out of control debt - help!

Hannah_10

dancingfairy wrote: »

I would get in touch with one of the debt charities Martin recommends - like CCCS (they have a handy website calculator you can use as well), National Debtline or you local CAB.
Yes - you can pay back 42k by making cutbacks as suggested by others but you may also want to explore other options including bankruptcy - it depends on what's going to work for you.
Good Luck
df

DF I totally agree about speaking to a charity (Clare see the whole of this collection of articles by Martin Lewis http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/debt-help-plan you will find out who the charities are and lots of other help too). I wonder if you missed that Clare has £303,000 worth of assets though? It was hidden away on the end.

Total assets (things you own)........... 303,000

With assets far greater than the value of the debt an IVA or bankruptcy would appear to me to be the least-best of the options. I could be wrong though- so Clare is best to check with a charity.

clareabella

Hi all
thanks for all the replies, lots of food for thought there!
I think that by being very strict it can be done, lots of ways of saving money I hadn't even thought of there.
Bankrupty isn't something we can consider, my oh works for a bank so big no no
Also we are down an income at the moment which should change eventually, It always takes me a while to get work after a move as employers seem to hate checking foreign references
We own a house but let it out as it was too expensive to consider moving back to, it's a 5 bed and we're renting a 3 bed now.
We hope to sell in the future but the value has plummeted while we've been away so at the current value we'd lose out too much.
To be honest we've always had a good income and I haven't even thought about how much we spend, until now I wasn't even aware of how much most things cost :eek: Which is embarrasing to admit but there you go, watching the pennies is a new thing so has taken a bit of adapting too lol especially for the kids but fingers crossed sticking to a budget will teach them an important lesson that I obviously learnt a little late!

bluebag

Hi clareabella,

Glad you've taken a few things on board. It'a a steep learning curve when you haven't even had to think about these sorts of things before, but keep at it and keep coming back on here to help you keep on track.

I't amazing all the hints and tips available, thing like getting your house ready for winter cheaply to help save on fuel.

Have a look around and check all the boards. It's about working smarter not harder!

Hannah_10

Thanks for the extra information.

From what you're saying cutting right back and then doing something called snowballing would look the best way forward. I posted a link to a snowball calculator in my post above. Snowballing just means making overpayments on whichever of your debts has the highest interest rate. So if your credit card had a rate of 18% APR, your loan had a rate of 9% APR and your storecard had a rate of 28% APR you'd overpay every penny spare onto the storecard. Then when the storecard was paid you'd take everything you were paying on the storecard and add that to the credit card as an overpayment and so on. Like a snowball gathering size as it rolls along.