Debt advice... please!! about £20,000 in debt, phone calls all the time, terrified...

Dolly_Smith

oh I know - I'm only about 8 miles out of London myself. But that's just it, you only need to move a little way out to get much cheaper housing and decent transport links in if you need to. That rent is just such a burden if you're not earning for a while

freda

IS/child ben 325
child tax credit 192.83
housing benefit 866.67
income 1384.5
============
expenditure
rent 900
phone 38
water 24
electricity 35
gas -on a card meter 40
food 195
outgoings 1232
===============
cc1 10
cc2 10
cc3 10
loan 65

debt repayments 95

total outgoings 1327

balance 57.5

Sorry, I missed the correction on the income.

Back to the SOA. A lot of items are missing:

Travel - bus, taxis etc. I assume no car?
Clothes/haircuts
Ents/going out/ kids days out in hols
Christmas./birthdays
TV license
Mobile phone?
Insurances - contents? Life?
School costs, i.e. trips etc
Emergency fund savings


I would suggest to the OP that they keep a spending diary, as I doubt they actually have £57.50 left over each month, so they need to find out where it is filtering away to without them noticing! A spending diary is a real eye opener and will help to get you more organised and in control.

Mirtos

Dolly_Smith wrote:

oh I know - I'm only about 8 miles out of London myself. But that's just it, you only need to move a little way out to get much cheaper housing and decent transport links in if you need to. That rent is just such a burden if you're not earning for a while

On the one hand you're right, but with a child, I'm not sure the upheaval is worth it - especially as transport INTO town (should a job materialise) is so expensive. - we looked into moving out of london, and calculated that even though the accomodation was cheaper, with the travel on top we'd have ended up worse off each month than we are now! :eek:

Dolly_Smith

that's true - but childcare is also more expensive in London, so even if you get a job you have to weigh up that cost too. It's enough to give you brainache

AppleCrumble_2

I have thought about moving. I am looking at jobs further away now but there is no way I can move until I find a job. There are more opportunities for jobs around here though (simply because of the sheer number of schools).
But the thing is I have lived here almost all my life, and it would mean taking my daughter away from all her friends, and leaving my friends and as a lone parent I'm not sure I could face relocating to somewhere else where I didn't know anyone and had no support or anything.

AppleCrumble_2

Dolly_Smith wrote:

that's true - but childcare is also more expensive in London, so even if you get a job you have to weigh up that cost too. It's enough to give you brainache

At the moment I would have no childcare expenses, my daughter is at secondary school, and she is with her friends after school or at clubs in school if I'm not here.
I've found, that only some forms of childcare are more expensive in London - this is balanced out by the fact there is just so many more options and most of those have discount schemes if you are on a low income.

david_hellier

Hi and welcome to the site. I hope I'm not missing anything here but according to my calcs you are overspending by £32.96 per week. To survive you need to earn an extra least £100 per week to keep straight. All I can suggest is a part time job or can you claim other benefits? Also the Capital One rate of 2.2% per month equals 29.84% APR, bit of a rip off. I'd call them and threaten a transfer to get the rate down.

To cut costs your rent needs to be reduced. Either a lodger or share with others.

Good luck. The figures are as follows:

income weekly monthly
self
partner
ic supp 75.00
tax cred 44.50
housing ben 100.00




total 219.50 0.00
0.00 divided by 4.33

219.50 total weekly income

spend weekly monthly
rent/mortgage 900.00
council tax 0.00
elec 35.00
gas 40.00
water 24.00
secured loans
TV licence
fines
cc1 10.00
cc2 10.00
cc3 10.00
loan 65.00


















total 0.00 1094.00
252.46 divided by 4.33

£252.46 total weekly spend

Start= income - spend = -£32.96 per week

anniestar

Welcome, you will get fantastic advice from the wonderful people here. You have made the hardest step everything gets easier now. Just one question for you are you a qualified teacher and if so what field are you qualified to teach in?

AppleCrumble_2

anniestar wrote:

Welcome, you will get fantastic advice from the wonderful people here. You have made the hardest step everything gets easier now. Just one question for you are you a qualified teacher and if so what field are you qualified to teach in?

hi
I'm qualified but haven't done the in-work NQT probationary year (as i've only had supply work over the last year). unfortunately - my subject is art - not a shortage subject by any means :-(

I have been busy this week, so far
- written to all those i owe money too, for a full statement, so waiting on that - got some pay for work I did over the summer in a museum so have paid off half the council tax bill
- sorted out deferrment on my student loan
- working on getting charges back from my bank account, done the initial letter
- still working on a full SOA
and filled in four job application too ;-)

pooped now