Well here goes

madred

After a number of years of burrying my head in sand about my debt (i.e. awaintg a large lottery win) I have totalled up my debt and have decided its about time I took it by the scruff of the neck and made some in roads into it.

I owe roughly 44k, spread over several cards and two loans this is broken down like this:

mint: 9600
natwest 4000
HSBC 2883
Egg 8000 (Part loan 4100 End Date Feb 2008)
MBNA 7800
Capital One: 400
First National: 3900 (Loan End Date about four years)
Amex: 4980
CitiCards: 4063
Abbey: 700

If I dont have any unexpected bill or expendature then I can just about afford to keep up repayments. The repayments on this lot come to around £1260 per month the rest of my money covers the mortgage and other household bills.

My wife is a student nurse due to graduate in Feb next year - but it looks more likely that there will be no jobs for her at the end of the course.

Any help and advice is most welcome.

lynzpower

hi there madred

Welcome to debt free wannabee

If youd like us to fid any extra savings for you, the best place to start is an SOA - see southern scousers sticky "first time posters"

All the best
Lynz
xx

madred

Monthly Income:

Roughly: 1830 + OT (usually around £100 per month but not guaranteed)
Total: 1830

Outgoings:

Mortgage 255
Council Tax 95
Electricity 37
Gas 70
Water 30
Tunnel 45
HSBC 10
Savings (kids) 9
Car Insurance 20
Phone 25
NTL 42
AA 14
TV 10
Life Insurance 7


Egg 70
Natwest 150
MBNA 180
Egg Loan 229
Windows 95
Amex 150
Capital One 11
City Bank 110
Mint 215
HSBC 60

Total: 1994

I am in the middle of getting all the APR etc on my cards, they have recently gone up by about 5% on each card. I will post them when I have them.

I hardly use my cash card as I normally dont have much cash to spend so I most spend on one of my cards if I need stuff.

My wife generally buys the food and covers most of the other expenses, she only has a small income made up of child benefit and work when she can get it. Although she knows we have fininacial problems she is not aware of the extent as I am the main earner she normally leaves thing in my safe hands!!!!

nbbradshaw

Madred

Once you've got all the info about the cc and loans together, you can use the multi-loans spreadsheet below to work out how quickly you can get rid of them all. This works on the basis that you pay the minimum amount on all loans except the one with the highest priority (should also be the highest interest rate). If nothing else it will make it clearer as to when your debts will be finished.

http://www.eggloan.com/multiloans.xls

From the SOA, your gas & elec seems very high, have you used the comparison sites (switching is easy if you've not done it before)

Good luck
Nigel

lynzpower

HI there

Looking AT your SOA
Mortgage 255 ( repayment or IO?)
Council Tax 95
Electricity 37 ( a bit high- https://www.saveenergy.co.uk - turn everything off at the wall when not using, lag your boilers. turn off your radiators, reduce your thermostat- every saving with your energy counts)
Gas 70 ( :eek: way too high too) ( yes think about switching here)
Water 30 ( is this on a meter? you might consider a meter, and save as much water as you can )
Tunnel 45 ( whats this??)
HSBC 10 ( account charge? Or interest charge? Whats it for)
Savings (kids) 9 ( nows not the time to save. Suspend this for now)
Car Insurance 20 ( is this the cheapest? Do you absolutely NEED your car)
Phone 25 ( whats this for? )
NTL 42 ( is tihs telly & internet? dump the telly, and get cheaper internet)
AA 14 ( do you need this, only clubcard points gives you greenflag breakdown cover I believe, could you go bout this another way)
TV 10
Life Insurance 7


Egg 70
Natwest 150
MBNA 180
Egg Loan 229
Windows 95
Amex 150
Capital One 11
City Bank 110
Mint 215
HSBC 60

Total: 1994 ( actually, without my savings I make it you spend 1939)

A few things over and above this.
1. why are you not putitng your finances together? As we dont know her income its difficult to be able to see whats where. This will be a good idea. You say she leaves everything to you, with the greatest of respects did you spend this money alone or togetheR? Only the approiach needs to be one based on partnership

2. Cut the damn cards UP for petes sake. You wont get out of debt while you are still spending on them

3. ONce you know the APRS then you can use this nifty tool http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx we often talk about snowballing here and the premise is pay off the debts with the highest interest first, and the lowest interest last, so that you can minimsie the amount of interest you pay.

4. hows your credit rating? Check this out. If your credit rating is good enough, you could try for low life of balance or 0% cards and transfer the highest APR debts to these. Also another trick is to call your CC companies an blag that another co will give you 0% ( if you havnet been able to secure this) and could they lower your interest to 0% or low life of balance rates. This means every penny you pay off your debt will reduce the debts and nort be paying the interest off.

