The Light Is On.....Please Help!!

princess_rocky

Hi Everyone

After burying my head in the sand for a few months now I decided this morning to look at my financial situation.....and what a shock I've had.....:eek: .....my current debt stands at £21,291

I really don't know how it's got to this point and feel like there is no way out so I'm hoping someone will be able to give me some advice!? I took out a consolidation loan 6 months ago with A&L but 2 weeks later I split from my partner and everything seems to have gone crazy financially since then....I've had to move house twice and buy a car while only earning minimum wage doing crap temp jobs, haven't helped myself by going out on the !!!!!! all the time to deal with the break-up. I've now settled in a great new job and have moved in with my best friend....feeling much more positive about life but have serious debts hanging over my head now.

Here are my debts and SOA:

Alliance & Leicester loan - Balance £13,904 - 10.9% APR - 60mth term - 54 mths left
Cahoot loan - Balance £1,036 - 9.7% APR - 60mth term - 38mths left
Mint credit card - Balance £3,146 (limit £3,200) - 1.247% purchases and 1.41% cash APR's
Lloyds TSB credit card - Balance £1,452 (limit £1,500) - 1.385% APR
Lloyds O/D - Balance £1000 (limit £1,200) - 1.37% per month
Lloyds O/D - Balance £450 (limit £500) - 1.37% per month

Monthly Income
Salary £1,250

Total Income £1,250

Monthly Outgoings
Rent £300
Utilities £140
Debt Repayments £488
Petrol £50
Car Insurance £40
Phone £25
Going Out £50
Food £100
One Offs £30
Clothes/other odds& sods £20

Total Outgoings £1,243

I haven't done a spending diary yet but if I'm honest I know I overspend on going out and odds and sods so I've got to make a real efford to cut down my spending.

I would be so grateful to anyone who could offer me some advice on the best way forward....????

Northernbird_2

Congratulations on your Lightbulb moment!

Someone better at this than me will have more advice but here's my 2ps worth!

Monthly Outgoings
Rent £300
Utilities £140 Can you break this down further? Gas, electricity, water, council tax
Debt Repayments £488
Petrol £50 Can you travel by public transport?
Car Insurance £40Have you shopped around for the cheapest deal?
Phone £25I'm assuming this is your mobile bill. Can you go onto pay as you go or move down to a lower tarriff to get this down?
Going Out £50How quickly you want to be debt free controls this I guess. If you cut this down to £20 you could pay another £360 a year towards your debt
Food £100Take a look at the Moneysaving Old Style thread for tips on bringing this down. Some people here who are on their own spend £60 per month
One Offs £30 Can you break this down?
Clothes/other odds& sods £20Can you break this down?

Would suggest you try a spending diary to see where the £50 on one-offs and odds & sodds is going. It's £600 a year.

What about dentist, haircuts, ...

Can you move your debt on to 0% credit cards? Anything you can sell on ebay/Amazon? Could you get a 2nd job?

Hope this helps. xx

bluekp

Hi Princess_Rocky - well you're in the right place and I'm sure there will be lots of wise ones along shortly to give you some good advice.

Can you break down the Utilities any further? That seems quite high to me considering you're sharing with a friend. Also can you clarify what "One offs" are?

Maybe consider a PAYG phone if you don't use it a lot or consider threatening to leave your current provider and seeing if they offer you a better deal.

Try breaking your food budget down and seeing if you can save here by switching to value lines.

Anyway, best of luck to you and congratulations on the new job x

princess_rocky

My utilities are worked out on what I expect them to be really, as we have only just moved in:
C/Tax £55
Water £17.50
Gas £10
Elec £10
Home Phone £6
Internet £7
TV Lic £12

works out at £117.50...so actually a little cheaper than I thought, but some of these are just predictions at the moment

One off's are my budgeting for stuff like birthdays and xmas

I have already done the threatening to leave thing with my mobile and have cut my bills down from £90 to £25....doubt I will get it any cheaper than this but doing my best to cut down my text pest habit!!

Unsure what to do about my car at the moment....I could do public transport but I travel to see my family quite often and it works out more expensive to do this on public transport. I do walk to work as often as possible.

I work for the police now so I can't really take on a second job due to restrictions with this job, and doing shift work.

Thanks for your suggestions so far....will definitely look at ways I can cut back

Grumpy_Old_Duffer

Agree with others, Utilities are extremely' high.

The 'biggy' is the 'Debt' payment (40% of your income), so this is where big savings should/could be made, and these have already been suggested, get the debts onto the 0% Balance Transfer Credit Cards, and be prepared to keep moving the debt to a new card every 6 to 9 months or so.

Grumpy_Old_Duffer

princess_rocky wrote:

works out at £117.50...so actually a little cheaper than I thought, but some of these are just predictions at the moment

Brilliant .... a saving already;)

Grumpy_Old_Duffer

Phone ..... How much are calls? Can you use 1899 service?

Why are you paying £12 TV license, if you're house sharing?

bluekp

My and my OH have just moved into a new house and our TV licence is £26 for 5 months then reverts to £11 per month. Apparently thats the way it works so maybe this is why Princess_Rocky is paying £12 herself?

princess_rocky

At the moment my credit rating is really poor due to being victim to identity theft and still having problems with these creditors showing these debts on my credit report.....which means I've been turned down for 0% cards. I'm trying to get this sorted at the moment so hope to be able to switch to 0% cards asap.

Our TV licence costs us £30 a month because for some reason it's only been spread out over 4 monthly payments! Not sure why this is.

The cost of home phone is just the line rental .... we don't really use it for outgoing calls. Use my mobile instead. Can we get a cheaper deal than £11 a month line rental??

In_Search_Of_Me

Well done for confronting things before they got unmanageable (see mine if if makes you feel better!!)....your water seems high - is that £17 each? If so can you go onto a meter? Also phone could be cheaper & worth investigating whether you can have a call package - ie I pay £2 a month for eve & weekend national calls "free"...selling on ebay/amazon a good idea for getting in extra cash & getting rid of junk...what about overtime at work? It may be worth investigating secondary employmemt or even a new job, to see if you can up your income. Would also see if there is anything you can do about getting your credit score sorted so you can get 0% cards? Food etc can be reduced by finding nonbranded stuff...from past experience would recommend that you get 1 can/bottle of nonranded as I realised that there are some things that I cannot compromise on (tomato K & shampoo!!)...welcome to DFW...it will be a slog but a worthwhile slog & you are among friends!!

Chell

YOu said you text alot, would it be worth getting a cheap PAYG handset and getting one of the free O2 Sim cards, if you top up by £10 a month you get 300 free texts and still have the £10 credit to use.