Debt and Bankruptcy Advise

leanne11

Hello, I have been reading quite a few of the threads on this site and its great. I wondered if anyone could give me some adivce.

Ok, I'am female, 25 years old, live with my partner who has a sole mortgage on the flat, so I pay him rent.

I am around £28,000 in debt. It hurts to even type it.

Broken down, these are the creditors I owe money to. (its quite a few).

£12000 Tescos Loan
£2600 HSBC Loan
£1800 Lloyds Loan
£2500 Natwest Credit Card
£1900 Virgin Credit Card
£2000 MBNA Credit Card
£1400 Lloyds Credit Card
£1400 Tesco Credit Card
£550 HSBC Credit Card
£450 Dixons Finance
£400 HSBC Over Draft
£260 Mint Credit Card
£250 Natwest OverDraft

I know what you must be thinking. I hate what I have got myself into over the past 7 years.

I take home between £800 - £900 a month.

Last year, I contacted CCCS, and I am now on a DMP. Before, I used to pay over £700 to all my creditors, and I still could not afford to pay them all on time etc. I didnt pay my parnter rent, buy food etc. Things have changed, as I learnt I nedded to be able to live. I now pay CCCS £274 a month.

I am still struggling. They told me if I carried on paying £274 a month, it would take me over 9 years to pay it off.

I am now thinking about bankruptcy and need some advise. I'am not looking for an easy way out. This is draining me. I have no spare money to save for things for the future, like marriage and children. Getting into debt like this has taught me the biggest lesson I think I will ever learn. I never want to see another loan or credit card again.

I do have a questions I wonder if you could help me with about bankruptcy. How will it effect me getting a joint mortgage with my parnter who already has a mortgage? (when we move one day).

Thankyou for lisening to me.

Leanne

piglet6

Hi Leanne!

Firstly, welcome to the boards:hello: ! Well done on making your first (big!) post and congratulations on typing the painful bit.

Secondly, I bet you have no idea what I am thinking about your post (I suspect you are thinking that I am judging you for getting into debt and thinking badly of you). Well, you are wrong:D ! I am thinking that you are very brave for facing up to the situation you are in, so you have my full support for the fight ahead, and welcome to the MSE forum. You will be amazed at the support you get here from complete strangers...and I say congratulations for getting to this stage before you get to the mortgage, marriage and children stage :T - you've done well to recognise the problem early and should be commended on trying to solve the problems early on!!!

I don't have the experience to offer you practical advice, but I am going to tell you to stop hating yourself for the last 7 years - you are here now, and working towards putting things right. Congratulate yourself for sorting things out and realising you have a problem, and addressing it, and I promise you things will get better from here on in. Check this post in 24hrs time and you will be amazed because I bet you will be inundated with advice and helpful posts...

Good luck with the journey to debt-free-ness - you'll do it, and it will be a journey worth taking - much better to take it now, without the commitments you are aiming for, than to try and struggle with it later.

Go, girl!!! :dance:

Piglet

Molanole

Hi Leanne

Firstly, welcome to MSE and particularly DFW! I suggest that the first thing you do is take a look at SouthernScousers sticky for first time posters (a thread at the top of the DFW board, it never moves so everyone can find it easily) http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=107280. This will tell you all you need to know about getting started on here.

You probably had to do an SOA (statement of affairs) when you went for your DMP but if you pop a detailed one up on here within minutes there'll be loads helpful people offering advice on where you can cut back. Basically to give specific advice we need to see what your incomings and outgoings are before anyone will say whether bankruptcy is something you might wish to consider.

Obvious suggestions however are to perhaps talk to your partner. Say that you want to save money for marriage children etc and how can you work through your finances together so that you can eventually achieve all this together. He might let you pay less rent or perhaps top slice some of the amount you give him to put into a wedding savings fund. I'm sure that there will be some creative ways of addressing things that you might not have thought of already - that's where we all come in!!

Anyway, well done on posting, welcome and very best of luck to you!

leanne11

Thankyou for you comments.

My outgoing per month are...

£300 Rent
£274 CCCS
£100 average on mobile (I can explain)
£60 travel
£32 Car insurance
£150 Food Shopping

Total £916


I go abroad a lot of the time (Cabin Crew) hence my mobile bill. I'am trying new things to get my bill down, like international SIM cards etc at the moment. I used to work for The Carphone Warehouse, so I'am quite 'in the know' when it comes to tarrifs etc! Its just my international usage that is a problem.

So I take home between £800 - £900 a month on average. Money is so tight. My OH let me off paying bills and rent for over a year, so not paying him rent now is not really an option. He has more outgoings than me!

The thing that also really gets me down, (other than the amount I owe) is how many different people I owe it to. Always receiving so many different letters, and phone calls, saying I'am no paying them enough .....

Help!

PeachPickle

Hi leanne

I don't have any useful advice about bankruptcy I'm afraid, all I can offer is a little bit of support/empathy on the debt front. I owe quite a lot of different companies too and I know exactly how it feels to get letters from a different one everyday demanding more money and getting calls all the time. It's like you having it all shoved in your face everyday, right? I dealt with the calls by making them unlist my home number, giving them my mobile number and then not answering withheld number calls. Then I just answered any message with a letter. Just felt easier that way. Could that help for you? I don't really get letters anymore, I've been paying regularly for over a year so they don't hassle me much. I get the occasional request for higher payments, and sometimes I raise them, sometimes I tell them I can't. At the end of the day, you can only pay what you've got. Try not to feel guilty about it and don't let it get you down. You're making progress everyday and people are getting their money back on *your* terms. Keep it that way!

You're not alone, good luck x

lynzpower

Hi there Leanne

Right a few things from me really.

