Need to sort things out....

Amber07

JamieT1977 wrote: »

Well said with your suggestions lol, I had missed the possible problem with groceries and the car lol.

So Amber see if you can cut costs in those 2 areas, plus any others.

What is "other travel= £40" cover? Seeing as you drive etc.

Lol - £2 a day to cover lunches for hubby

I couldn't see where else to put it

Amber07

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JamieT1977

Amber07 wrote: »

Lol - £2 a day to cover lunches for hubby

I couldn't see where else to put it

LOL

So you spend £40 a month on his lunch?That's on top of your grocery budget? Can that be reduced.

Make sandwiches etc instead of buying from a food outlet.

WASHER

talana wrote: »

Which is only a monthly shortfall of £12.78 according to the SOA.
That can surely be found somewhere. I'm sure we're not at the DMP stage here.

Although you have only a shortfall of £12.78 each month, you are only paying the minimum each month and interest is being added, at this rate you could be in debt for years and years, i would suggest a chat with the likes of the CCCS or Payplan, they could get the interest frozen or lowered and that means you will repay the debt quicker.

Have you thought about selling your home and downsizing, you seem to have alot of equity (DO NOT consider remortgaging your present home to repay your debts though, it rarely works).

WASHER.x.

Amber07

dawnybabes wrote: »

Have you checked www.entitledto.co.uk to make sure you are claiming everything you can ?

Oh...

You still have to pay the water and sewerage charges. Your full Council Tax bill of £35.00 per week will be reduced to £24.05 per week because of your entitlement to Council Tax Benefit

I thought you had to be on benefits etc to get a council tax reduction??

Do you think If I get forms in quickly they will reduce any amount for this year or would I be too late - I will check the website and see if they do online applications maybe.


Tax credits etc are pretty close to what we are getting, so not a bad calculator.

Amber07

WASHER wrote: »

Have you thought about selling your home and downsizing, you seem to have alot of equity (DO NOT consider remortgaging your present home to repay your debts though, it rarely works).

You're right there, I don't want to pay the debts off that way either

We can't really downsize - all 3 kids would be in the one bedroom, and this is our 'home for life' tbh.

We have, however contemplated selling to the local council, then continuing to stay here and rent. It is a thought we are hanging onto if things were to get worse.

The car would go first though, which would ease things a little and hopefully we wouldn't need to sell up.

WASHER

Are you sure your benefits are right? For 3 children it doesn't seem high enough, child allowance x 3 and child tax credit x 3. Child allowance alone should be approx £185 per 4 weeks.

Amber07

The tax credits I put under my 'income' and Benefits are CB (£185) and WTC (£25)

Sorry, that would be confusing, I didn't think when I filled it out

Poosmate

Hi Amber, hope your hubby's tribunal comes good. In the meantime I would suggest you budget on the "as is" rather than "what might be". There are area's that you can cut back on so all is not lost.

I see you are £12.?? short on payments according to your SOA. I would suspect in reality it's probably much more than this (I've seen SOA's where hundreds of pounds have been left over for debt repayment after SOA costs but the posters are struggling) it's amazing just how much money disappears on nothing. A spending diary would help to find this. To put it into perspective, 40p packet of crisps at work = £8 per month, a 30p daily newspaper = £9 - not major spends daily but they add up.

If you are managing to make the minimum payments each month I wouldn't reccommend going on a DMP as, although it has it's advantages in that the interest is stopped, the drawbacks are a lot of hassle from creditors until the DMP kicks in (threatening phone calls, harrassment, very bad credit rating for at least 6 years) this will have far longer detrimental affect on your finances if you decide to remortgage any time soon plus no more 0% credit card offers.

If you can transfer some of the debt to lower interest rate cards that's fine as long as the balance transfer fee doesn't wipe out any savings to be made.

Do you have anything you can Ebay/Amazon/Gumtree to give you a little extra to pay off one of your debts?

Is your partner working part time? If so could he get a better job or another part time job?

This bit is scary, use this snowball calculator to see how best to pay off your debts:

http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx

It's shocking when you put all your figures in, but fear not! The date it gives you is based on what you are paying now and assuming you will only pay that much forever not additional payments you may make. I recently paid an extra £20 off one of my debts and this saved me £75 in interest over the life of the debt and bought my DFD forward by a couple of months. Yay!

Good luck and hope that helps,

Poo

katsu

Get onto the meter readings and look to see how you can reduce your utility costs. Can you hang washing to dry rather than using a tumble dryer? Do you use energy saving bulbs? Turn everything off - lights when you leave the room, no charging mobiles overnight, nothing on standby etc. Block draughts, line curtains, touch the front door and if it is cold hang a curtain over it. Open all curtains in daylight to let sun in.

If you are constantly in credit they are taking too much off you (although you need to allow for higher winter usage). Check how much more you are paying than using.