help me sort my mess please

devona

Hi im new to this board and need some advice please.Ive just totalled up my debts and am completely ashamed and shocked at the amount i owe.I have come to my senses and no more burying my head in the sand,but i need help and advice on how i can start.I have read on the forumn that its best to list my SOA so here we go,this is what i owe on credit cards.
virgin cc 4541.38 (limit 5000) apr 15%
marbles 4773.77 (limit 7200) apr 19%
lloyds tsb 2521.07(limit 7200) apr 15.9%
mint 2843.26 (limit 8300) apr 15.75 %
barclaycard 154.00 (limit 1000)
halifax 725.00 (limit 2500)
egg 800 (limit 2000)
TOTAL 16360.48
Can any one advise me on reducing this as im struggling big time to meet the payments now.Is it possible to call the card companies and ask them to reduce payments or freeze interest for a while?. I m not sure how to go about this and i would appreciate ANY help!!!!

lynzpower

hi there devona & welcome :wave:

Your best bet first of all is to read southern scousers sticky "first time posters" adn have a good read, we can help look at your income & expenditure, and also the debts.

Good luck & dont panic
Lynz

sarah0404

Hi, I'm sorry to hear about your money problems. It is a shock when you realise just how much you owe.

There is lots of excellent advice on this site about credit cards.

Have you tried applying for any 0% credit cards yet? You could save lots of money on interest by tansferring your balances to a 0% card. You can certainly try phoning up your credit card companies and asking if they can give you a better offer.

A very useful link is the snowball calculator. http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx If you enter all the amounts you owe, and how much you can afford to pay each month it will calculate the best way to pay it all back. It will also tell you how long it will take to clear your cards.

What did you spend the money on? (you don't have to answer that) But are you sure you won't get into the same situation again?

If you post a full SOA, with your income, and outgoings on food/rent/phone bills etc then people might be able to suggest some more savings you could make so your CC repayments will become more manageable.

I owed 32K at the beginning of the year. My spending is under control, and I now owe 27K. Still sounds awful, but it feels under control now, and I know that I *will* be able to pay it all back. I'm sure you can do it too. Well done for taking the first step! :T

sophiesmum_2

Hi Devona
I'm not an expert but looking at your cards I would do the following:
Move the balances of the three lowest cards onto either Halifax or Egg - whichever has lowest APR. Then close accounts on other two cards and get written confirmation.
Then I would move the marbles balance currently 19% onto the mint card at 15.75% then close marbles account too.
You will have then reduced your credit cards from 7 accounts to 4 which will give you a psychological boost and enable you to keep track of them better.
Make sure that you cut up the cards and close the accounts immediately.
Next I would try and get some of the balances onto 0% cards or low % life of balance cards if at all possible.
Then you need to use the snowball thingy to work out which cards you should throw any spare money at.
That is how I would do it but there are lots of people on here better qualified than me. It would also help if you posted a soa of your income and all your other outgoings so people can see where you may be able to cut down to generate more money for the debts.
Hope that helps a little
sophiesmum

vivaladiva

I agree with sophiesmum. But before actually moving the money around give the CC cos a ring and aks them if they will offer you a decent balance transfer rate. They might only knock 2 or 3% off but every little helps. Do try for some new 0% cards (I thought that we had so many cards that no-one would possibly give us another but you'd be surprised). Make sure you close the old empty accounts though.
HTH

yummum_3

Hi, what are the apr's on your barclaycard, halifax and egg?

Dont worry there is always a way out!