Unsecured Debt

edgebarber

Hi, I was wondering if I could ask any of you guys for your advice on my current unsecured debt situation, I have been carrying these debts for a copule of years or so, and or though they are albeit slowly decreasing, the strain it is placing upon my other monthly commitments is reasonable, and I feel there must be a better way that I could be managing the situation.
I currenlty owe approxmiately £11,000, to five various credit cards, 2 of these where on low rate B/T deals, but the other 3 are at the usual 16-17% rate that applies, additionaly I owe approxmiately £3600 to HSBC on a business loan, I have been paying off at the rate of £220 p/m for the last 3 years or so. I added up a copule of days back my monthly commitments to these debts, and it costing somewhere in the region of £520 p/m, and I do not seem to be making particuarly seroius in roads into some of the plastic debt.
I have a small business, which is reasonably profitable, but takes up most of my time, so I find I do not spend enough time in managing this problem, (possibly why it,s grown to its current size). I have 4 children, and my wife works p/t, so our monthly commitments food mortgage ect are shall we say on the high side , month on month, our mortgage is currently £180,000 thou approx, costing me approx £1200 p/m, property is currently valued at approx £320,000 thou, I could remortgage, but I am 48, and I'm concerened that my mortgage commitment is high for a guy of my age, but it would be usefull to free up some of the £500 odd pounds p/month I'm currenlty frittering away which appears to be getting know-where particuarly fast,

Thanks for looking at my case

Phoenix79_2

Hi,
Welcome to the site. Have you ever missed any credit card payments? If not then we should be able to get a few of those cards transferred over to 0% deals or LOB deals.
Can you post up what credit cards you have got, how much you owe on each one, monthly minimun payment and the APR please? That should give us all the info we need to suggest alternatives.

edgebarber

Thanks for looking and your advice, not missed any payments, will make alist of the cards later and post up, bt they are as follows (approximates)

Barclaycard £1900 (low fixred rate)
Company barclaycard £1900 standard rate
Egg (both blue and green) combined£3500, standard rate
Capitol 1, (Old B/T) Was about £4000 3 years ago now£2600
Virgin £2500 standard rate

plus the H/S/B/C loan at about 10.5 %

thanks

edgebarber

Will post interest rates ect later

lynzpower

hiya

Your best bet mate is to have a god sit down and work out what s going where, - a full Statement of Affairs ( SOA) its helpful for us to see if anything can be got cheaper etc. read southern scousers sticky "first time posters" which can help get everything in order, use martins balance/budget sheet this adds everything up for you!

Have you cut the cards up- do you ever use them still?

One thing, start today, do a spending diary, write down every penny you spend even if its a 30p newspaper. And ask your wife to do one as well, then you can both see where the money is trailing off to

welcome :hello:
Lynz

chevalier

Yes please do a Statement of Affairs. You will be amazed at what we can find regarding ways to save money. What is your business? Is it something that you could sell say on ebay as well as from a shop? Just thinking of ways to get some more income.

Also if you check to see if your utilities are with the cheapest supplier, if you switch, do it through cash back sites like quidco, or greasypalm. Then you get extra cash back for switching.

Best of luck
chev

Dolly_Smith

you do have a lot of equity in your house but the mortgage is already high - without knowing what you're earning it's difficult to judge. my only concern would be increasing the term on your mortgage - I'm guessing you would have hoped to pay it off by the time you retire? that may not be possible if you have to increase it

edgebarber

I should still be able to pay off mortgage before retirement, (even if that involves a further increase) curently the mortgage has a further 18 years but with the best will in the world I should be able to repay this before retirement, providing I remain able, and am fully able to carry on in business up untill this point.