on the road to recovery...

sillygirl_3

Hello everyone,

I have been lurking here for a while since i woke up one day in August and realised i had to get my head out of the sand. I called payplan who were really helpfull and to cut a long story short i now have an IVA which starts this month. I live on my own and am a homeowner (only just....lightbulb moment when Northern Rock sent me a request for repossesion and a court date). I will post my new SOA below:

NR Mortgage £626.22 (this includes £67 a month arrears over 3 years)
NR Loan - tied to mortgage £137.60
Council Tax £124 currently paying off arrears, will be back to £90 in April
Electricty £25
Gas £25
Water £15
TV License £9
Direct Line Life £6.96
Direct Line Car £20.74 have looked for cheaper and should come down to £18 in Nov
Direct Line Home £10.20
Ground rent and buildings ins £25 (non negotiable)
Vodafone £40
Car Repayment £138
Cancer Research £2.5
Payplan IVA £240.44
Petrol £160 I am looking for a job closer to home!

Total Out: £1585.62

Total In: Salary £1665

Left over: £79.38

My total debt that the IVA includes is £38K, totally my own fault and I am now working to pay that off.
I have a claim in with Lloyds TSB for £3250 of unfair bank charges which would be really helpful.
I am also looking for part time eveing/weekend work.

Any advice/help would be greatfully recieved!

Many Thanks

skintchick

Hi sillygirl (although I'm sure you're not, you might want to change your name cos you'll get stuck with it!)

Well, your gas and leccy look high. I live alone in a two bed terrace and pay £86 a month including a little bit of arrears, with Powergen. Look and see if you can switch.

Your mobile looks high as well. Do you have a landline? If not then cnsider getting one as you can get free calls on them. Try and use the mobi less - what tariff are you on?

Drop the Cancer Research payment for now - your need is greater.

It all looks tight so...can you rent a room out? It's tax free and I found it a great source of cash. I also rented my garage out as storage space.

Can you get a part-time evening job? Or do some cleaning for people?

tiff

Could you sell the car and buy a cheaper one?

sueshells

Looks as if you are on the road to recovery but might starve to death before you reach the end!?

I know that eBay is a bit of a cliche but I make a fair bit of extra money each month selling secondhand books and other items. I tend to know what to look for when I'm buying to sell but other people on here will tell you that they make a fair bit just selling surplus things they have around. eBay is quick to get started with and you can do as much or as little as you like, when you like. I haven't got into clothes and shoes etc but I know that Monsoon and other lesser designer things sell well and you can often buy these cheaply at a Car Boot and make a profit on them. I bought my daughter a pair of Irregular Choice shoes from an Antiques Market, would you believe, for £25 and she has just sold them on eBay for nearly £80. I bought an Elizabeth Bradley needlepoint kit from a charity shop for £4.50 and that sold for £78 on eBay. I also bought Rowan knitting yarns in charity shops for a total of about £15 and the four different lots sold for a total of around £140. I know that these are all fairly specialist things but it just shows that the stuff is out there and, with a little effort and research, findable. My best buy this year was an old menu card with autographs on which I bought from a Car Boot sale for £1. The autographs? The whole of the England 1966 World Cup squad plus Alf Ramsey - sold on eBay for £250.

If I can do it anyone can!!!

Then you might have enough money to be able to eat.

Good Luck,

Sue

sillygirl_3

Thanks for you replies!

I can't change my car as i am in a finance agreement with volkswagen that i cant get out of. I only have a one bedroom flat so unless someone wants to share with me then renting a room is not an option....unless a tall dark and handsome man comes along!!!

I am concentrating on applying for jobs closer to home so that i could walk to work and get rid of that huge petrol cost.....

For christmas my family are paying for my insurance policies for 2007 so this will free up some cash every month.

I am just trying to get away from my old mindset of 'see it, want it, buy it'!

I'm going to pop into the local pubs this weekend to ask about part time work and am babysitting for a friend tonight for some extra cash.

the_taws_family_of_7

sillygirl wrote:

Hello everyone,

I have been lurking here for a while since i woke up one day in August and realised i had to get my head out of the sand. I called payplan who were really helpfull and to cut a long story short i now have an IVA which starts this month. I live on my own and am a homeowner (only just....lightbulb moment when Northern Rock sent me a request for repossesion and a court date). I will post my new SOA below:

NR Mortgage £626.22 (this includes £67 a month arrears over 3 years)
NR Loan - tied to mortgage £137.60
Council Tax £124 currently paying off arrears, will be back to £90 in April
Electricty £25
Gas £25
Water £15
TV License £9
Direct Line Life £6.96
Direct Line Car £20.74 have looked for cheaper and should come down to £18 in Nov
Direct Line Home £10.20
Ground rent and buildings ins £25 (non negotiable)
Vodafone £40
Car Repayment £138
Cancer Research £2.5
Payplan IVA £240.44
Petrol £160 I am looking for a job closer to home!

