Fed up with debt eating my life away!

mafitman

Hi there

A first timer poster looking for some helpful advice please!

Credit card debt:
Mastercard £11775
TSB £9287
Mastercard 2 £2149
Virgin MBNA £1918

Total £25129

We really want to get these sorted as they have spiralled out of control over the past few years for various reasons and altho we can service them we just don't get anywhere with them!

We have a three kids so a lot of our expendable money goes on them. I've been wondering whether to try and re-mortgage but would need 95% LTV which seems tough to find at present, or find a 25k personal loan to pay back over 8 years and increase our monthly amount in the pocket by a small amount to help with ever increasing expenditure needed with the kids!

I've included an SOA for you to take a look at...

Any advice appreciated

Cheers

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 3
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1700
Partners monthly income after tax....... 850
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2550

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 648
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 117
Electricity............................. 54
Gas..................................... 42
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 47
Telephone (land line)................... 1
Mobile phone............................ 110
TV Licence.............................. 12
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 61
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 250
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 80
Road tax................................ 20
Car Insurance........................... 33
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 27
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 14
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 50
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1596


Assets
Cash.................................... 500
House value (Gross)..................... 120000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 6000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 126500


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 99000....(648)......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 99000.....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mastercard Halifax.............11775.....233.......0
Mastercard 2...................2149......24........0
Lloyds TSB Card................9287......187.......0
Virgin Mastercard..............1918......31........0
Total unsecured debts..........25129.....475.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,550
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,596
Available for debt repayments........... 954
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 475
Amount left after debt repayments....... 479

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 126,500
Total HP & Secured debt................. -99,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -25,129
Net Assets.............................. 2,371

purpleheather2810

I don't think you should consolidate your debts. The pp is just trying to sell you more debt! Do you really have 479 left after all debt repayments? If so, this is definitely doable without taking out any more debt.

mafitman

I haven't spoken to the Halifax about consolidation, or anyone else at this time.

7 years is fine dependent on how the numbers work out

Krisp_3

Hey there

Welcome and well done on posting your SOA - the first step back to sorting yourself out!

The two things that jump out at me are

(1) mobile phone bills - is that for 2 adults, for all of you? Even if for all of you, it still seems steep. There are loads of PAYG options these days where you get loads of minutes and/or texts with your bundle that will save you a fortune.

(2) Your SOA seems to imply that you have £479 left over each month, but you say that your struggling. If this is the case, it's possible you're spending lots of cash on things that you don't think about - bought lunches, going out and so on. It's really easy to just take out £20 here and there and it mount up. I know this from personal experience!!! I realised I was spending over £60 a WEEK on rubbish. I don't any more and put these 'savings' in a separate account each week. Why not set up a spending diary for a month and note down everything you spend your cash on? It might be an eye opener!

Others will be along with great advice soon.

Welcome to the club. We're all lovely and the water's quite nice at this time of year...;)

Jesthar

*ahem*

For what it is worth, ignore the Halifax person. Consolidation isn't what you need, as you technically have spare cash. You just need to find it! More debt is rarely the solution to debt. And loans offered by those you have a big debt with often have some nasty conditions attached.

Start a spending diary ASAP, and find out where all your extra money is slipping away. Then find out the APRs on your credit cards, and start paying everything you can off that card. Just pay the minimum amounts on the others. Once that card has been cleared, move on to the one with the next highest APR and so on.

~Jes

mafitman

Since my original post I've looked at a Snowball Debt calculator and that is really interesting.

I think if I plough another £100 per month into the debt mountain and pay off as per the snowball religiously I *could* be debt free within 5 years and it would be cheaper than if I'd whacked it on the mortgage! Looks as if that maybe the way to go.

Good job I've got a good pay rise coming up next month

never-in-doubt

397877 wrote: »

Have you been to the halifax to see about a consolidation loan as they are the biggest debt balance? I am an advisor at the Halifax I could have a look for you?
Would only be able to do 25k over 7 years tho?

I can't believe you think you can tout for business like this, without the actual facts or conducting any kind of interview.

I also suspect your employers do not know what you're doing here, as you know trying to sell a regulated product on the black market (like this forum) is a breach of varying Acts and could also cost hBOS their Consumer Credit Licence.

I think you ought to do us all a favour and get lost before you bring the brand that was Halifax, into further disrepute than you've already done. I mean I could borrow £25k over 3 years if affordability allowed, its not for you to presume I could only do it for 7 (i.e. more interest) - that is mis-selling at its best you idiot!

The only comfort from this is that I do know the head of internal fraud at HBOS and have emailed him a link to your post, hopefully you done this whilst at work ergo create an audit trail.

Idiots like you make people like me sick! :mad:

DVardysShadow

never-in-doubt wrote: »

...

The only comfort from this is that I do know the head of internal fraud at HBOS and have emailed him a link to your post, hopefully you done this whilst at work ergo create an audit trail.

Ah!!! Mods please leave this thread up and the posts intact!!!!

never-in-doubt

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Ah!!! Mods please leave this thread up and the posts intact!!!!

Exactly - we want to see if it is a real employee and if so, going on the time of the post (5pm), lets hope they were at work - put it this way, they won't be a job for long if they were!!

I suspect this is a pure scammer myself, however it is worth bearing in mind that HBOS front line staff do get targets for the sale of loans & obv a 7yr maximum (£25k) unsecured loan with PPi would be the "best" target oriented sale an advisor would generate ergo they could be legit, albeit acting illegally and outwith the scope of their employers knowledge for one sole purpose - to generate bonus payments via targets.

Makes me sick either way you look at it :mad:

elfen

If you could do it without consolidation, yes, it's a challenge, but you'll feel SO much better for it. It's very cathartic knowing you've cleared another debt, and shutting it down feels good too. And please listen to the advice of others, a decent bank employee would not tout for business online - especially attempting to get someone else into more debt.

crispy_chris

you could, of course, have just gone to halifax.co.uk to confirm that :P