Can I get some advice on my situation please?!

paulburns1984

Hi everyone, in a bit of pickle and need a bit of advice if possible on which way is the best to go.

Basically came out of university last august, did very well and should be able to go into the very competitive career of clinical psychology. Since university I lived at home and worked as a support worker and was able to knock my overdraft down a bit. Due to the extremely competitive nature, you need to get a job as an AP. Luckily I managed to get one but had to move away from home across the country. Better paid job but having to pay rent and live in manchester is expensive so I'm worse off really. But you do this job for a year or so, 4 months in so far and then move onto the doctorate which should be at most 14 months off, and then salary goes up considerably. It's just I have to take this highly important for my career but low paid job until then.

So my situation is at the moment. Student loans obviously, around 2k of CC debt that aren't really immediate at the moment (can handle minimum payments, the interest is pretty low and I can manage until the better paid jobs to come later, not brilliant but how it has to be right now)

I have a Lloyds bank account with 2k overdraft which i'm buffering off at the end of each month really, managing to make little indents into it maybe £50-100 better each month (again not ideal but not terrible). I have an older account with Nationwide that had a 2k overdraft that gradually they have been dropping due to income going into lloyds tsb and I have managed to drop it to -250, but now they are asking for that within the next 7 days and it's going to be a struggle, I just don't have it at the moment.

Here's a general balance sheet of my month

income - 1100

Outgoings
Rent & Bills - 365
CC - 60
Phone - 40
Car - 90
Car insurance - 55
Petrol ~ 75

it leaves me with around 400-450 to live on each month, which I am able to do, not easy but the moneysaving tips on here have helped. And essentially that's all I need to do... survive until the bigger paychecks will come in a year or so.

The problem is this 250 payment. Plus in the next few months LLoyds will start applying pressure to to lower the overdraft of my graduate account. So what would be the best way to deal with this? Lloyds do have a graduate loan offer which is pretty good, that I didn't take up when I opened the account that would still be there I think. Would a loan be the way to go for a year or so to take some of the pressure off. Or rather go for another credit card? Obviously it would have to be one with which I can make payments into my account. My credit rating is really pretty good so should be able to get credit.

I have a few bits of guitar equipment including an amp that should go on ebay for 1300, i would probably be able to get around 1500 for all of it. The plan with that is to pay off the £90 a month for the car payments for year. So that should help but there is still the issue of this payment. May be small potatoes to some, but it's a pretty big issue for me.

I'd love to get some advice on this if possible? Sorry the long vent

getmore4less

With £450pm I don't see what the problem is for the £250.

£300pm should be more than enough to live on for a couple of month.

pay the £250

Live of £125 cash and use a CC for £125 worth of spends

Pay it off next month.

paulburns1984

I can't really do that, my moneys so tight, with contracts left to come out and several things mean I may actually hit the buffer on my overdraft and end up having missed debit payments which is really not a good situation!

Plus my CCs are bank balance transfer ones so I really don't want to use them for spends really! Plus wont it work that I would be paying off the balnce transfers first so it would take ages to get to the purchases and their associated interest?

Would you suggest applying for a new credit card that would work better for purchases?? Or go for a loan?

flossy_splodge

I would ask for an 'arrangement' ie time to pay and DEF go for the graduate a/c, NOT another CC.

CLAPTON

manchester is cheap to live in; 1100 should easily be possible

post up a full financial statement
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

lets see the detail before offering any advice

paulburns1984

I'll do that balance sheet soon, just I need to get this sorted sooner rather than later so think I'm going to down to lloyds today and take out a graduate loan, just to give myself some breathing space.

Basically I can take anything from 1k-10k out and pay back over 5 years with 9.9% APR. I was thinking of taking a 3k loan out which should make my car payments easier, be able to pay off the £250 and allow me to save more up each month, give myself some breathing space away from my overdraft buffer and also make it ok when lloyds drop my graduate overdraft in 6 months time. Maybe even pay off some of my CCs too.

Does this sound like a good idea to everyone before I go and do this?

opinions4u

It sounds to me like your moving debt around from one place to another, topping it up here and there, and continuing to spend more than you earn.

That might give you breathing space, but it doesn't solve the problem - it actually means that when it does eventually blow up the mess will be a lot bigger.

Find more ways to spend less.

paulburns1984

I know what your saying and yes that is all that's really happening at the moment, but i am doing a lot better these last two months with hardly spedning anything on luxuries <- this may have been a downfall in the past but after 4 years of being a student and finally getting a first decent paycheck, it's hard not to be tempted at first. But as I say I'm doing a lot better now.


The debt is just being moved around, but that's something i have to do until i get to the higher wage, I physically can't pay it off any quicker. In my career progression, in around a year or twos time i will get around a 9k pay rise and a quick rise in salary in the following years. So in essence it should (if I can keep surviving on my current wage) should take only a year or so to be debt free after the rise.

Thus basically all i am trying to do is survive for another year or two without making the debt too much bigger

MessyMare

I've also got to say that a year's experience in the field is the bare minimum for getting onto a clinical course (I was looking at the same thing and had several long chats with my advisor over it). Plan for the long term, try not to bank onto getting onto the course straight away, just in case!

paulburns1984

ColleenPamela wrote: »

I've also got to say that a year's experience in the field is the bare minimum for getting onto a clinical course (I was looking at the same thing and had several long chats with my advisor over it). Plan for the long term, try not to bank onto getting onto the course straight away, just in case!

Thanks for the warning Colleen, really appreciate it and fully expect it may possibly be a few years. Honestly though, I have thoroughly researched this and do feel I've got an extremely strong applicaiton, having graduated top of my university with multiple awards aiding a v.strong academic aspect, and two amazing posts under my belt with experience that can really only be matched by trainees already or people in CP posts even, the responsibility given in my current role is pretty unethical considering my position but nevertheless puts me stands me in good stead in the experience category.

Currently working on some research experience with in-job audit and some work with the newly formed PTSD service, some quite cutting edge stuff with DBT. As well as obvious UG research exp.

Apologies if that came across as arrogant, really wasn't meant to, just an appraisal of how i see my situation, it is confidence in my own ability and strengths which working in this field is a good thing, whilst very aware how it can come across.

Good luck Colleen if you decide to go down the CP route, hopefully it's a really rewarding one!