what to do??? urgent help needed.

jojane25

my husband works full time and i work part time. we have 2 pre-school age children which makes childcare unaffordable so i can only work around my husbands shifts and when his father can babysit. i was working 4-5 nights a week a few months ago but because i couldnt commit to 6 nights a week every week they took someone else on and cut my shifts down to just fri and sat meaning we have lost over £400 a month. our tax credits have just stopped due to overpayment so have now lost anothe £107 a month. i am currently pregnant with our 3rd child (unplanned before anyone jumps on me for having another child whilst in financial difficulty, we considered abortion but couldnt go through with it)

our 2 debts we pay out for are our car finance payment and our loan with our bank. as it stands as of now our incomings are slightly less than our bills and debt payments, meaning we have less than £0 for food, clothing and nappies etc. we had been mananging with out tax credit payments but now that has stopped there is no way we can live. we have written to bank regarding loan asking to reduce our monthly payment, what are the chances of them agreeing to this intime to reduce the payment due on 1st july? if they dont we are screwed. i am worried sick, we cant borrow money off anyone and not eligable for crisis loan or anything like that. what the hell are we going to do? bank wont cancel standing order for the loan payment (as loan is with same bank) so cant even cancel it til we get it sorted. cant afford to bounce any other payments and incur anymore charges (had to pay £40 this month and bank are going to be taking £30 in july) i fear we are on the edge of a downward spiral which is going to ruin us, we only have 10 months left on car finance and 14 months on loan so to get so close to paying off our debts just to sink even further down is going to finish us off.

TUS

Negotiate your tax credits repayments. My OH overpaid when she was single by about £4k and now pays back £50 per month. It doesn't interfere with our joint TC claim which we still receive.

Oh and do a SOA calculation and post it so people can do some proper analysis :-)

Fang_3

Post your SOA and don't panic.

westieangel

i spoke to national debt helpline this morning & they were great good luck

jojane25

well our incomings are

husbands wages 1510
my wages 200
child benefit 135

TOTAL 1845


outgoings
Rent 625
Council tax 143
Electric/gas 120
Water rates 43
Contents insurance 9

Car finance payment 127
car insurance 35
car tax 15
car breakdown cover 12
petrol 120 (work is 25 miles away)
bridge toll to work 100 (is £5.50 a day)
car mot 30 (paying back father in law for last MOT)

life insurance 10
internet 7
BT landline 16 (locked into contract and they charge for not making anycalls)
Sky calls - phone 10 (£5 monthly charge for calls plus a few pound for numbers such as 0870 we need to call)
sky tv 21 (locked into contract, plus is out whole families only entertainment/treat as dont smoke, drink, go out, take kids to softplay, cinema or anything)
mobile phones x 2 65 (locked into contracts til nov)
tv license 12
playgroup fee 20 (this is even with the governent funding for 3 year olds)

bank loan 360

TOTAL OUT 1900

this gives us a loss of £55 a month BEFORE we buy food, nappies and anything else we need.

TUS

Use this and post results:
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

jojane25

just wanted to add
we buy only basics food, basics toiletries and cleaning stuff, loo roll etc. i but supermarket brand nappies (they never have the basics ones in) the kids clothes are from car boots and charity shops. both my usable pairs of shoes have holes in bottom and i have superglues the soles back onto the bottom of one pair. i havnt had my hair cut in 3 years, i cut my husband and the kids hair myself, we just did a car boot sale in order to raise money to pay our bounced direct debit fees (was supposed to be doing it in order to get our daughter a birthday present and have a little party in the garden), we dont have anything of value to sell - computer is 5 years old and monitor broke last week anyway, tv is 5 years old with sctraches all over the screen, dont have designer clothes or anything, no jewellery that isnt wort about 10p apart from wedding rings which were £100 each when we brought them and i would really not resort to that becasue fo the meaning behind them. we owe both our dads money, my husbands nan £1500, i am potty training both the kids in the attempt to save on nappies each month although at the moment its just meaning more loads of washing to do. the only activity i take the kids to is a toddler group once a week at a cost of 50p for all of us, we cant move closer to husbands work as what we would save in travel costs we would have to pay in extra rent and council tax, plus we couldnt raise the deposit and first months rent upfront, plus we would lose babysitter and my job, we have been on council housing lists for 4 years, there are like 200 applicants for every house in our county, cant do avon as there are already people doing it in the village, i dont drive so cant do it anywhere else,

just wondering how likely the bank are to accept reduced payments? if they dont i feel like killing myself so at least my husband and kids will have my life insurance to live off and sort themselves out.

