Need advice on how to get organised

Pyrrhic_2

I have a small, manageable amount of debt. My partner has a very large amount at £43,000. The majority of this (£25,000) is unsecured loans. Thankfully we are disassociated financially (I think?) as we have no joint account and we keep our own earnings/expenditures.

He has never missed payments on anything, and we both have access to all our credit files.

The problem is, he is paying about £1,500 a month on this debt and only skimming the surface. We don't think he is eligible for anything like an IVA as after all our rent, bills, payments etc come out we still have money left over for household expenses and we are also paying slightly over the minimum payments for him. Some of the APR rates are up at about 38%

At the minute any spare money he has is going into his debts, but it's pretty soul destroying how the amounts don't seem to be going down by very much due to the high interest rates.

Also, he has credit accounts open in his name with balances of 0. Is it wise to keep these open to show he is not using all credit available to him? I would have thought it best to close all the unused accounts.

I told him it might be worth ringing the banks to ask for their advice, as he's been a customer for many years with a good payment records. Is that something he can do?

Help and advice greatly appreciated.

Tixy

Hi

What sort of credit accounts does he have open with no balance? Any credit cards? If so before he closes them he could see if any will give him an existing customer 0% balance transfer or life of balance transfer and move any more expensive credit card or store card to a cheaper APR.
If he happened to have any open empty credit cards that allow super balance transfers he could even consider this method to pay off a loan or overdraft.

Usually the banks aren't ever so helpful in his situation. It might be useful if you could list the debts he has and the APRs, its usually harder to jiggle about loans than cards and overdrafts but there might still be a way to mimimise the interest.

Has he looked at the snowball calculators at all? that tell him the best order to make payments and how long it will take to clear the debts?
Of course the best way to reduce the interest he pays overall is to increase his repayments somehow. Have you/he looked at all the outgoings to see if anything can be reduced? have you considered completing a statement of affairs - can be very informative when everything is written down in that format (http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html) and if you feel like posting it on here you should get suggestions on reducing costs to pay more off the debt and whether there are other options open to move around the debt.

LollyLou_2

Hi there! Welcome to the DFW board....you've definitely done the right thing by coming here. You'll get loads of advice from the amazing people on this forum.

You should post your statement of affairs (SOA) on here so people can give you advice on what you can do to start to pay off your debts. There is a sticky thread at the top of the page with a link to the SOA. Once you've posted that then we can see all your debts together with your income and what your monthly outgoings are. You also

Normally I would say to close the accounts with zero balance however, if some of these are credit card accounts, it may be worth finding out what the APR is on these as you need to ditch those accounts with APR's of 38% quickly.

Good luck and I'll watch out for your SOA.

Don't despair, there is always a way forward!!!

LollyLou_2

Tixy has put it brilliantly!! Thanks Tixy!

Pyrrhic_2

Tixy, he has 3 credit cards with a balance of 0 and high APR (they have also taken the credit limit down to the minimum as he paid them off), and two store card accounts also with a 0 balance.

He has a snowball calculator on his computer, and pays the cards and loans according to that which has helped somewhat.

I'm guessing that because there are no late payments, and he is paying slightly over the minimum payments that he can't do things like make an offer to a creditor, or ask for a lower APR rate?

I will ask him about posting the details on here as they are his debts and I am just trying to be more proactive about it all as he's asked for my help.

Thanks so much for the advice.

Pyrrhic_2

LollyLou wrote: »

Hi there! Welcome to the DFW board....you've definitely done the right thing by coming here. You'll get loads of advice from the amazing people on this forum.

You should post your statement of affairs (SOA) on here so people can give you advice on what you can do to start to pay off your debts. There is a sticky thread at the top of the page with a link to the SOA. Once you've posted that then we can see all your debts together with your income and what your monthly outgoings are. You also

Normally I would say to close the accounts with zero balance however, if some of these are credit card accounts, it may be worth finding out what the APR is on these as you need to ditch those accounts with APR's of 38% quickly.

Good luck and I'll watch out for your SOA.

Don't despair, there is always a way forward!!!

Thank you for the post and advice, I will try and get a SOA done this evening with him.

Pyrrhic_2

Husband is just speaking to CCCS now, and has written down the debts for me but he said he will have to look up the APR rates. So I will post the info I have up for you guys tonight if someone doesn't mind taking a look for me.