Newbies, and taking hyoooooooge big scary step today

OneSpike

Hello,

God I'm not sure where to start. My husband and I owe 10s of 1000s to credit card and loan companies, and I wish I could say we'd accumulated it having a fantastic life of luxury! I won't bore you with our life story (well not today anyway) but suffice to say we're had some rough luck in the last five years and have been optimistic when we should have been realistic. Our light bulb moment came last week when 'Nathaniel' (I'm assuming we're all familiar with Blackadder lingo here?!) told me he was losing a major client (he's self employed, which probably explains a good bit about our circumstances) which translated to a £700 a month drop in income. Hilarious really as we're so strapped already, paying something insane like £1700 a month in debt repayment. We knew then that we had to do something drastic.

We're not homeowners, have no savings and no other assets (not counting things that will kick in when we're dead or retired!), but we do have three children, aged 4-14. Today we've written to all our creditors to explain the circs and basically tell them we can't pay anything for three months while we try to get things back on an even keel, and then we will suggest a repayment schedule. We don't imagine for one moment that this will keep them off our backs for three months, but it does at least explain why our direct debits are dead. We're going to the supermarket later for one last purchase on the credit card (bank accounts so overdrawn they're unusable) of enough groceries to last 10 days, then DH's salary will go into the new current account he set up today, an account not connected to any creditor.

It goes without saying we're drawing up a clear budget and being very careful, although we always are careful, always keep expenditure low and have til now always made our repayments. Our problem has been such a huge chunk of our income going on repaying debt that's accumulated through tumultuous family circumstances and a genuine (tho foolish) belief that things are about to improve, the 'jam tomorrow' syndrome. I cook, reuse, mend, Freecycle and go without to a very great extent, but sadly no amount of that is going to make the difference, so we appear to be faced with this step. It feels good to be making progress but it's a bloody big mountain.

Must rush now to collect youngest from school. From January she'll be eligible for the school bus so that will be a several millilitres fewer of diesel each day!

Storm

Hello OneSpike and welcome :hello:

The best way the people on here can help is if you post a statement of affairs listing all your income & outgoings each month (see SouthernScousers sticky at the top of the boards) There's often savings to be made on things like utilities & food shopping, plus writing it all down makes you realise where the money really goes each month.

With your creditors my personal advice would be to send them a token payment each month (even if it's only £1) and to contact either Payplan or CCCS who will be able to help you set up a debt management plan, so interest is frozen & you pay a set amount each month.

Good luck with it all
Storm

lynzpower

goodluck

lets see a SOA when you have time

Lynz
x

anniestar

Hi good luck and a warm welcome to the site.

James&Shell

Just wanted to say hello and welcome.

I would contact payplan or CCCs as they will be able to help you budget and they will deal with the hassel of the creditors for you.

In the mean time i would send a token payment of £5 a month to each creditor this shows that you are willing to come up with a payment solution.

Good luck

James

atypicalblonde

Just wanted to say good luck, you can do it. xx

climbgirl

Good luck, look forward to the SOA!

One suggestion - this might sound harsh and perhaps a little premature given that we haven't seen your SOA, but perhaps it's time your OH looked for another job? The business sounds like it's not going that well and to be honest you simply can't afford to be trying to invest in a business and get it going when you're in this financial position. What you need more than anything right now is regular income so you can start tackling the debts. Just a thought....

gettingitsorted

Hi and welcome

i can only second what everybody else has already said

try contacting payplan or the cccs as they will be able to help.

and post SOA

taplady

hello and welcome!:D you've made the first step:j I'm sure when you've posted your SOA you will get lots of good advice.

All the best!

OneSpike

Thanks for the welcome. I wasn't sure an SOA was worth it as we can't really shave £700 off the monthly budget (believe me, we can't!). We need to put together our budget so I will post it when it's done. Other work for DH is an option in theory, but previously the business has done well and there's every reason to believe it still can and will (it's not a failing disaster area, it's just losing this client has been bad news), the difference being that now we can't - literally - bank on it.

I'll be back with an SOA...