It's time to pull my head out of the sand

vandanfc

If I have read the figures correctly, your "normal" monthly debt payments are around the £800 mark, on top of your listed living expences, this would normally still leave you with £700 spare cash, were does this normally go ?

Paul_london_2

RAS wrote: »

Can you get a credit union loan to cover one card? Speak to your laon company and ask for two months grace and sort out the second payday loan?

Yes it's a house share with my partner and one other, my partner has been very understanding and has offered to help me as much as she can, but generally she ends up helping me every month by buying food etc.

The sky package - i will try and contact them tomorrow to reduce the package

Phone - stupidly i just renewed my contract to allow me to get an upgrade which i then sold straight away on ebay to try and help reduce the payday loans.

Insurance - is £36 a month due to my age, the remaining £12 is my bank charge with Halifax which includes travel insurance and breakdown cover for my car

Clothing - I can't remember the last time i went clothes shopping so reducing this to £0 should be no problems

Other Travel - This is my monthly rail fare, i have considered cycling but a 26 mile round trip is a bit unrealistic for me i think

Credit union - i understood that credit unions required you to save for a number of months before you can apply to borrow also my credit rating is extremely poor

Thanks for the help i will get onto sky first thing tomorrow

Paul_london_2

RAS wrote: »

Re the car, can you get it off the road, SORN and cancel the trips home for three months. Assuming that you can dfer the insurance in some way. It is another 100 per month.

I understand with cars on finance you are required to have them insured fully comp at all times and you are breaking the contract if not! but if anyone knows please let me know

I will try and reduce the trips home.

Thanks

Paul_london_2

vandanfc wrote: »

If I have read the figures correctly, your "normal" monthly debt payments are around the £800 mark, on top of your listed living expences, this would normally still leave you with £700 spare cash, were does this normally go ?

Thats a question i've been trying to work out :eek:

I have been in the payday loan cycle for about 8 months now and these have been eating up my spare income due to the high interst rates.

My aim is to try and clear the payday loans and then post a new SOA hoping to get some advice in getting the remaining £30k slowly reducing each month it's just trying to get out of the cycle!!

Paul_london_2

Well i've made a start to tackling my finances,

Phoned sky this morning and reduced my package as much as i could.

After looking through the MSE site i have decided to try and reclaim some mis-sold PPI so far i have written 5 letters to the following lenders:

Argos - I had a card with them about 3 years ago (which luckily i paid off)
Egg - credit card
MBNA - BT credit card
Santander - Burtons card again this was paid off 3 years ago
HAlifax - Credit card

I have drafted the letters to include the following points, if anyone has any further ideas of what to include please let me know.


The salesperson selling the insurance was pushy and strongly advised me to take the insurance.

I was not asked whether I already had any existing insurance or employer benefits that would cover my repayments.

XXX ltd would have be aware from my application that I was / am a full time civil servant and such PPI would not be in my interest to have due to the extensive sick pay, death benefits and redundancy packages I receive, therefore I did not receive comprehensive financial advice from the sales person and PPI was added purely for the financial gain of the sales person / XXX Ltd.

I also had two previous loans with the AA which i foolishly consolidated into my current loan, i refused PPI on the current loan but think it was included on the first two, i have phoned the AA today to check as i do not have any of the paperwork they have promised to get back to me next week.

katsu

Paul_london wrote: »

Insurance - is £36 a month due to my age, the remaining £12 is my bank charge with Halifax which includes travel insurance and breakdown cover for my car

Can you afford to travel such that you need travel insurance? Look at martin's advice on breakdown cover - you can spend probably £60 per annum on Boncaster cover as the safest option (or £37 autoaid as long as you could cover the costs and wait to be repaid). I doubt you are benefiting enough from this £12 monthly fee. Check what it does for the overdraft before cancelling tho.

Paul_london wrote: »

Clothing - I can't remember the last time i went clothes shopping so reducing this to £0 should be no problems

In which case whatever you put in your SOA for this is money you are spending somewhere else! Get a spending diary - online or a notebook and fill it out every time you spend money.

Paul_london wrote: »

Credit union - i understood that credit unions required you to save for a number of months before you can apply to borrow also my credit rating is extremely poor

They exist to help people so should be more flexible than a bank. Call your local one for a chat and see what they suggest.

DarkConvict

If you do reclaim any PPI ensure you ask for payment by cheque so you can cash it yourself and pay against the payday loans

Paul_london_2

5 PPI reclaim Letters sent recorded delivery this morning, fingers crossed!!!

mazza25

Credit unions generally don't ask you to save with them for more than one month. The idea is you agree to keep enough money in the savings account to cover one month of the loan repayment, for the duration of the loan.
They also base your loan app on affordability and they want to help people out of the type of trap you are in with pay day loans.
They are worth a shot

JohnD76

Paul,

Can you list the APRs of your debts?

We all know the payday loans will be at ludicrous rates, but this will help focus you and others onto where to start.

You really need to clear the payday loans ASAP since they ae cripling you financially. If you can, concentrate on the most costly one first and then then next etc.

Have you got any items you can sell on eBay to help clear the payday loans?

Good luck Paul.

John.