All help and advice so very, very welcome!

depressedwithdebt

Triggles wrote: »

Please make sure you talk to your wife about this BEFORE you agree to the consolidation loan!!! I know that if DH took out a consolidation loan without discussing it fully with me (including a complete view of the state of our finances), I would be LIVID!!

Yes, this is something I will be doing!

In my profession, fraudulently taking out a joint loan wouldn't go down particularly well!

depressedwithdebt

BLT wrote: »

The Virgin credit card is clearly your first priority, at the end of your 0% you will be paying 198 pounds per month in interest and your monthly payment will be circa 220 pounds.

The main issue here is that you have reached critical point, if, as is oft the case, the credit card companies get wind of your situation, historically they are very adept at raising their interest rates in order to adapt to the percieved risk factor.

Hi

Thanks for this. Yes, Virgin and egg are top priorities. If I use the consolidation loan to clear these (as well as the remaining £800 towards the Natwest card), my other credit cards have balances that are at low levels for the duration, and it's on these cards that I can actually see going down month after month. I want to get rid of the Natwest card ASAP, and will be using the extra monies from the mortgage to do this. I should be left with about £2,600 on after loan pays off the rest, so can clear it in just over 5 months.

I will also be selling a lot of my things I have decided. I think it is better to offload as much as I can now, and maybe, at some distant stage in the future, I might be able to get myself the off DVD now and again!

Have already done some carboots (to pay for my camping hols this year) and am doing one again this Sunday. In light of my LBM, it may now be a much more packed stall than it was going to be!!

Thanks again for everyone's wise words.

Will be approaching the subject with my wife over the weekend. If all goes well, will post again soon. If not, I wonder if I can get internet access whilst living in a tent....

RAS

Try amazon for books and CDS/DVDs.

katsu

After you've spoken to your wife post a joint SOA so we can advise you on it with all the information.

Some comments on your SOA...

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 2
Number of children in household......... 1
Number of cars owned.................... 2

Monthly Income Details

Monthly income after tax................ 2399
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 2399

Monthly Expense Details

Mortgage................................ 615
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 0
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0 - My wife pays this
Electricity............................. 0 - My wife pays this
Gas..................................... 0 - My wife pays this
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0 - My wife pays this
Telephone (land line)................... 50 - this is for TV, phone and internet, with maximum customer discount from Virgin
Mobile phone............................ 40 - for 2 phones, sim only contract deals
TV Licence.............................. 0 - My wife pays this
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 280
Clothing................................ 0 - I don't put money aside for this (as haven't got enough!) stop buying for you for now but work out family spend
Petrol/diesel........................... 250 - I drive a long way to work and back, but am soon to be working closer to home, so expect this to come down to £150 per month as of October
Road tax................................ 0 you need to start to work out the annual figures for these expenses and set monthly money aside towards it.
Car Insurance........................... 38.33
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0 as tax
Car parking............................. 0 - this is free with work
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 5 - bond
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 15
Buildings insurance..................... 39 - buildings and contents insurance use comparison and acashback sites at renewal time and ensure your level of insurance is right - don't under or over insure.
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 53
Other insurance......................... 20 - pays out in the event of my death as I have no pension and wanted wife and child to get something should I die when you are able to start a pension I'd recommend it. Do you need both the assurance and insurance? check cashback sites like quidco and comparison sites to enusure you are getting the best rates.
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0 you never buy these?
Haircuts................................ 0 - my wife used to be a hairdresser!
Entertainment........................... 0 - I don't set money aside for this - do you spend any on it in a month - cinema, meal out etc?
Holiday................................. 0 - as above
Emergency fund.......................... 0 - as above

Total monthly expenses.................. 1405.33
Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 165000
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3500
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 168500

Secured & HP Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Mortgage...................... 150000...(615)......1.59
Total secured & HP debts...... 150000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts

Description....................Debt......Monthly.. .APR
Barclaycard....................6000......135...... .6.9
Citicard.......................2400......56....... .5.9
Natwest Visa...................3400......76........17.9
Mother loan....................2300......50........0
Barclays Overdraft.............2350......36........0
Natwest Overdraft..............5000......50........0
Natwest Charge Card............2500......50........0
Northern Rock loan.............7000......118.......9.9
AA loan........................3500......78........7. 9
Santander Cahoot loan..........7600......190.......17.9
egg Credit Card................3500......100.......22.9
Virgin.........................8200......31....... .3 - the payments will rocket next month when promotional rate ends - probably to £250 a month, if not higher
Total unsecured debts..........53750.....970.......-

(note - I also pay my mum £50 a month for a loan I have with her of £2300)

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,399
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,405.33
Available for debt repayments........... 993.67
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 970
Amount left after debt repayments....... 23.67 is this true? If not your SOA is not accurate. Your bank statements are a good place to look for evidence of actual spends.
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 168,500
Total HP & Secured debt................. -150,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -53,750
Net Assets.............................. -35,250

depressedwithdebt

Well, I did it. I told my wife it all last night. And she was so understanding I wondered why I had not told her before, before things became this bad.

She accepts the debts as being as much hers as they are mine, and we went through the figures together and recognise it is going to be a hard time ahead of us (certainly for the first twelve months when we are going to plough ANY extra money to clear debts to bring payments down as much as poss, whilst the mortgage is low), but that we will get through it. We will be getting a book (unless I can master excel quickly!) to keep a track of the debts, and (hopefully) note how much they are going down by each month.

