£30k in debt! Where to start???

chrisfreelander54

t4mof wrote: »

Do you shop at Tesco or have one nearby?? We use Tesco Clubcard deals for most of our Days Out with the kids throughout the year - lots of choice. We even got a day out at Legoland this year, with nothing to pay for admission.

We have The Space Centre at Leicester nearby and get in with Clubcard vouchers and then get an annual pass so then that covers another 2 or 3 days out in a year.

Also check out museums in your local area. Usually free (or nominal fee) and a lot are interactive and aimed at children.

Oh, and FWIW, I'd pay Littlewoods with the £600 you have - it's a catalogue so I'm guessing the interest will be quite high - and you'll have the satisfaction of clearing a debt. You also pay £100 a month to this debt so you can then snowball this onto another debt.

Good Luck!

Thank for your feedback..

Yes we have a tesco nearby, but tend to use asda as we find them to be cheaper, even though we have a club card and tend to use them now and again.

as for the cataolgue everything ordered was 0% over 52 weeks, and some of th stuff bought is for friends who pay me weekly.

chrisfreelander54

Suddenly forund out that after sitting down with wife that we missed a few things off and have now added them to my sig, even thought they are in my SOA,.

Got a bit of a shock when called to gat a balance on the loan we have for the caravan to find that the amount originally given to us was a settlement figure and not a balance so now we are well over £30,000.00 and more near the £40,000. :eek::eek::eek:

But hey, can't blame no one but ourselves, just gotta get on with sorting it out. (which im determind to do, no matter what).

As the loan is at a balnce of 15,000.00 @11.9% would it be better to try and get a new loan for the settlement figure of £9500.00 at a lower rate, Satander are doing loans for between £7,500.00 - £10,000.00 for 7.5%?

As my car loan is with them I thought i may have a better chance of getting there low rate loan...

dancingfairy

southantrim3 wrote: »

You may have already checked this out and are maybe at your current limit but would it be possible to add all the debt on to your mortgage since it's only at 3.5%, considerably less than your other loans?

Just a thought, it may not be an option, but thought I would suggest it anyway. Good luck.

:eek::eek: This is not really a good plan - at the moment if you default on your debts there is a limit to the amount of action that can be taken and loosing your house would be extremely extremely rare - change the debt to secured and run into problems and the risk of loosing your home is a lot higher.
df

dancingfairy

chrisfreelander54 wrote: »

As the loan is at a balnce of 15,000.00 @11.9% would it be better to try and get a new loan for the settlement figure of £9500.00 at a lower rate, Satander are doing loans for between £7,500.00 - £10,000.00 for 7.5%?

As my car loan is with them I thought i may have a better chance of getting there low rate loan...

Well obviously lowering it to a lower interest rate is great as long as 1) you don't extend the term - as you will negate any savings on the interest rate and 2) as long as you don't think - oh well that is sorted I can pay less to it now and then end up spending the difference on 'treats' or something - you need to make sure that any 'savings' that are generated are used to put towards the debts.
Having said that then yes it might not be too bad a plan but plan wisely what credit you are planning to apply for as you can only apply for a certain amount at a time and you may want to restructure some of your other debts first.
Good Luck
df
Editted to add: also if you can get that secured loan (caravan) changed to unsecured that would be good also - also possibly worth looking to get one loan to cover the caravan and personal loan together as long as a) it's unsecured and b) you can bring the terms down and c) the interest rate is lower.

SkintGypsy

Hello again! I continued to pay the regular loan payments and balance transferred all the credit card debt to 0%. I suppose you could pay off a loan with a 0% card if it had a super balance transfer facility, such as Virgin. Not sure you would get a high enough limit though??

Re the egg money, I was a credit card customer, but I think if you opened on online saver you could use the facility.

Looks like you are getting all your ducks in a row, so things can only improve from here. Good luck with it all.

RAS

Before you do anything, find your APRS of everything, including the 0% deals that debts revert to if not paid off by the deadline. Often they are the most expensive.

That will help you target your money to the right debts.

STOP using catalogues; pay them off and then get rid ASAP as they are a temptation.

Next off, go round the house and locate all the books, old CDs, kids toys and clothes you no longer use and sell them, on amazon, e-bay, or at car boot sales. You may well find £1000 of stuff knocking about.

chrisfreelander54

dancingfairy wrote: »

Well obviously lowering it to a lower interest rate is great as long as 1) you don't extend the term - as you will negate any savings on the interest rate and 2) as long as you don't think - oh well that is sorted I can pay less to it now and then end up spending the difference on 'treats' or something - you need to make sure that any 'savings' that are generated are used to put towards the debts.

Good Luck
df
Editted to add: also if you can get that secured loan (caravan) changed to unsecured that would be good also - also possibly worth looking to get one loan to cover the caravan and personal loan together as long as a) it's unsecured and b) you can bring the terms down and c) the interest rate is lower.

Thanyou for the feedback, for some reason the caravan, went in the SOA as secured instaed of unsecured. (My fault, got a bit too excited about actually begining to clear my debt. lol).

Why would be of benifit as an unsecured loan, just curious?

As for the term i was going to lower it to lower the interest, hopefully.

But that all depends on the bank.

chrisfreelander54

RAS wrote: »

Before you do anything, find your APRS of everything, including the 0% deals that debts revert to if not paid off by the deadline. Often they are the most expensive.

That will help you target your money to the right debts.

STOP using catalogues; pay them off and then get rid ASAP as they are a temptation.

Next off, go round the house and locate all the books, old CDs, kids toys and clothes you no longer use and sell them, on amazon, e-bay, or at car boot sales. You may well find £1000 of stuff knocking about.

As soon as the catolgoue has been paid off, then im goona close the account.

Got all the apr's in order now, i have already used the spare £600.00 cash i had to clear 2 of our overdrafts that were 19.5%, now they are gone i was gonna focus on the caravan as this is 11.9% with a balanace of roughly £15,000.00. hoping to do enough overtime to pay an extra £1,000.00 per month, fingers crossed.

Then i was gonna taclke my wifes loan as this is less than £9,000.00 @11.9%, then hit the car loan for £7,500.00 @ 8%.

Hopefully this is the right way to go about things, if not could somebody please point me in the right direction, or give me a kick up the backside...

As for the remaimng overdraft that is a lower rate as the wife has a premier account, which we use for car breakdown and holiday insurance, and I think, but not sure, plumbing and drainage cover too @£25 per month.

chrisfreelander54

SkintGypsy wrote: »

Re the egg money, I was a credit card customer, but I think if you opened on online saver you could use the facility.

Looks like you are getting all your ducks in a row, so things can only improve from here. Good luck with it all.

Wil have look into the savers account if i can get a tool like this for free.

Did u find that usiing this tool helped?

chrisfreelander54

So far this month i have managed to do the following:-

1, Clear the £195.00 remaining on my credit card as it was at the end of the 0% deal.

2. Paid my £200.00 overdraft off on my current account. 19.5%

3. Paid off the £120.00 overdraft on wifes current account, which we use for paying the bills. Again 19.5%.

4. Paid £400.00 towards wifes overdraft on her current account. Unsure of rate, think its under10%.

5. Paid £100.00 extra off catologue. 0% for 52 weeks.

6. Paid 59p off wifes loan and £1.00 off the caravan loan. Don't laugh, I'm serious. (was checking that the internet payment transfer we set up was working)

7. Just gonna pay an extra £200.00 off the caravan loan, now. - Paid 08/10/2010 @ 21:15pm

Total overpayments so far this month, £1216.59. (All the overtime was worth it, but boy do I feel knackered).