Also you need to know what you are spending on food, petrol, MOTS & repairs and all the incidentals. See how long you cvan go without buying anything by ekeing out whats in the house already. I went weeks without buying showel gel and pasta we had hoarded loads.

Also what have you got to sell. Every penny counts so get your unneeded gear on ebay- or car boot sale, loot, whatever

aLL the best

halloweenqueen_2

Maybe you could clear the capital one first, so you feel as if you're ahciving something. I know you are supposed to clear the highest apr first, but it may give you a boost to think you have one less debt. Then the repayments which would have gone on cap 1 will be going against another card.
Are you on a water meter?
I know it seems a bit harsh but maybe you could put the kids savings on ahold for a little while? It will be more beneficial to them in the long run if you are out of debt quicker, you are paying £9 a month into savings only £2 less a month than you are paying cap 1.
Is there a better phone tariff you could be on?
What is the NTL for ?
Good luck to you, I hope it all works out well for you!

paulcaley

Gas the electric is quite high especially the gas, we are in arears slightly on it.
We switched about two years ago to the cheapest tarrif then, i checked the rate around 3 months ago and it still one of the cheapeset. I am currently trying to work out how we use so much gas, with things like piolt lights on fires / boilers etc.


And trying to work out how to save money most of the lights are energy savings one etc.

going around the house I seem to have lots of small applicaancies plugged in, like mobile phone chargers etc. I am going to start unplugging these etc. I will take my mobile charger to work and do it there

halloweenqueen_2

Yep, I make it 1939 as well.
I assumed OP has a job which takes him through the dartford tunnel!
If that is what the NTL is for dump it, like lynz suggests, you can get good deals around for the net and you could always get a freeview box.
Good luck!

Annie_Fanny

Outgoings:

Mortgage 255
Council Tax 95 (Are you getting the student discount for this?)
Electricity 37
Gas 70
Water 30
Tunnel 45 (What's this?)
HSBC 10 (What's this?)
Savings (kids) 9 (I know it's hard but this will have to go until you are solvent. How much is in their savings accounts?)
Car Insurance 20
Phone 25
NTL 42 (Can you break this down a bit further? NTL are always worth ringing to try and get this to knock something off. I rang and they knocked £6.50 off a month)
AA 14
TV 10
Life Insurance 7


Egg 70 (APRs, outstanding amounts, and months outstanding - if a loan - on all of these please)
Natwest 150
MBNA 180
Egg Loan 229
Windows 95
Amex 150
Capital One 11
City Bank 110
Mint 215
HSBC 60

Total: 1994

You need to get extra money coming in to make up the shortfall and to throw at the highest APR debt.

Have you got stuff you can sell?

Can you get a part time job?

Cheers

Annie

madred

In response to most questions:

Council Tax - we are getting a rebate
Water - We have four kids so I dont think a water meter would save us any money - probably cost us more.
Tunnel - This is to get through the wallasey tunnel to get to work everyday
HSBC - Thats goes to my HSBC current account to pay of my overdraft from them (i stopped using the account about 5 years ago and still paying the overdraft)

NTL - This is broken down into internet £10, Calls around £10, the rest is TV - we cannot recieve freeview here and we do not have an arieal so dumping isnt really an option

Phone is for my mobile - I am still about 12 month to be out of contract.

I need a car to get to work the public transport is rubbish around here, plus I have to drop the kids of at school and wouldnt be able to get to work in time without it. I need the AA as proven last week when I broke down on the way to work - we use them about twice a year so its well worth it.

My car is serviced / mot'd /fixed by my father-in-law so it doesnt cost much to run as such!

I am looking at stuff to sell, there lots of computer related stuff and I am currently making a list - hopefully will be able to start soon and get a few hundrend quid in.

Getting a part time job is not an option at the moment - my wife is a student nurse and work silly shift all over the place, its hard enough getting sometime together never mind having another job which can offer flexible hours.

I am working on the APRs etc will get back as soon as I have them.

Thanks,

Annie_Fanny

Water - We have four kids so I dont think a water meter would save us any money - probably cost us more. (Do you know this for certain? Have you investigated this?)

HSBC - Thats goes to my HSBC current account to pay of my overdraft from them (i stopped using the account about 5 years ago and still paying the overdraft) (Can you include your overdraft in your list of debts as well please and tell us the amount outstanding and APR.)

What are you prepared to do to get debt free?

Thanks

Annie