She has also said that she can take on some of the food shopping money (so I only have to budget for £200 a month rather than £280), and will give any spare money a month over to the debts. She has also said she will sell a rolex she had been given some years back (before I met her) which will give a good bit towards the debt. I will be selling a lot of m,y things too, including my flashy mobile phone, and going back to a basic one. I think it will be nicer to have a flashy phone when i know I can actually afford it!

So sacrifices will be made, but the most important thing is that she is now in the picture. I no longer have to hide things from her, and she knows that I do not have a magical pot of money to dip into if we want something we can really live without.

Given her reaction, I still feel deeply ashamed as if only I had told her sooner (so much sooner) maybe things wouldn't have gotten this bad. But I suppose we all live and learn, often the hard way.

I guess there is a way out. It will not be easy, but at least I now have someone I can work with on a daily basis to get it all sorted out.

She agrees that the new loan over 5 years is a good idea, so we can clear the Virgin and egg cards (which have either double the interest or almost double the interest), then pay off as much as we can on the other credit cards with the extra money we won't be paying towards the mortgage. Any surplus funds we may have (which admittedly are not likely to be much) will also be used to pay money off debt, regardless of how small an amount it is (although as LL says, a couple of glasses a wine every so often and a pizza may be nice from time to time!).

Thanks again for all of the advice. I am now a MSE convert, so will continue posting, to let you know how things are going, and also to try and get even more money saving tips!!

winner12

Well done at least like me you wont fear the debt anymore and can set about sorting it even if it takes time and 2 heads make lighter work
Good Luck

tbourner

depressedwithdebt wrote: »

Well, I did it. I told my wife it all last night. And she was so understanding I wondered why I had not told her before, before things became this bad.

Well done!! Bet it's a huge weight lifted.

depressedwithdebt

tbourner wrote: »

Well done!! Bet it's a huge weight lifted.

Like you wouldn't believe!

I can now act broke and don't have to try and hide the situation any longer! Plus with her support, the interest only mortgage and consolidation loan, provided we are strict (which we will be), hopefully we can clear a big chunk over the next 12 months!

Sunnylooloo

DWD, as I have already told you I was so pleased at reading your post and I am so glad you wife sounds like an amazing lady who is also taking responisbility.

As we have said there are some great tips on her and it is a great place just for some support when you are feeling down.

Good luck with everything and def keep posting and let us know how you are getting on.

I really am so pleased for you - such a change from your first posting.

Take care
LL
x

FortunePig

Hi DWD

Just read your thread for the first time - congratulations on starting to sort everything out. You mentioned that you might like to try using Excel to keep track of your finances. I sort of learnt it for work as although its not a huge part of my job to deal with calculations, there are times when I need to. This may help if you're new to spreadsheets:

Firstly, you don't need to buy Excel if you don't already have it! Google Open Office and download it. This is an open-source (which means that people develop it for the fun of it without charging users - google open source for more info on this type of program) version of a microsoft office-style suite of programs. Open Office works more or less the same as Excel, you can open Excel-created files in it, and you don't have to pay anything for it!!

Once you've got either program open and working, here's some spreadsheet tips...

I don't know if you're an occasional user or complete beginner so here's the excel basics: http://www.ehow.com/how_2262166_set-up-basic-excel-spreadsheet.html. Open Office will work much the same. You can find lots of good tutorials for whatever level you're on using google once you have the software installed. Apologies if this is too basic - I'm assuming that you've not used the program at all, but even if I am going too basic, maybe this post could help someone else.

Open and look at a spreadsheet and you will see that it is divided into rows (numbered) down the side and columns (alphabet) along the top. The little boxes that make up the sheet are called cells and each has an individual name. For example, a cell on the row marked 3 that comes under the letter B will be B3. A cell in row 10 under column R would be R10 and so on.

All you need to do when building a financial-type spreadsheet is think of using it like lists. To make a simple spreadsheet telling you (as an example), what your debts cost each month, you could list the name of the debts in column a (going down the column) and then the total payment to each debt in column b (with each figure in column b next to it's resepctive debt in column a).

Once you're comfortable with entering information into cells, you can make it do clever things for you like adding, subtracting and multiplying.

Take a look at these tutorials - all very easy and will teach you quickly how to do basic maths in both programs. You can really interchange them but I'm linking to info for both as I don't know which program you're using and it can be confusing if the screen you're looking at doesn't match the one in a tutorial:

http://www.tutorialsforopenoffice.org/tutorial/Spreadsheet_Math.html - Open Office add/subtract/divide

http://www.ehow.com/how_9694_add-two-cells.html - excel basic addition

http://www.ehow.com/how_2248062_multiply-cells-excel.html - excel multiplication

http://www.ehow.com/how_2248064_subtract-cells-excel.html - subtract in excel

I hope this might help as a point in the right direction. Its such a huge program it can be a bit daunting to begin with, but this hopefully will point you towards opening a file, entering data and doing simple maths. The best advice I can give from there is to use google constantly. The answer will be on there - especially with a program like this with millions of users. That was how I learnt and it was so effective that no one in the office realized that I didn't know Excel from day 1!

Hope this helps!