Please help me

barneygumble

I am currently £2800 into a 3000 overdraft and have £1400 on a credit card which I'm attempting to pay off at £100 a month. I have applied for a loan to consolidate both of them with alliance and leicester but was turned down. I cannot now see a way of getting out of my overdraft (with halifax). Can someone advise as I'm worried that when the new overdraft charges kick in I'll be worse off.

DarkConvict

Give this sticky a read first - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=107280

And post up your SOA, we will see if we can find where you can save more money per month.

barneygumble

Council Tax 144.9
gas 40
electricity 25
Water 20
Broadband & Phone 25
mortgage 500
Fuel 50
Car 482
car insurance 18.33
Car Tax 14.58
TV Licence 12
House Insurance 19.77
Denplan 23
Pension 102.57
Savings 120
Mobile Phone 70
Loan 95.66
Loan 35.06
Loan 150
Food 280
Entertainment 160
Barclaycard 100

Total £2487.87

Income £2798

Balance £310.13

psychopathbabble

Hi BarneyGumble
I'm sure some helpful people will come along very shortly.
I've just opened another bank account with NO overdraft so I can keep my salary and outgoings separate to the debt that I am trying to pay off. This way I can see that the debt is going down and I can keep more control of my spending.
This might not be ideal for everyone (not sure what others would have to say about it) but I think it works for me.

Just a couple of things from your list above...
Entertainment £160?!!
Does council tax include arrears? Ask about paying over 12 months instead of 10.
What are the savings for? It's always better to tackle debt before you try to save anything as debt costs more than you would earn on interest for savings..
£70 for mobile phone?! You can definitely definitely cut this down to a cheaper tariff.
Food... who is this for? I'm on my own and currently spending less than £20 a week, ok so I don't eat out a lot and tend to stick to the boring stuff but it's important to cut back for a bit while paying debts.

Numpty_Monkey

Hi barney :hello:
use this link to do your SOA
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html
It gives the clever ones a bigger picture to look at:A
not just what you put but what you miss:o

Don't worry you are amongst friends :T

Tixy

Hi Barney and welcome

Looking at the figures you have posted so far one thing that struck me is your car - you spend £482 (presumably a loan or HP) plus another £33 on tax & insurance, you will also have costs for MOT, servicing, tyres etc and yet you are only spending £50 on petrol per month, which implies you are not actually using the car very much compared to the total spend on it. So do you really need a car? if you could do without it using public transport and occasionally taxis you might save well over £500 per month.

Are the figures above just for yourself? If so £280 on groceries is a very large amount and could easily be halved without too much effort.

As Numpty says a full SOA is a good idea (using that link) as it also shows the APRs and balances on your debts.