Please help, now i've owned up to the Debt i have!

Lisa1978

Hi Lexie Lou,
Oh, whereabouts in NI do you live? Just realised that i didn't have rates in my SOA, which is £45/for house i let out and £31/month each for me and finance for our home.
I haven't heard of this payment in 100 days thread, i shall go now and have a look at it, thanks You've been a great help!

Hi Ras : I have called my mortgage brokers Abbey, they are saying that if i change to interest only i will only save £39/month because most of my mortgate payment is for interest and the capital amount is only £39! I was shocked at this!
I have alraedy informed the inland revenue in the past that i am letting the house out. How do i got about 'accruring a tax loss'?? Sorry for seeming stupid but i've no idea how to go about that!
I shall have a look at the rental section to gain some tips. Many thanks

Ex-Spendaholic

Another NI one here. :beer:

I would suggest selling all your junk now - clothes, cds, books etc all on ebay and Amazon. Larger items use Belfast Gumtree. If you've any mobile phones look at Fonebank. Any old gold in the house (even broken stuff) get it sold too, its greatly in demand at the minute. Get a pot for any money you make in selling and keep it separate for your debts.

Is the house insurance figure covering both properties? I have mine with Direct Line - £12 per month for building and contents on a 4 bed semi worth about £350k. Car insurance is with them too and its about £15 per month. Worth looking at when the renewal comes up.

You need to sort the mobiles. Who are you with? I'm with O2. Yesterday I phoned them and as I'm 9 months into my contract was able to reduce the tariff to £10 per month. OK I lost some of the minutes and texts allowance but I wasn't using it anyway. I've also asked them to bar premium rate numbers on my phone. Ringing banks etc was costing me a fortune. I intend to not go over the £10 per month from now on.

Who is the actual mortgage with? Ring them. I have colleagues who use "mortgage advisors" and they always seem to be stuck with things. Ring the lender directly. Surely you can reduce your costs dramatically by going interest only.

Finally try to cut down on the partying. Have friends round, get people to bring their own drink etc. You'll be seeing the same people but not paying a fortune for the privilege or standing around in the rain waiting on taxis.

Good luck with your debt free journey.

dib-dab

EDITED TO ADD - Sorry as I had not read all of the posts so had missed the bit where you said that you had sorted out your wedding worries!! Great news, really happy that you can go ahead with it all now without the worry. I will leave my post below on in case it helps anyone else out but obviously it won't apply to you now - apologies for not reading everything properly in the first place.


I would probably think about postponing the wedding. I got married in April last year - we were very lucky that our parents paid for the majority of it but we still had a big chunk to pay and we went on a ridiculously expensive honeymoon. But I spent the whole honeymoon worrying about what everything was costing. We still spent a lot so I can't have been that worried but it was constantly at the back of my mind and it did spoil things a bit. And now the enormous debt we have spoils the memory of it. My husband gave me a wedding gift and whereas my first thought should have been how lovely and treasured it was I was actually wondering how much it cost and could we afford it?

One thing that was great for us with our wedding was that we used a honeymoon gift list - www.buy-our-honeymoon.com - which was fantastic. We had a house and everything to go in it so we didn't need 'stuff'. You can make your own list of things you want to do on your honeymoon - meals, activities, flights etc and what we did was send each person a photo when we got back of us enjoying the gift they had chosen for us - such as scuba diving, cocktails, bottle of bubbly or whatever. I was so touched by the generosity of our guests and they loved the idea. It still horrifies me to think how much extra we spent though on top of our gifts. Just an idea though if you also don't need house stuff as it would ease the burden a bit for you if you also decide to have a honeymoon. There are loads of other similar websites but at the time this one cost the least £50 I think as a one off fee whereas others take commission from your guests' payments. However things are always changing so it is worth shopping around as there may be sites with better deals now.

I know how much time, money (!!) and emotion goes into a wedding so postponing would be a very difficult thing. But I can't tell you how much I wish that we had spent savings rather than piling up the debt, it would have all been so much more enjoyable. All I can think now is how embarrassed I would be if all the people who were jealous of our big wedding and even bigger honeymoon knew how long it is going to take us to pay for it!

Choo_Choo_4

Well congratulations Lisa on the wedding plans.
That's very nice of your parents to help you out and it will give you something to look forward to. You'll have so much to plan that you'll probably not be bothered with nights out or parties until then - instead you can sit in with your fiance and a nice bottle of wine (maybe a few wedding mags ha ha) ..

I would definitely agree with Lexie in that you should continue as planned with the Spending Diary - you'll need the practice ... I know the wedding's planned to cost £4k but usually things you've budgeted for always come back slightly higher ...

Be as spendthrift as you can now because you'll feel much better when the BIG day comes and the lower your debt once you are married the easier it'll be to tackle.

If you do have a good month for whatever reason and come into a bit of extra cash - knock it off a balance instead of treating yourself - as far as your concerned the wedding is your BIG treat for the year

So enjoy the planning but be wise

[Deleted User]

Lisa1978 wrote: »

hi everyone, thanks very much for the advice again.
To answer a few qus above from i've been last on :
I had someone around interested in my house to let and i currently get £415/month for it, i've advertised it at £460/month and he hasn't questioned it , so hopefully if i could get the £460 and the mortgage is £430. The problem is that i have been paying the rates for the other tenant and should really do the same for this tenant as the house isn't worth £500/month to him. Either way i guess it will only cost me at the most £15/month to keep the house.