podperson

Ok first of all take a deep breath and try not to let it get on top of you. Yes things seem bad at the moment but so many people on here have been through it and come out the other side. At the end of the day money is just a material thing and definately not worth hurting yourself or worse over *hugs*

Speak to tax credits and try and sort something out for repayments, they have always been lovely with me so hopefully can let you pay a little off at once. Also update them on your reduced wages as this might mean you are entitled to more off them.
Have you checked whether you might be entitled to anything off council tax for reduced income? If not then make sure the payments are at least over 12 months not 10 to spread the cost out.
Your gas/electric seems very expensive, have you tried comparison sites and try and make an effort to switch everything off etc.
For the car mot where you are making payments to your father-in-law as well, is he desperate for the money or would he let you off for a little bit while you try and get sorted. If you are locked into contracts with Sky can they maybe at least sort you out a reduced or package deal with the phone line and internet?

If you get no luck with the bank then try contacting one of the debt charities such as CCCS or debtline, sometimes companies don't like reducing payments or interest for individuals but they will do it for other companies like cccs. Would also suggest ringing the bank that are due to charge you and asking if they would possibly cancel the charges as a one-off due to you having financial problems this month. If you haven't asked before and don't make a habit of getting charges then they will often do this for you (and nothing to lose by asking!)

Just try and stay calm, it is scary but there is always things you can do and lots of lovely people on here who will help and advise

dancingfairy

O.k firstly you need to get a new bank account. Sadly banks can and will take money in current accounts for their loans etc. They are not allowed to take benefit money but it is far easy to move your money to a new account with a new bank now than to wait until your bank has taken your money and have to argue/plead with them to get it back so you can buy nappies/clothes.
You need to do this as soon as possible.

With regards to the car finance - what type of finance is it? is it a loan or hp?

Make sure you are getting all benefits you are entitled to and see if you can repay the overpaid benefit at a small amount per month as it is putting you in hardship to hav nothing at the moment.

Have you got a credit union near you? You could look and see whether they would give you a small loan to pay off the car finance and repay the credit union each month - see if you can set the payment amount lower. Yes this will drag the payments out but you may just about to get things to balance if they can help.

Can you reduce the mobiles at all? even by 5 a month each would help a little. Otherwise you may need to not pay the contracts and let it go to a debt collector and agree a small reapyment with them and get a chap pay as you go one.

Once you have a got a brand new account you will be in a better position to negotiate on the bank loan and at the end of the day if you can't pay it you can't pay it and they will have to take what you can offer them.

If you need any help I'm sure National Debtline or CCCS or your local CAB can go through things with you.

Don't panic. It is fixable and if you feel desperate then call your gp or the samaritans.
df

jojane25

the bank wont waive the charges, we have already tried. so beacuse we were 12p short we now have to pay £70!! (£30 to bank and £40 to car finance company). last month we went over overdraft by £7 so they ewaived the charges that time so wont do it again.
electric and gas is cheapest on uswitch. we dont use tumble drier, didnt have heating on excessively over winter but with 2 toddlers at home all day was obviuosly on more than some people, we dont leave things on standby or things charging for long periods of time,
tax credits say we are only entitled to £40 a month now and they are allowed to take the whole amount off us.
on paper our income is healthy but with all our outgoings (£500 debts, £200 travel to work costs plus living expenses the sums just dont add up) so when we apply for benefits - housing benefit etc we earn too much to qualify. our only hope that the bank agree to reduce our loan payments from £360 to £100 for the next 6 months. it will give us some money to live off and some breathing space in which hopefully husband will get a payrise in plus baby will arrive meaning more child benefit and tax credits!!

dancingfairy

With regards to the bank loan - they probably aren't going to be tooo happy about you not being able to pay them but that's just tough - feeding and clothing your family and keeping a roof over their heads is far more important at the moment. They might huff and puff and jump up and down and threaten court but they know that any judge will see sense and make you only repay what you can afford - and if that's 1 pound per month then that's what they will get.
The people in the bank certainly won't loose sleep over it.
All you can do is your best to repay them at a rate you can afford.
DO get a new bank account though before rattling them and get all your wages/ benefits/direct debits changed over.
df