need some help please

bach230

Hubby and i are both in work - i work 35 hours a week as a medical secretary earning £8.75 an hour. Hubby works as a security guard doing any number of hours a week but generally currently around 36 1/2 hours on £6.25. He doesn't drive so has to either get lifts from myself or one of our parents to get to one site he works on or he has to take the train when none of us are available for transport. This obviously costs money too for the train fare, £6.90 each way. He doesn't get travel expenses from his employer either - part of their policy.
He was working regularly doing day shifts on a local site for some time doing nearly 50-60 hours a week but the company working on the site decided they no longer needed a day-guard for financial reasons hence why my hubby is now in different locations each week with reduced hours.
He is currently looking around for another job but being a security guard and the fact that he doesn't drive is not helping him to be too successful in this line of work. He has however applied for a local retail job but we haven't heard anything about this yet.

We're currently around £950 overdrawn with an overdraft limit of £1500. We recently borrowed £1000 from my brother to help our account out but this seems to have now made no difference, we believe because of my hubby's reduced wage from his employer.

We're looking into reducing/cutting out some things like an odd couple of £ here and there for different product insurances and reducing our sky package down. We've already reduced our weekly shopping down slightly but things just seem to be getting worse.

Hubby's looking into getting a £7000 loan to help our account out, help him get driving lessons sorted and for a few extra things (we have our first baby on the way so this would help towards baby things) but i'm a little unsure about this, the same as both our mothers.

Is there any other way of us sorting things out without getting a loan??

I currently have a loan for a car i had to get last august as mine decided to pack up on me and i do have the opportunity to increase the size of this if i need to.

GeorgieFTB

Well done for posting and welcome to our merry band of... well anyway fill out a Statement of Affairs http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html and some very [STRIKE]nosey[/STRIKE] helpful people will be along in a little while to give you the benefit of their hard won wisdom.

I personally wouldn't get into debt just to pay off debt but you need to look at all your options, you should also check what benefits you are entitled to, I'm sure you will get Child tax credit etc when the baby is born.

Ohh and good luck/congrats on the baby.

Gx

RedPepper

A lot of my suggestions may seem obvious but maybe might help??:

Try switching shopping to cheaper supermarkets such as Lidl and taking advantages of special offers or BOGOFs with family/friends
Can your hubby get some driving lessons off family/friends?
Baby stuff can be obtained much cheaper and for free via Freecycle.org - trust me, my baby is 14 months old now and we got LOADS of bargains from there!! Most of which were brand new/barely used!
Can you cancel your sky package altogther? Freeview is much cheaper overall and a good alternative?
Try looking at all your SO/DD's and see if any can be reduced or got rid of altogether - be ruthless!!
Do you have any items you can sell on eBay?

Try not to increase your loans if at all possible as this will only get you more stressed later on, but if you do, can you switch any to 0% cards?

Good Luck and congratulations too!

isy1011

I know it hurts but just get a freeview or change to BT and not sky. I think they rip you off anyway and suck you in to loads of packages you dont need. Get all your baby stuff (apart from car seat) second hand cos they are only in the clothes for a really short time. Good luck.

undaunted

Borrowing more money with a falling income is the road to disaster I'm afraid so please don't do that. Increasing income again is obviously the ultimate aim but it shouldn't cost 7k to learn to drive. In the meantime you may be able to negotiate reduced payments with creditors until things improve. You can have a look at Consumer Credit Counselling Service website or contact your local Citizens advice bureau (or similar) for free help if you are unsure how to do this.

Good luck.

Hannah_10

Freecycle Rocks!!!

Between my sister and I we have so far managed to scrounge the following for my baby (due October)...

2 pram/pushchair/car seat systems (yes you're not meant to use second hand car seats but they're familly ones and so the provenance is beyond doubt) both Mamas and Papas
The cot & bedding
Breat pump, bottles (need new teats tho which is a couple of quid), steriliser and bottle warmer.
4 bin bags of clothes, I have full sets of everything I need all the way up to 9-12m in both genders and patchy bits from 1y-3yrs too
The washable nappies (need to buy bucket)
Playmat and a box of toys
Moses basket and linens
Highchair (probably)
Baby sling/carrier
Changing mat, baby bath, top & tail bowl
Changing bag and travel mat and odds and sods of disposable nappies.
A load of other stuff I've forgotten as it's still in her garage and I haven't picked it up yet.

