I'm at the end of my tether

WASHER

Binnie, I do understand how you are feeling about the debts, I have been there and I have the wrinkles to show for the worry.

Where abouts do you live, not exact location but somewhere near will do.

How much are you short next month to pay your debts and mortgage etc? If you pay your council tax over 10 months, you will not have a council tax bill this month.

binnie

I live in Lancashire. I will be about £500 short. The council tax is £141 a month, but that would come out of my husbands wage and he is already oversdrawn by £900 , so we need it to cover some of that.

WASHER

binnie wrote: »

How would I tell them about my ebay job, my god if the HSBC are confused, then I wouldn't half confuse them. :rotfl:
I'm going for a lie down now, been on here far too long.
I will let you know the outcome with the HSBC as I haven't finished with them yet.

You give them the £100 figure as income. The CCCS will help you, they will give you advice, please take a look.

WASHER

binnie wrote: »

I live in Lancashire. I will be about £500 short. The council tax is £141 a month, but that would come out of my husbands wage and he is already oversdrawn by £900 , so we need it to cover some of that.

You won't pay council tax this month. It starts in April. February and March are free months.

binnie

But the savings we have made on the council tax don't make much difference as my hubbie is already overdrawn far too much. So it has been swallowed up somehow. It can't take it out of his already overdrawn bank account to pay the £468 mortgage.
xx

CH27

I really think you need to talk to the CCCS or to CAB.

BFM

so if i'm reading right the ebay earns you £100 profit, although you happen to have quite a lot of stock at present that you could try and turn into cash which would obviously help you pay stuff, but cannot realistically be considered as "income" for trying to renegotiate your mortgage.

how many hours a month does earning that £100 take, if its more than 20 hours then you are earning less than £5/hour.

why aren't you claiming JSA if you are searching for a job. why on earth would you be claiming that earning £100/month on ebay is a job? I understand you need to report it for tax purposes in the same way as you would rental income for instance but its not a job its something you can do in your spare time - and if its a full time endeavour you need to stop that right now as its only earning you £100/month anyway.

have you tried agency factory work, i did some at uni when desperate and it was far from enjoyable but it earned me some money when i needed it and its pretty much unskilled.

can you sell your ebay stock at cost quickly in order to get some cash for the upcoming payment to at least give you a little breathing space?

Jesthar

Binnie, hon, I think you need to take a step back and reassess things here.

As far as I can fathom, one of your main problems seems to be you aren't really sure where all your money goes each month. You NEED to know that accurately to stand a chance of successfully dealing with debt, so you really need to dig out all your bank and credit card statements for the last few months and do two things as soon as possible:

1) Start a spending diary - I use a spreadsheet with a separate page for each month, and put in absolutely EVERYTHING I spend. It's amazing where all the pennies slip away, and it stops me from wasting money I could be using to overpay the mortgage. Try and do it for at least from the start of this year if you can

2) Use the spending diary to fill out an accurate Statement of Affairs (the link to this has been posted already). You don't need to post it up here if you don't want to (although it would really help us!), but it will help you see where you need to make savings.

Incidentally, the CCCS has to put certain baseline amounts into certain categories, as it is obliged to make sure people on a DMP still have a reasonable quality of life, so that's why some things would have been filled in automatically.

Anyway, I hope I don't come across as too mother-y here, and my apologies, if you've already done the above, I just think they would be a big help to you.

*hugs*

~Jes

binnie

Hi All,
To answer your question BFM. I tried claiming JSA the day after I left my job. But I can't as hubbie is working.The only thing they would look at is National insurance contributions allowance which is about £65 a week ish.
But as they know I owe money to the Inland Revenue for my tax, they found out I do earn and they call Ebay an income. Well they do when it suits them. It is a hobby as I enjoy it, but as soon as I make even a little profit, it becomes a job to them.
She said I can only work 20 hours a week and then claim £5 a week on top of my Ebay. I told her I only make a small profit of about £100 if that and she wanted 3 years of figures which I didn't have there and then. I told her what if I didn't spend 20 hours doing Ebay and did less as I am actively looking for a job to do during the day and ebay at night.
She said the only way to get benefits was to stop Ebay and then it would take about 5-6 weeks to make a decision. As I cannot afford to wait all that time, I chose to do Ebay.
I know in the end I may only earn £100 a month profit, but if I sell £800 before tax deductions etc, then I can use the £800 to pay my bills for now as they come in.
The £100 a month only shows when I've done my end of year tax return. I don't know exactly how much I have made until I do my figures at the end of the year.
Now I can't give Ebay up until I get a job, and then I would need to earn £1,250 a month after tax. The jobs I can do nowhere near earn me that much. So even if I earn £900 take home pay, I still need ti make the difference up by doing Ebay.
There is absolutely no-one giving me any work, I can't believe people are telling me to get a job just like that when you don't know how hard I try. I am frazzled with the amount of phone calls, emails, CV's, etc I have done to get a job. I have applied to every agency I can think of. I live in a town and have spread out to 15 miles further to get a job. I don't drive so rely on buses. Some of the buses don't start running til 7am ish so that makes it hard on some jobs like cleaning jobs which want you there for 6am. I even was thinking of Mcdonalds but their hours are sometimes 5-6am until 12pm.
I can't get there at that time and it's 8 miles away, too far to walk. Then if I went in later thats fine, but then can't get home if they close at 12pm, yet again no buses.
My husband works a lot of permanent night shifts, but then they are changing to all different shifts.

It sounds as though I am making excuses, but I'm really not. Loads of the jobs I have applied for haven't got to the closing dates yet so I have to wait patiently to see if I get an interview.
The other day as lady from a company rang me to see if I will attend an interview next week for Asda. it's a new scheme where they want like a meeter and greeter but someone who will do activities with the kids, or point them in the direction of special offers.
I have done that sort of thing before and she seemed excited to talk to me over the phone.
They are meant to be ringing me back to do a telephone interview and if I get through that round, then I can attend the afternoon interview where I will get paid for attending the interview. So fingers crossed. It may only be for a day a week, but then she said it's coming up to loads of promotions, so maybe two days a week. She then said if I was good, I could become a smpler instore and that may create 3-4 days a week, so that would be brilliant.

Also I had a call from the HSBC today and he wanted permission to credit check me and hubbie, then if it's ok, he said they should be in the position to help us.

Fingers crossed for Monday.
xxx