Worried Sick

kateharrington

Hi all, Im new here so bear with me!

Im really worried about the state of my finances. I was financially stable until March this year. Me and my husband split and I moved away with our 2 young children. I went from someone with no money worries at all to a single mum on benefits.

Because of this, I ended up living on my credit cards. It was the only way I could afford the deposit for my flat and furniture etc.

However since then I have stuck my head in the sand and ignored it all (I know its the worst thing to do) but now I desperately want to sort this mess out.

I owe somewhere between £7000-£8000 over about 4 credit cards.

Ive done an income and expenditure sheet, which works out I have about £70 spare per month.

Whats the best way forward?? DMP or try and talk to my creditors myself?

Thank you in advance x

Sunnylooloo

Hi Kate

why not have a chat with one of the following debt charities (from my experience I found National Debtline and CAB brilliant)

http://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/index/getadvice.htm
http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/
http://www.cccs.co.uk/


After lots of talking I sorted out my own DMP with the help of national debtline they have template letters and are really wonderful when you call (you may have to wait to get through but dont give up)

You could try posing up your SOA http://www.makesenseofcards.co.uk/soacalc.html and you can maybe get some advice on how to save bits here and there.

Hope this helps a little bit!!

LL

Tixy

Hi Kate and welcome

I would suggest it would be sensible to at least have a talk with one of the charities first. They will offer you some advice and might be able to say whether creditors will consider your income & expenditure to be reasonable (well the expenditure part!). Then once you have spoken to them you can decide whether or not you want to do a managed DMP or to self-manage with your creditors.

If your finances were likely to improve considerably fairly soon and you could go back to making normal payments then sometimes it can be good to try to talk to creditors yourself. If not then a DMP does sound like the way forward. (I assume you mean £70 spare before debt repayments not after minimum payments?)

Another couple of things - have you checked you are getting all the benefits you are entitled to at www.entitledto.co.uk? Is your ex contributing what he should to your children?

If you still have any joint credit accounts with ex (mortgage, loans, current accounts) then you need to be aware that you going on a DMP may affect his credit rating. Whether you want to mention this to him probably depends on how things lie between you at the moment but worth you being aware.

You might also want to post your income & expenditure (or statement of affairs) on here at some point to see if anyone can find savings to free up more money. Or have a read of other people's threads to see what items are normally suggested.

Good luck and welcome again.