Dont know what to do, pls advise

mack69

Hi,
Well we have alot of debt, our own home and 3 kids (1 now 18)

I realise that we cannot make all our payments now, and have just started to miss some.
I've been reading on here a while to find our options, but I'm having a real hard time convincing the wife.
She knows someone on a DMP and says they never have any spare money. She is desperate that no one knows our position and wont talk to me about it. Above all she is terrified of going BR
This is causing a great strain, on top of this I have just had to pack in working self employed cause I was losing more than I made, so I'm out of work at the min.
We are thinking of putting our house on the market and renting as this would just about clear everything, but we know it wont sell quick.
What can I do?
Most of the CC debt is in my name, but the house and secured loans are in both names. Can I just do a DMP?
With a DMP can anyone find out? employers, general public etc? I've told her I dont think so, but not 100% sure.

Also I was a few days late making my Barclaycard payment, and they kept ringing me 4 or 5 times a day, at home and on my mobile, can I request they stop harrassing me on the phone?

Phew! can anyone advise me?
I'll do a SOA, but if anyone can help in the mean time?
Thanks

SuzySu

Hi there Mack69.

I've been in almost the same situation as you....forced to sell the house and paid off most of our debts. Am now renting and no longer avoiding the phone calls. It can be done - not overnight, but you will get through this.

Stick around - someone will be along with more practical advice for you, but just wanted to say welcome on board.

MrsTinks

Ok - long list and first point is that it will be easier for us to advise you with a full SOA

I'll try to get all the questions: Does anyone have to know you're doing a DMP? No... unless you tell them. If you go BR though then it would be published - assuming you know anyone who reads those papers (I don't think I do...)
Tell your wife that unless you DO address the money situation then you WILL end up BR and not by choice... far more embaressing!
As for her friends on a DMP having no money... NEITHER HAVE YOU! And her failing to accept that (and possibly you too) is what got you into the situation you are. If you can't pay your bills then you have got to get her to see that actually you have no money and you have got to stop spending.
I think you have got your lightbulb moment but I'm afraid it does not sound like your wife has had hers yet...
Can you ask that Barclays stop calling you? Yes - you can send them a letter and request they only contact you in writing - expect about a month for it to kick in though.
If you can't make your payments CALL your creditors - if they know before you miss the payments then they will be more likely to give you a bit of breathing space.

Do your SOA and post it up so we can see what is the best way forward - without that we're guessing at best...

mack69

Here you go, dont think I've missed anything

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet
Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 3 (18 year old)
Number of children in household......... 2
Number of cars owned.................... 2
Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 0
Partners monthly income after tax....... 1000
Benefits................................ 550
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1550
Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 425
Secured/HP loan repayments.............. 290
Rent.................................... 0
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 133
Electricity............................. 84 (includes Gas, have switched)
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 20
Telephone (land line)................... 45 (includes Internet)
Mobile phone............................ 40 (tied in for another year)
TV Licence.............................. 13
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 10 (ends in Feb)
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 200 (only approx, prob less)
Clothing................................ 20
Petrol/diesel........................... 150 (for 2 cars)
Road tax................................ 30 (for 2 cars)
Car Insurance........................... 85 (for 2 cars)
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 10
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 7
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 20 (includes contents)
Contents insurance...................... 0
Life assurance ......................... 12
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 0
Haircuts................................ 0
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 0
Emergency fund.......................... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1594

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 159000
shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 3000
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 162000

Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 70000....(425)......0
Secured Debt.................. 44000....(290)......0
Total secured & HP debts...... 114000....-.........-
Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Barclaycard....................15200.....300.......0
RBS............................11200.....250.......0
Egg............................11300.....355.......0
Wife OD........................2500......0.........0
My business OD.................5000......0.........0
My Overdraft...................2500......0.........0
Argos Card.....................2000......65........0
Halifax (wife).................3000......40........0
Capital One (wife).............7000......190.......0
Halifax........................4000......80........0
Capital One....................1400......25........0
Total unsecured debts..........65100.....1305......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,550
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,594
Available for debt repayments........... -44
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 1,305
Amount short for making debt repayments. -1,349
Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 162,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -114,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -65,100
Net Assets.............................. -17,100

goingforward_3

Ok i have just started my DMP..

I have actually have more money now then i've had for a long time... by that i mean i have a decent amount for shopping(£350 for the 4 of us), a set amount for petrol, more for emergencies, road tax, mot's, prescriptions etc basically all the things that i struggled to pay for before.. infact i didnt pay for them before they went on credit !!
Ok we arent rolling in it but by careful shopping and budgeting it is possible to squirrel a little away for a treat now and again though i intend to squirrel away for final settlements.

We havent told anyone about our DMP.. my parents have enough stress right now due to serious illness.. and really its no-one elses business.

Selling my house would clear maybe 1/2 my debt but i dont want to go down that route(my children have been through so much in the last 2 yrs due to illness selling there home isnt an option) my DMP should take 7 yrs but i hope to be done in 5 which i dont think is too bad.

Debt isnt a crime... yes i may have been stupid but i've learnt my lesson and i'm now dealing with it.

One thing i would say though is i wanted to do this 18 months ago but my husband like your wife didnt.. instead we struggled on robbing peter to pay paul have paid about £20k in payments and took about £3k off what we owed... he now conceeds that i was right and we should have done it when i wanted as they £20k would have cleared a large portion of our debt.

Dmp's arent right for everyone but without ours we really would never have cleared our debts .

WASHER

Had a glance at the SOA.

