i don;t know the new bill)
BT Line rental - 12.60
Tiscali brosdband & phone - 30 (est)
Car insurance (incl breakdown cover) - 50.94
Sky - £25
Life insurance - 7.50
Natwest Adv Gold acct - 10
Petrol - 160
Food etc - 200
smoking (don't even start on this one) - 40

If you factor in essential yearly costs divided monthly (theory is to put this much aside each month for them) then car tax is 16.60 a month and MOT is 3.75. Adding xmas at say 200/yr that's another 16.60 a month which adds 37 a month. Altogether I've now got a monthly total of -132.

I've already sorted a lot of these by switching providers etc - see my diary thread here - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=2207201#post2207201
The best I will save by doing this is 85/month so far.

I did try and do some web design in my spare time but I didn't get a lot of business, and running my own web site was costing too much. I do lots of paid surveys and use cashback sites when shopping online, but this doesn't seem to bring in a lot at the moment either.

Due to having a child to look after either of us can really working any more hours although my wife is looking at changing from Saturday to Sunday (slightly less hours but more money).

I'm always keeping an eye out for a better paid job although I'm fiarly high paid for my level so it's unlikely I could get a higher salary by changing jobs.

My daughter will be going to school next September so that will give my wife the opportunity to work during the week, but that's a long way off.

I was wondering how much you are committed to a Payplan etc DMP once you start, and if after a year or so you end up with more income you can up the payments or even stop the plan and go back to paying debts normally (although if they get the interest frozen this would be a bad idea!).