Thats another fine mess I got myself into

BILLIE

Hi RMC - sorry didn't see your thread yesterday - I just wrote a letter telling them how it was. OH had been laid off and I was the only one supporting the home. Was up front as to the debt was not due to frivolous living, but down to an ex who left me with three small children and credit cards became my second income. Asked if they would consider freezing interest or accepting a reduced monthly amount or stalling the payments for say 6 months. As I have already said Tesco and M&S very supportive. They sent me forms (bit like SOA) to fill in and return. They then contacted me a said okay will reduce the amount and also freeze interest. They did this for 6 months and after that agreed to a further 6 months no questions asked. Tesco have done that again for 12 months and M&S have asked me to fill in forms again. The big bank on the High Street I mentioned would do nothing to help although this review they have reduced the interest to 16.9%. All you can do is ask. I know my credit record is shot to pieces so default notices make little difference. Good luck

REDMADCURLS

Folks - another question

Obviously I have NO savings and from reading what you folks write, it appears most of you have 'pots' for things like insurance/car maintenance etc. Should I try and save for these things each month or throw all I can to debt?

Visited Best friend and her hubby last night, brought her a bottle of white I had in the house, and bought myself a bottle of red from Lidl - £3.58! DH also bought dog food, sweeties for him - total £12!! ggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Anyway left hers at 2am and it had snowed. We live in a very rural area, should take 20 to get from hers', instead it took an hour! Lots of hills and several we really struggled to get up, thank God, DH was driving I would have just given up! ABS breaks were very much tested and the wheels were spinning something crazy, all a bit scary. On last hill, ABS light stayed on and message now on dash - Brake System Malfunction - Service Now. DH said that I shouldn't drive it and need to get mechanic to look at it ASAP. More !!!!!!! money. Already owe garage £80 for service!

On the positive side, convinced DH to let me sell some of his 500 dvds! Listed on Ebay,Amazon or Music Magpie (whichever looked the best deal) and one was worth £79.99!! He thinks he paid £2 for it and never opened it! There are only two others on Amazon so here's hoping. Have gone thru about 60 of them and so far M Magpie total up to £68.11 - which will go to Richard Rob Me Blind Branson, or as I said at the start of this should it go to savings?

And how long did it take to get DH/OH on board - mine just doesn't get NSD. As I said before he is self employed and we struggle to get o/s monies owed to us in on time - £5000 o/s at moment - which of course makes it very hard to pay our suppliers to whom we owe £13000. We also make about £500 weekly in cash - which is what I get a little of to pay bills. One of our issues is that what I get for bills is not regular, which has made it a nightmare to budget but have worked out that I NEED £1000 per month - which works out at £250 weekly which I think is manageable. The rest I would like him to use to pay wages to those who work for him (£164 weekly) therefore when chqs come in from larger accounts - he can pay off our suppliers - thats the theory. Another good note is that this time last year total income for business was £6000 YTD, this year £20000 . Our business year starts in Oct. And this is also coming to our busiest time - Easter thru to end Oct so it is on the up but once I get personal sorted I know I have to focus on business but of course i have no control over the expenditure for it.

Sorry folks - didn't plan to share all that - just fell out of my head and onto page

REDMADCURLS

Listed 100 CD/DVD's on Music Magpie and some on Ebay but for some reason cant list anything more. Every time I try to sell an item, as soon as I type in item type (e.g. dvd) it reverts to sign in page and wont let me sign in - duh

My mum phoned today to say she is going to buy us a vacumn cleaner - ours packed in 2 mths ago and of course, retailer refuses to fix under guarentee. I got some advice from this site but there was no budging them, unless I wanted to pay for independent engineers report - more money I couldnt afford

BIG DOWNER - £150 charges this month from bank - mostly paid ddms putting me overdrawn - that does my head in more than I can express and it WILL stop, I promise

REDMADCURLS

Just done a rough SOA and only got £690 to pay to 9 credit cards!!

Tried to show it to DH, who said 'sure you have just told me, why do I need to look at it'

As already stated he is self employed and I worked out SOA on him giving me £1k per month for household, not unreasonable but realistically it needs to more.

Its hard trying to sort out home finances without being sure of what he can give me - which, haha, is how we got in this mess in the first place.

Have looked at reducing some expenditure - food (as always), life assurance (but in middle of hospital assessment so need confirmation of that before I can re-apply). Also calculated in monthly saving for car insurance and oil (of course which I have NEVER done)

Depressing day

BEAT_THE_DEBT

Dont you just loveit when you formalate a plan and oh does not even look?????????/He will change just has not had his LBM yet! Dont take it all on your shoulders though its very stressful.xx

REDMADCURLS

BEAT_THE_DEBT wrote: »

Dont you just loveit when you formalate a plan and oh does not even look?????????/He will change just has not had his LBM yet! Dont take it all on your shoulders though its very stressful.xx

Ta BTD - unfortunately someone has to take it on board, and I have to until he catches up....................gggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr:(:(

In_my_dreams

Parallel universe - put it on a spreadsheet, kick, scream, cry - he might just listen. I "think" I have done it with OH now but there is still the potential for it to go wrong!

Deepest sympathies with you for living with someone whose head is still buried in the sand but persistance will pay off!

Re the savings - I now have sealed cans that I put in enough money to pay for car/house/pet insurance, MOT, xmas birthdays - a tin for each (get them from the pound shop) and I can't touch them until I need them. Have a good few hundred pound in there already and it means I will have huge savings when I do come to renew as I am paying DD's at the moment as well as renewing. Worth trying to put some aside if you can afford it.

Have subscribed which means that I have even less time on my hands now.......

REDMADCURLS

Last night he was looking for stuff to sell on Ebay - maybe the fact that I had been listing all day might have encouraged him!!! Messed about so long 'it was too late to list"

Then he said 'don't tell my Toy Story dvd's (he is 44) because they are really good stories and maybe our neice will want to watch them', Well then let her mother (my sister) buy/rent them because we have 49000 reasons to sell them!

And he is 'embarassed' that my parents are buying us a vacumn cleaner!!

This morning a little love letter from A&L - charges on current account £150 - gggggggggggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr - money spent for NOTHING - it kills me. Did request O/D increase (currently £2000) and ofcourse they said 'would love to......but NO'

Good news - sold a DVD on Amazon for £20! £16 coming to me soon! Now only another £400 to find for this months shortfall (this month being March) as we are already screwed in Feb!

REDMADCURLS

Update on SOA - on £400 to pay credit cards - left out unsecured loan £189.66 per month but only 24 months to go!

FACT: He needs to give me more money
FACT: Business is picking up
FACT: He too owes money to suppliers/employees so each week he is paying the preverbial Peter
FACT: Going to have to get me a money printing machine, do they sell those on Ebay

Reality - have to sell, sell, sell on Ebay and hope PPI claims come good, and every bl00dy penny has to be accounted for!

Herewego

Just popped in to say hi

I too have similar debts to you but only because we lived way beyond our income, and more recently a spell of not being in work but i'm back and going to fight it head on.

I saw you were having trouble with listing on ebay you need to clear your cookies mine keeps doing the same thing, good luck with your listings I made a nice £120 over the weekend and I thought it was all rubbish.

I shall subscribe and pop in and keep you company like you I am going to be here for sometime