1) of course your international calling needs to come down, do ask on the telephony board what options there are for you. Is it possible to use the phones on your airport desks, or if not rely more on email. I know tihs is tough, but quite frankly you cant afford to be spending this.

2) you already have a agreement with CCCS. I take it thats from another bout of getting into debt that you havent been able to control, and this situation has happened again. NOw IM not beating you over it, but where did it all go? On what? If you are out of the UK, for some of the time then Im guessing your employer must be putting you up, giving you food & board etc while you are out of the UK? So what has this money gone on? You must have things you can sell?

3) If you are out of the UK, do you need to be running a car?

4) whats the 60 on travel for ?

and finally

5) you are spending way too much on food if you are out of the UK. Me & OH do 100 a month and we seldom go anywhere, so you are overspending I guess by about 100 a month.Check out the old style board for ideas of cooking & cleaning on the tiniest of budgets

6) your salary looks quite low, is there anychance of gettng another job with a better paid airline?

All the best, I hope this helps

leanne11

lynzpower wrote:

Hi there Leanne

Right a few things from me really.

1) of course your international calling needs to come down, do ask on the telephony board what options there are for you. Is it possible to use the phones on your airport desks, or if not rely more on email. I know tihs is tough, but quite frankly you cant afford to be spending this.

2) you already have a agreement with CCCS. I take it thats from another bout of getting into debt that you havent been able to control, and this situation has happened again. NOw IM not beating you over it, but where did it all go? On what? If you are out of the UK, for some of the time then Im guessing your employer must be putting you up, giving you food & board etc while you are out of the UK? So what has this money gone on? You must have things you can sell?

3) If you are out of the UK, do you need to be running a car?

4) whats the 60 on travel for ?

and finally

5) you are spending way too much on food if you are out of the UK. Me & OH do 100 a month and we seldom go anywhere, so you are overspending I guess by about 100 a month.Check out the old style board for ideas of cooking & cleaning on the tiniest of budgets

6) your salary looks quite low, is there anychance of gettng another job with a better paid airline?

All the best, I hope this helps

Hiya,

We stay at many different hotels, but using the hotels phone is not free. Its more expensive than a mobile. Around $10 a minute. Most of the hotels have internet, but again, you have to pay. What I have just brough is a new SIM card for travel. The website is https://www.sim4travel.com The rates vary depending on which 'Zone' you are in.

My situation with CCCS. You said you think its 'from another bout of debt'. May have wires crossed here. I only have one lot of debt, all which CCCS are managing, but I still find things tight. Its started when I was 18, got a credit card, got a couple more....then got a small loan for a car... another couple of credit cards. I thought the best thing to do at the time was to get one loan to cover everything. So I did, with Tescos, for £18000. Cleared my cards. Made a huge mistake and used my credit cards. 2 years ago, I suddenly realised what had happened and what a mess I got myself in. About 8 months ago, I could not afford to pay the full amounts on cards, was paying cards late etc. It got so much, and I was worrying so much that whilst on the way to work, I went straight into the back of the car in front! So, I then went to CAB and told them everything. They went over DMP and Bankruptcy. I chose DPM with CCCS. Thats where I am now.

I probabaly go away once a week, for 2-3 days on average. Our hotels are paid for. We get an allownece for food. I try and save on that as much as I can, and trust me, I am getting a lot better. Such as swapping my trips to Carrabian where I cant spend any money, unlike the US, which is harder.

I do need a car to get to work. I live 40 minutes from Gatwick Airport. I quite often am leaving home either very ealry in the morning, like 5am and coming back at odd times. I only have a cheap car, which I only use to get me to and from the airport. the £60 is spent on petrol.

My salary is one of the lower paid airlines. I do not want to leave the company I work for because it has a lot of other job roles I could go into which pay better. I am currently working towards getting into training which is a fairly big difference in pay. To get there, I need to work hard and towards goals in my current position. I ahve another 6 months before I can apply for a training position.

Hope this information helps.

Sorry for the long post.

Leanne

leanne11

Just a question my OH has just brought up about bankruptcy. Would it effect him? He owns the flat, I have nothing to do with the mortgage. He is saying that if I declared myself bankrupt, our address will always have Bankrupt atached to it if he ever nedded to give his address for anything, like credit. Even though he is not the one who had gone bankrupt. Is that true?

lynzpower

Ah,

Sorry I dont know about bankrupcy but the CCCS is clear now, sorry for the confusion

I was actually meaning the desk phones in check-in areas, offices in airports etc? Hotel phones are the biggest rip off on the planet ( apart from hospital phones :eek)

smokey112

leanne11 wrote:

Just a question my OH has just brought up about bankruptcy. Would it effect him? He owns the flat, I have nothing to do with the mortgage. He is saying that if I declared myself bankrupt, our address will always have Bankrupt atached to it if he ever nedded to give his address for anything, like credit. Even though he is not the one who had gone bankrupt. Is that true?

It is only the person who is bankrupt not the address

leanne11

Thats ok!

We dont have desk phones in check-in areas or offices that are free to use. When we are out of the country, we go straight to the aircraft. Every crew member I work with is in the same situation when it comes to mobile phones. In an ideal world, I should just not even turn on my phone whilst I'am away, but thats easier said than done. I like to still be in contact with my OH form time to time. Hopefully, I will get a job as a trainer sooner than rather than later. Its Monday - Firday work. So no flying around the world clocking up big phone bills. !

lynzpower wrote:

Ah,

Sorry I dont know about bankrupcy but the CCCS is clear now, sorry for the confusion

I was actually meaning the desk phones in check-in areas, offices in airports etc? Hotel phones are the biggest rip off on the planet ( apart from hospital phones :eek)