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I am in serious debt and need serious help!

2»

Comments

  • Hi,
    I have been trying to get out of my credit cards for years now, and paying the minimum has got me to a point where I am now unable to live...Can anyone suggest some useful help?
    Thanks

    Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

    Monthly Income Details
    Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,655.46
    Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

    Monthly Expense Details

    In Your Home

    Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60.00 very high
    TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.00
    Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Home Phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Cleaning Products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.00
    Garden Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15.00
    Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
    Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00 high
    Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00 high? mine's £20 per month on a meter
    Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90.00 can this be paid over 12 months not 10
    Overdraft Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Bank Account Fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.00
    Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600.00
    Plumbing/Boiler Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Mortgage Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Mortgage Payment Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.00
    Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303.33 very high
    Drinks for Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00 do you need this? can it not be included in your shopping bill?

    Motoring & Public Transport

    Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433.33 Can you walk short journeys?
    Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43.33 try getting a different permit
    Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
    Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83.33 high (shop around)
    Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38.75
    Rail/Bus/Taxi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Breakdown Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.33

    Debt Repayments

    Credit Card Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615.00
    Hire Purchase Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Car Loan Repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

    Savings & Investments

    Pension Payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Buying Shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Mini Cash ISAs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Lump Sum Saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Regular Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

    Family

    Pet Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    School Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    School Meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Pocket Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Nappies/Baby Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Laundry/Dry Cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00
    Children's Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Baby Sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Childcare/Play Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Pet Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Travel Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.17

    Entertainment

    Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216.67 scrap
    Cinema/Theatre Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46.67 scrap
    Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Big Days Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Shopping for Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.67 scrap
    Pet Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00 scrap
    IT/Computing (eg Anti-virus etc). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    DVD Rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16.00 scrap
    Drinking Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130.00 scrap

    Clothes, Health & Beauty

    Complimentary Therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Optical Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
    Beauty Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Healthcare Cashplans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Dental Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
    Private Medical Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    New Children's Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00 cut down for now

    Education & Courses

    University Tuition Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    School Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Your Courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

    Big One Offs

    Funeral Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Wedding Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.33
    Winter Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25.00 scrap
    Summer Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58.33 scrap
    Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41.67 lower

    Odds & Sods

    Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Regular Charity Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104.17 take pack up
    Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
    Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00


    Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,655.46


    Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,259.08



    My comments are above for you HTH x
  • ms_london
    ms_london Posts: 2,852 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Clothes, Health and Beauty & Odds and Sods & Big One Offs - having all of these are definitely extravagant, you blatantly don't have the income to cover everything, so need to make some serious cuts.

    The basics would be a roof over your head, water, elec, gas, council tax, grocery costs - and then go from there. How are you funding this over spend? You have credit card payments listed above, who is the CC with and what is the APR? Do you have any other debts?

    xx
  • zarazara
    zarazara Posts: 2,264 Forumite
    I reckon that by scrapping non-essentials,like holidays and fun shopping you can save about £500 a month ,which can go towards debt repayments.
    "The purpose of Life is to spread and create Happiness" :j
  • I agree with all on here but council tax £90 per month and some one asks are you in arrears for some one paying £600pm in rent it sounds cheap to me, my council tax is £130 pm and I live in a housing association home.OK observation over back to op.
  • LandyAndy
    LandyAndy Posts: 26,377 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts
    It would be useful to know a bit (a lot) more about the OPs lifestyle.

    I guess a divorced father living alone in a smallish property (v.low heating bills, low council tax) who sees his kids at weekends (lots of spend on family days out) and has an expensive car that he can't bear to give up. Probably can't cook much if at all (huge grocery bills plus eats at work etc.) .
  • Sorry to be a pain, but please re-do your SOA using https://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html instead. It's the one we're more used to here and helps prevent double-counting.
    Starting Debt: ~£20,000 01/01/2009. DFD: 20/11/2009 :j
    Do something amazing. GIVE BLOOD.
  • Perhaps the op doesn't like the responses to date?????
  • fozmcfc
    fozmcfc Posts: 3,098 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker PPI Party Pooper Debt-free and Proud!
    I'm fearing OP is possibly a troll, hope I'm wrong as there are many genuine people who need help on the board, so not very nice to waste peoples time.
  • bottleofred :
    What makes you think £90 for council tax is high ? that is cheap in some areas and normal in others.

    bottleofred
    :


    That doesn't sound a lot to me - I get a single person's discount and still pay £120pm over 12 months so £90.00 sounds good to me!
    Debt 30k in 2008.:eek::o Cleared all my debt in 2013 and loving being debt free :)
    Mortgage free since 2014 :)
  • Shiela
    Shiela Posts: 11 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    fozmcfc wrote: »
    I'm fearing OP is possibly a troll, hope I'm wrong as there are many genuine people who need help on the board, so not very nice to waste peoples time.

    I'm impressed with how you've cut your card bills. Did you do this alone Fozmcfc or do a Plan?
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