Total Out: £1585.62

Total In: Salary £1665

Left over: £79.38

My total debt that the IVA includes is £38K, totally my own fault and I am now working to pay that off.
I have a claim in with Lloyds TSB for £3250 of unfair bank charges which would be really helpful.
I am also looking for part time eveing/weekend work.

Any advice/help would be greatfully recieved!

Many Thanks

Hi have just read your soa if you dont mind me asking what do you eat.Surely you cant survive on whats left,food,cleaning products,toilet paper (etc)It seems that your doing really paying towards your debt my fear is that your leaving yourself really short so are more likely to lapse and fall into arrears.I wish you all the luck to be debt free!

sillygirl_3

Hi

I am really lucky and have great family and friends who have been a huge help ovr the last couple of months. My grandmother collects Tesco stamps for me so i have a £50 tesco card every few months so i can stock up my cupboards/freezer etc and my mum usually buys me a couple of bits each week. I am trying to stick to packed lunches at work and have a few bags of homemade soup in the freezer, hoping to make some more!

If i can get a couple of nights a week in a pub then hopefully i would have arround £60 a week to live on which would be better. My bigest spend seems to be my social life....living on my own means i do like to go out a couple of nights a week but since i have explained my situation to my friends we have had a few girlie nights in at mine where everyone brings wine/nibbles which have been great fun!

Glitterari

Take up free DVD trials too - make sure you cancel them before the trial runs out and that gives you something to do with your evenings too. There are lots of companies out there but be careful cos i think there are quite a few that are like franchises of another company so if you've already had a free trial with one of the franchises you won't get another one off any other from the same group.

Ummmmmmmmm - are you signed up to petrolprices.com/co.uk (not sure which) you can get daily (or weekly) updates to your emails of the cheapest petrol in your area and you can up to 3 searches. I have one for home, uni and mum's house so whereever I am I know where to get petrol. At the moment, Tescos seems to be cheapest usually, so if you've got a club card for them you can get extra points as you fill up. I get about £10-£12 each quarter for petrol alone (well I did - driving less now).

How about doing things like avon/ann summers etc - i did ann summers parties a couple of years ago and found i did really well in the run up to Xmas - just don't be tempted to spend your earnings. Plus, don't travel too far out of you area cos if you get orders you'll have to go back to that area to deliver which can be a pain.

What line of work are you in and whereabouts are you - we can probably offer more ideas that would be suitable with that info.

Chin up.

C xx

the_taws_family_of_7

sillygirl wrote:

Hi

I am really lucky and have great family and friends who have been a huge help ovr the last couple of months. My grandmother collects Tesco stamps for me so i have a £50 tesco card every few months so i can stock up my cupboards/freezer etc and my mum usually buys me a couple of bits each week. I am trying to stick to packed lunches at work and have a few bags of homemade soup in the freezer, hoping to make some more!

If i can get a couple of nights a week in a pub then hopefully i would have arround £60 a week to live on which would be better. My bigest spend seems to be my social life....living on my own means i do like to go out a couple of nights a week but since i have explained my situation to my friends we have had a few girlie nights in at mine where everyone brings wine/nibbles which have been great fun!

Thats really good that you have people around supporting you ,i always thought i had great friends but when i told them about how bad things were they sounded shocked and concerned then 10 minutes later said," do you fancy going out on saturday?"Ive had to face my problems head on this week and have stood firm saying no i cant afford to do this and that.But by coming on here everyday i feel so much better about myself and my problems.I hope you will to.The girly nights in sound fun somehow i dont think my friends will have the same opinion at my house with 5 kiddies jumping all over them!haha!

dancingfairy

It sounds like you're doing really well. Your budget does look fairly tight though to be fair.

Perhaps check out the bit on the side thread on the mrotgage board which is full of ideas on how to make extra money. Perhaps you could do AQA? it's a company where people send in questions and they pay researchers to research the answers off the web - a fair few people seem to be doing it and if you're reasonably clever might be suitable.

I'm sure you will find a job - after all nearly everyone will be hiring soon pubs/shops etc.

Good Luck

Glitterari

taws family of 7 -
Interesting thought - instead of saying no, can't afford to do that, say it's too expensive, esp when it comes to saying no to your children.

I'm doing a MA in social work at the moment and this came up only this week and apparently it makes a big difference - teaches you and your children the value of money and not to spend money on things that just aren't worth it at the end of the day. Sorry if that sounds patronising, it's not meant to but the words throw a different light on the same situation and thus can put you in a different frame of mind.

Rather than thinking - I can't afford it and feel down about it because you want it and can't have it, try thinking it's too expensive and i don't want to pay that much for it. Makes you feel more empowered and especially with children it can help them to learn to be frugal and that sometimes just cos something has a big price tag on it doesn't actually mean it's worth it.

Hope this makes sense.