Is your 18 year old in further education? If not, he/she needs to get a job and help out financially and pay some rent to you.

Easier said than done, but you need to get any job, doesn't matter what it is, anything at this moment will help.

I would suggest you call CCCS a.s.a.p, you are in need of help.

In the meantime, you need to offer your unsecured creditors a token payment of a £1 per month, cause you cannot afford anymore.

Do you really only spend £200 per month on food for 5? It doesn't seem anywhere near enough for 3 adults and 2 children.

What type of work are you experienced in? Have you tried agencies? Monster and jobsite online could be a good starting point to post your CV.

Unless I have added something up incorrectly, even selling your home isn't going to clear the debt fully, you will be approx £20K short, I think BR is a serious option for you.

BTW, you cannot afford 2 cars at this moment in time, think about selling one of them.

WASHER.x.

mack69

I hope to get some work in the next couple of weeks, believe me I am trying VERY hard.
Daughter has a job and she contributes a little, but she doesnt get paid alot.
we prob do manage on £200 a month with food, kids are at school, wife, me and eldest out as well.

You have worried me with the BR comment, I was hoping for some advise that I could show my wife to convince her we need help. If I tell her BR is the only option, we'll get nowhere.
We need 2 cars, wife works 20 mile away and youngest child's school is 4 miles, plus I need a car for potential work, we live in a small village without good public transport. If I cannot get work, then I agree, 1 car it would have to be.
Can I offer creditors token payments without entering into a DMP or similar? if so, how long will they accept them? 1 month/2 month?

thanks

WASHER

BR is not the only option, but only if you find work and soon.

Unsecured creditors won't like taking a token payment, but you cannot afford anything else at this moment. You will get phone calls and letters, but their are templete letters you can send to creditors to stop phoning you.

I'm not trying to scare you, but you are in serious financial difficulties at this moment, your wife needs to realise that and not wanting to talk about the situation isn't going to help either of you.

Offering token payments will have an effect on your credit rating and you may find the cards are blocked once you start offering token payments, but surely you nor your wife wants to add to the level of debt you have.


What have you spent the money on? I'm not judging you, but trying to make you think what you have bought in order to sell things at carboots or Ebay.

Do talk to the CCCS tomorrow, or take a look at there website, very useful info.

goingforward_3

mack69 wrote: »

I hope to get some work in the next couple of weeks, believe me I am trying VERY hard.
Daughter has a job and she contributes a little, but she doesnt get paid alot.
we prob do manage on £200 a month with food, kids are at school, wife, me and eldest out as well.

You have worried me with the BR comment, I was hoping for some advise that I could show my wife to convince her we need help. If I tell her BR is the only option, we'll get nowhere.
We need 2 cars, wife works 20 mile away and youngest child's school is 4 miles, plus I need a car for potential work, we live in a small village without good public transport. If I cannot get work, then I agree, 1 car it would have to be.
Can I offer creditors token payments without entering into a DMP or similar? if so, how long will they accept them? 1 month/2 month?

thanks

Our situation was a bit complicated i had to move our business bank account etc and so we made token payments for 3 months. Touch wood most creditors have been ok and so far the only ones who arent happy with our DMP payment are Tesco who ironically are our smallest creditor.


Bankruptcy was never an option for us anyway as we own a ltd company and you cant (i dont think) be a company director if you are bankrupt.

All i can say is as i posted above.. since being on the DMP we have more money than we've had for a long time because the CCCS give you a reasonable budget to live on that covers everything from food for you to pet insurance.

If you look on their website you can do whats called a debt remedy, you put in all your figures and it works out the best course of action for you.

mack69

what will happen to my business account?
obviously not self employed anymore, so do I tell them?

Hannah_10

Whoa this is serious, you've got a £44 a month overspend before you even start thinking about your unscured debts.

If we take all of your repayments on all of your debts (excluding the mrtage but including the secured loan) your repayments a month would come to £1595. This is more than your total income. There are also three overdrafts with no payments going into them at all, overdrafts are a very expensive way to borrow, the charges/interest on those could easily be in the three figures a month.

There are a few things that could be lowered a bit on your outgoings, no doubt someone will point those out shortly. Lowering your outgoings though is pretty pointless. In fact I see whole categories of outgoings that you can't keep living without, like clothes (they wear out), presents (three birthdays and a christmas a year at the very least), emergencies (stuff happens at the most inconvenient times).

There are soft-options for getting out of debt, a DMP is one of them actually, snowballing would be another. Look being frank with you, you can't snowball when you're living on an overspend. And a DMP is looking nigh-on impossible too given that you'd be looking at using £246 to pay back £109,100 of debt, and that'd be IF you could get the secured loan into the DMP.

There lies the problem, the creditor of the secured loan isn't likely to let you include them in the DMP because they'd be getting something like £98 a month. They're more likely to take action against the security.

So without including the secured loan, you need to find another £44 to just live, plus some more because you need clothes etc, then on top of that find money for repayments. Lets say you pulled it off, you created another £300 a month. Ok well, you'd have the first hundred spoken for in living expenses and then you'd have £200 to make offers on debts of £65,100. You will be paying for 27 years and that's IF you can get all the intereast and charges frozen, so lets call it 28 years for good measure. That's a dreadful outcome!

So your wife needs to read this thread and have a look at the SOA herself. The very unpleasant truth is you're going to have to consider the heavy duty options like selling up, bankruptcy or an IVA. The longer you leave it the worse it becomes. I'm sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.

May I recommend speaking to the CCCS when you've had a word with wifey, perhaps show her what I wrote. https://www.cccs.co.uk