I don't mean to be rude, but even living in NI, can you really afford to rent out a whole house for a month for £460. Really? I should move to NI then. I'm lucky to find a decent double room for much less than that in outer London. You need to adjust your rent price to cover every single cost on that house per month plus some more to cover any future landlord-responsible expenses such as repairs, possible increases in rates to you that you can't legally immediately pass onto the tenant, etc. No wonder you've got someone interested. If I saw a house rental advertised for that cheap I'd jump at it.

psychopathbabble

Deleted_User wrote: »

I don't mean to be rude, but even living in NI, can you really afford to rent out a whole house for a month for £460. Really? I should move to NI then. I'm lucky to find a decent double room for much less than that in outer London. You need to adjust your rent price to cover every single cost on that house per month plus some more to cover any future landlord-responsible expenses such as repairs, possible increases in rates to you that you can't legally immediately pass onto the tenant, etc. No wonder you've got someone interested. If I saw a house rental advertised for that cheap I'd jump at it.

Im not an expert on rental prices in NI or even in England for that matter but I rent a room on the edge of Herts for £340 including bills. Back home in the depths of Suffolk I could rent a house for that. or another example, you can't get a decent sized 2bed flat for much less than 200k here, at home that would buy you a large detached house. The rental prices depend entirely on where you live... I'm sure the OP has had advice from the letting agent as to what the monthly rent should be.

[Deleted User]

psychopathbabble wrote: »

Im not an expert on rental prices in NI or even in England for that matter but I rent a room on the edge of Herts for £340 including bills. Back home in the depths of Suffolk I could rent a house for that. or another example, you can't get a decent sized 2bed flat for much less than 200k here, at home that would buy you a large detached house. The rental prices depend entirely on where you live... I'm sure the OP has had advice from the letting agent as to what the monthly rent should be.

Wow, ok, thanks. As I work in central London and live in zone 4 moving further out is a false economy as the travel expenses (and associated time) outweigh any rent saving. Thanks for the feedback though. Re the bit I've bolded, I hope so!

psychopathbabble

VTG I applied for a job in London and if I get it, I'll be certain to be moving somewhere near a tube station (hopefully a friends flat in Barons Court) as the commuting would just cost way too much money, I think its around £300 monthly commuter fares from here into London (near Stansted Airport). Depending on your circumstances, I would stay where you are! My room isn't too badly priced for where I am (my housemates pay £380), my friends pay around £500 each for a 2bed flat.

Yes.. I agree with the bolded bit.... but I'm sure I saw fees associated with letting on SOA? I may be wrong on that though!

Lisa1978

Ex-Spendaholic wrote: »

Another NI one here. :beer:

I would suggest selling all your junk now - clothes, cds, books etc all on ebay and Amazon. Larger items use Belfast Gumtree. If you've any mobile phones look at Fonebank. Any old gold in the house (even broken stuff) get it sold too, its greatly in demand at the minute. Get a pot for any money you make in selling and keep it separate for your debts.

Is the house insurance figure covering both properties? I have mine with Direct Line - £12 per month for building and contents on a 4 bed semi worth about £350k. Car insurance is with them too and its about £15 per month. Worth looking at when the renewal comes up.

You need to sort the mobiles. Who are you with? I'm with O2. Yesterday I phoned them and as I'm 9 months into my contract was able to reduce the tariff to £10 per month. OK I lost some of the minutes and texts allowance but I wasn't using it anyway. I've also asked them to bar premium rate numbers on my phone. Ringing banks etc was costing me a fortune. I intend to not go over the £10 per month from now on.

Who is the actual mortgage with? Ring them. I have colleagues who use "mortgage advisors" and they always seem to be stuck with things. Ring the lender directly. Surely you can reduce your costs dramatically by going interest only.

Finally try to cut down on the partying. Have friends round, get people to bring their own drink etc. You'll be seeing the same people but not paying a fortune for the privilege or standing around in the rain waiting on taxis.

Good luck with your debt free journey.

Thanks for your reply. I have alredy put many clothes, shoes, trainers, etc on gumtree and have reduced my orange phone bill last wk from £45/month to £25/month .

The house insurance price is for the house i let out. Our insurance is paid by my finance as we live in an apartment and he covers it. I'll defo have a look at that company but normally always shop around and use moneysupermarket for all insurances. Unfortuantely car insurance doubled due to our penalty points this yr

I rang Abbey, tried the interest only option and was told would only save £39/month, even though mortgage is £430 a month, does this seem true?

Entertainment is a defo that is going. I had already arranged an engagement party for this Friday (costing £300, wish i'd thought more about it before booking it!) and a hen do at end of month, after that defo for sitting in. Good excuse with saving for a wedding!

Lisa1978

Your not being rude, £395-£450 for terraced houses is the norm here. Unfortunately as there are so many being let out currently i need to keep my price competetive and yet at the £450 i still haven't managed to get it let out. As you say though, my mortgage is £430 and i'm paying the rates at £45/month, so the house is costing ME money every month but i'm hoping to make a profit in a few years... or is this a silly idea??? I have asked Estate Agents if they think i should sell, they think now. House wld go up for sale at £100k (won't get it in current market) and mortgage for £96k, plus would need available cash to put up for sale! I definately wouldn't have any spare cash for repairs required! Thanks