At a very quick mental tally shall I say this lot comes to £3000 if bought new (it's hard to estimate for clothes).

Sister and I worked out there are only 2 items I will need from day 1 that I do not yet have. They are monitors (expected cost £50) and a stairgate because of the dog (expected cost £15). Then shall we say another £20 for those teats and bucket I mentioned above coz I'm guessing they'd be about a tenner each. I bought a few clothes that I don't need, I just wanted a lot, so another £40 if you'e really counting it. Plus I decided I'm not paying for jars of additive-riddled baby food and so I bought a food processor too. I probably didn't need it to be a super-duper top of the range Kenwood one, but it was a very good deal having been heavily reduced to £105.

So worst case scenario is that in 12 weeks when baby comes I shall have spent a grand total of £230, but it might be £160 if sister and I keep doing so well at finding cast-offs.

As I said... Freecycle... It rocks.

bach230

- What’s the Statement of Affairs link that has been recommended?

- I’ve already looked into benefits for when the baby is born so I’m aware of most/all of the things that we’re entitled to.
- I have been wondering whether hubby could have driving lessons off family/friends – I think that, although it may turn out more expensive in the long run, it might be better for him to have lessons singularly rather than in a block booking – that is how he has been looking at it mostly because obviously getting a booking of 10 lessons together tends to be cheaper. His parents have offered to lend him around £500 for a block of lessons but he’s reluctant to accept their offer as they’ve been struggling financially too for various reasons
- I have heard of freecycle so I will definitely look into that over the next few months
- We can’t cancel our sky package – our house is nearly 4 years old and, though we have cables in the attic to have an aerial attached to the house, we’ve never done anything about it as it seemed cheaper just to get a sky dish fitted at the time. We are considering reducing our package down however as we do have the full lot but don’t tend to watch everything – although hubby reckons that reducing the packages will possibly only save us a couple of £ per package
- We have already looked at our SO/DD’s and there are one or two that can be cut but they don’t save a huge amount
- There are a few items we could possibly sell which we may be looking into over the next few months as well

- What is the difference with a 0% card to having a loan?

- The 7k loan that my hubby was looking into was to cover a range of different things – (some) baby stuff, driving lessons for hubby, clear a couple of cards my hubby has now got rid of etc

bach230

I have just thought of a couple of options - my hubby bought a train set for himself a while ago - maybe 12-24 months ago - and he has never used it. He has mentioned a couple of times about getting rid of it for this reason and reckons he could get around £200 for it as that is how much he thinks its worth so that could be an option for us. The other thing is that i've got quite a few clothes that i either can't get into anymore or just don't want to wear anymore - i'm wondering whether its worth me maybe trying to sell the clothes on ebay at all?

RAS

Hi

Firslty, please stop your husbansd gettign that loan, it will be a mill stone round your necks and could well sink you.

You need to be proactive and sell anything that you no longer use, will no longer use. Depending on what it is amazon, e-bay or car boot sales.

Statement of Affiars calculator here http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Format it for MSE when you get to the end.

bach230

RAS wrote: »

Hi

Firslty, please stop your husbansd gettign that loan, it will be a mill stone round your necks and could well sink you.

You need to be proactive and sell anything that you no longer use, will no longer use. Depending on what it is amazon, e-bay or car boot sales.

Statement of Affiars calculator here http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Format it for MSE when you get to the end.

My husband has been refused the loan anyway - found out last night so that ideas gone down the pan for him! I'm definitely thinking of selling alot of my unwanted clothes so that might help a bit but i doubt it'll help too much. I'm going to try and persuade my hubby about maybe having single driving lessons rather than a block booking to at least get him started.
re. the Statement of Affairs calculator - i'll have to do it either Friday or over the weekend as hubby's working nightshifts tonight and tomorrow and tends to take his laptop with him so i'll have no access to the net at home for the next couple of nights, unless i bring the list of our outgoings to work and try to fill it all out here. I will get on with that though so thanks for explaining it.