My SOA - bitter reading......

floss2

Tixy wrote: »

...Is £120 per year enough for 2 cars for MOT, servicing, tyres etc?...

Luckily for OP his car is a company one so all his maintenance / road tax / tyres will be covered by his employers.

RAS

bertman wrote: »

I have put the limits on the cards and the dates the loans finish.
We are pretty much at the limit with all the cards, some companies have reduced the limits to just what we owe.

natwest loan...................16500.....165.......7.9 - 6 years to run
halifax loan...................4999......323.4.....11.9 Finishes April 2011 - good that is not too far away and would enable you to make major inroads on the other debt.
barclaycard....................3900......83....... .24.5 - limit £4000
halifax........................14400.....270...... .25 - Limit £13500 - plainly you need to get this down ASAP
hsbc...........................8000......199...... .21.5Limit £8500 - there is £450 here at a lower rate
nat west.......................3414......76........24. 9 Limit £4000 -there is £500 here at the same rate
barclaycard....................3970......89....... .25 Limit £4000
egg card.......................7650......186.......19. 9 Limit £8000 - There is £300 here at a lower rate
BARCLAYCARD....................7450......142...... .21.6 Limit £7500
MBNA...........................1823......45....... .34.9 Limit £2000 - do not increase this - try to reduce it if possible
virgin.........................7870......186...... .27.9 Limit £8000 £100 here at less than MBNA
barclaycard....................2321......83....... .29.9 Limit £3500 - there is £1100 here at a lower rate than MBNA
Total unsecured debts..........82297.....1847.4....-

If you re-organise your debts so that you get the hellifax back inside its limit and reduce the amount on the MBNA, you may get there yet.

You may need to do this over time, paying essentials off on the lower card and then crediting the higher card to "transfer" the debt to a lower rate.

does this make any sense?

Verbatim

I too was going to suggest transferring the £900, which is the amount by which you are over your credit limit with Halifax, to the other cards where there is space.

Do you have room for a lodger? You can earn tax free income (I think the limit is around £4500 pa) under the government scheme. Are you still spending on the cards?

bertman

No - we haven't spent on any of the cards now since last September, I will have a look at re-distributing the Halifax debt, they have issued 3 defaults now December, Jan & Feb. I was on a lower payment contract with them but they have just added the difference between the lower amount and the original minimum payment to the balance, they have also hit me with £12.00 overlimit sum and a late payment sum of £12.00 for 4 months as well even though I have paid the lower sum on time. I am still on this lower contract with them but I am paying the original amount now - if that makes sense.

bertman

Well, I tried moving some of the debt around and have been told that there are no transfers available on my cards at the moment. It seems they are pretty much frozen!
So I have put a letter together to Halifax making them aware that they haven't stuck to the agreement I had to pay a smaller amount while they have been hitting me with default notices and late payment / overlimit fees.
I have offered to pay £300.00 per month so I will see what they say now.
Hope this is a good idea???

bertman

Well, went to the bank yesterday, they tried to sell me a consolidation loan, it was refused in the end... But I bit the bullet and decided to put my mortgage onto interest free for 12 months. This scared the s**t out of me to be honest, they really did lay it on the line that we won't be paying off any of the mortgage just covering the interest. It will though free up £400 each month, this will pay off at least one card and some of another which are the ones with the higfhest APR (34.9%).
In 12 months time another loan we have will be finished which will free up £323.00, I am still nervous of doing a DMP - at least now I have just over £400 free a month to put onto cards.
We have managed to transfer £2300 from the Nat west card as well to a 6% APR on barclaycard. I am hoping that the small balance on the NatWest card now will have an offer soon of another lower rate so we can transfer another chunk onto a lower rate??

The Halifax did say though that by going onto a interest only we would damage our credit file further - is this true?

I feel like we are finally doing something positive though - but I am still nervous of putting the mortgage onto interest only...

WASHER

Putting the mortgage onto interest only for a while isn't as bad as you think, it may just save the roof over your heads, I have never heard of putting the mortgage onto interest only damages your credit file? I would also be interested in the answer to this.

A DMP is an excellent way of reducing your payments to your creditors and enabling you to live a little, you have huge debts and repaying debts is never easy and you need some kind of life, a DMP will enable you to repay your debts and to live a little, have a chat with the CCCS and see what they say.

I'm pleased you were refused the consolidation loan, how dare the Halifax even suggest that given your circumstances, beyond belief, but they are there to make money and not to think about you as a human being.

I wish you well, its not going to be easy, I'm talking from experience here, but with the help of this board, you will become debt free. Its not a race, you didn't get into debt overnight and your debt will not be cleared overnight either.

miss_missy

hi
well done on everything youve done already
if you can update a soa and debts they maybe even more advice since youve shuffled around things

and well done on saying no to halifax sometimes i think bank just want people to go over their cc limit so they can sell them a loan

niccatw

Hi Bertman

Well done for trying to sort out what you can so far - dealing with creditors is never easy!

I've never heard of changing to interest only affecting your credit rating before but I can't say for certain. I wouldn't worry about paying interest only at the moment if it helps you clear some of those debts. If it's worrying you though, it might be good to have a review date in mind, i.e. returning to repayment in April 2011 when the loan is done. You can reassess how you feel and what you want to do then.

Sometimes it just helps psychologically to score a creditor off your list too, so as soon as the halifax is back within limit, perhaps try to get rid of the TV loan -it's the smallest but highest APR and scoring one creditor off the list is always a good boost to the confidence, which does help on those difficult days where you need to focus on the positives.

zarazara

There's over £43,000 available to spend [net income]. This is a huge amount. Its more than double what me and my family have per year and we are not in debt. For goodness sake,cut the cards up ,stop living above your means,save up for things and just dont have it if you dont have the cash. Holidays,TV's,lots of clothes etc are not necessary.