Long time no see - Advice needed

Blackruby

Hey all,

It's been such a long time since I have been on. Little update, I have a job now which I didn't before. 6 month temporary contract but it's in admin and I am 85% sure I am getting kept on because I have made myself an invaluable assest to the company (and I am the only one who knows where everything is in the office)

Now why I am here, my debts are still here and huge, most of them have been pretty cool with letting me pay off a little bit while I am still up in arms about whether I am being kept on or not, except my Halifax O/D which are being horrible. I went 30p over my arranged o/d limit and I am now £53.88 over my arranged overdraft limit. Thins is Halifax didn't realise I wasn't a student anymore, so they are in the process of changing me over to a horrible charge rate. £1 a day for every day I am in my arranged O/D limit, £5 for every day I am over that limit.

My question for help is this, I am thinking of asking my boss if I am going to be kept on, and if so I figure I can pay £250 a month towards debt. Would I be better figuring out a pro rata rate for all my debts, or getting a debt consolidation loan and just having the one creditor? I am currently paying no interest on anything apart from the O/D which stands at £28.00 a month charge plus .50p interest last time I checked. Thanks for your help.

Debt Breakdown

Halifax O/D £2,755.88 Halifax C/C £1,554.84 Capital One C/C £570 Gas Arrears £84.05 Electricity Arrears £161.58

Tixy

Hi and welcome back. Well done on the new job (and making yourself invaluable!)

If you have been paying reduced payments for a while then I would imagine your credit file is likely to have been affected. If this is the case you may well find that a consolidation loan is not an option open to you. That said that may be no bad thing as consolidation loans often are not the great solution people think they will be. Even if you could get a loan as most of your debts have no interest then its cheaper to stay with them than take out a consolidation loan which might be anything from 10% to 20% or more interest across all your debts.

Looking at your debts your Gas & elec arrears are priority debts and you should be focusing on paying these off before anything else (even if you can only make £1 token payments to the others in the meantime).

If you haven;t already then set up a new bank account somewhere not linked to halifax and move your salary to be paid in there. That will protect you from halifax either cancelling your OD and swallowing your wages or offsetting the money in the account to the halifax cc debt.

It might be an idea for you to talk to one of the debt charities if you haven't yet. If you can afford £250 per month on those debts they might suggest a debt management plan as a way forward for you, which would still mean you were only paying out one amount each month.

Blackruby

Hey, thanks for the reply

The gas and electricity arrears are for an old property, so I am not at risk of getting cut off. I know my credit file is shot at the moment, because I have been making reduced payments for over a year now (was unemployed for 11 months before getting this job) I also didn't want to commit to a high payment incase I became unemployed again after the six months. I have had a seperate basic bank account for about a year as well, nothing can be taken off of me, so that's good.

I am considering throwing the £250 a month at the O/D till that's clear, then move on down the list, would take about 2 years, just under, but I have heard that if my creditors find out, they will kick up a fuss.