Starting University in September and have £7000 of debt.

binaryuniverse

Hi all,
I'm 27, starting Uni in the autumn and as the title says, have £7000 worth of debt. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to shift by that time as jobs are very hard to come by in my area and I can just about pay off £1 a month.

However, I'm still getting stung with charges and constant phone calls from Indian Call centres who have no idea what it is I'm trying to tell them and I am sick of having to explain to them over and over that I'm going to be out of work for 4 years or so. (I'll get a part time job when at uni but I'll be needing to pay the bills with that).

Is it possible to get the charges/calls stopped and pay off £1 a month to each creditor (debt is spread over 5 creditors) and not have to reexplain my situation every couple of months?

CH27

I suggest you talk to the CCCS & see what they advise.

Heyman_2

I doubt you'll be able to get the calls or the charges stopped. You're basically wanting your creditors to stop bothering you and accept £1 token payments for 4+ years, and that's probably not going to go down too well!

I don't think you want a lecture on this, so if you don't, stop reading now - University is going to cost you a lot in debt (mostly student loan debt) over the next 4 years, and going there on the back of £7000 in unresolved debt is just going to create problems for you in the future.

IMHO you would be better off deferring your start date for another year, and getting a job to clear the debt/build up a small amount of savings in the meantime.

custardy

Heyman wrote: »

I doubt you'll be able to get the calls or the charges stopped. You're basically wanting your creditors to stop bothering you and accept £1 token payments for 4+ years, and that's probably not going to go down too well!

I don't think you want a lecture on this, so if you don't, stop reading now - University is going to cost you a lot in debt (mostly student loan debt) over the next 4 years, and going there on the back of £7000 in unresolved debt is just going to create problems for you in the future.

IMHO you would be better off deferring your start date for another year, and getting a job to clear the debt/build up a small amount of savings in the meantime.

totally agree. money is tight enough as a student. I dont see how you can put in enough study time,work enough ot pay living expenses plus earn over £7k after tax to clear the debts

Delree

I understand the perceived urgency of starting Uni but sometimes in life you can't have your cake and eat it. In your case this is run up £7k in debt then go and live the student dream whilst all your creditors acquiesce to measly £1 per month payments. A big lesson in life is facing up to your responsibilities so why not defer for a year knuckle down at a job and pay those debts off, it'll be so worth it and if you start now you'll have well over a year to do it, it can be done.
Also you'll trash your credit rating which could affect your ability to rent and in some cases wreck a job prospect.

binaryuniverse

Understand where you're all coming from and I've gone over all these points in my head.
My credit rating is trashed as it is so I'm not concerned about that. I'm going to try and pay off as much as I can before I start uni so that it eases the burden.

And tbh as I mentioned jobs are very hard to come by round here so deferring a year may not even work or be a good idea.

custardy

binaryuniverse wrote: »

Understand where you're all coming from and I've gone over all these points in my head.
My credit rating is trashed as it is so I'm not concerned about that. I'm going to try and pay off as much as I can before I start uni so that it eases the burden.

And tbh as I mentioned jobs are very hard to come by round here so deferring a year may not even work or be a good idea.

so how are you going to pay the debts while you study?
how are you going to support yourself?

binaryuniverse

I'm moving away from here (North Devon) to Brighton so there's going to be far more job opportunities there as opposed to here. I've lived on my own before so I'm aware how difficult it can all be.

Heyman_2

I don't get it - if you're moving to Brighton for job prospects, and you manage to find something, it's only that extra step to defer your course for a year whilst living in Brighton giving you the opportunity to clear the debt before you start Uni???

Have the debts already been passed to DCAs? If not, it is likely that your creditors will already be adding on all sorts of missed payment charges etc etc, before they pass them on.


Just because I don't agree with what you're doing tho, doesn't mean I can't try and give you some help anyway -

If you really are determined to start this year, maybe look at some other threads here on debt enforcability to buy yourself some time to possibly dispute some or all of your debts. There's probably a good order in which to pay them off as well, perhaps you could post up the details of the 5 debts here including APR rates and someone could help with that?

Also - start putting together a comprehensive paper trail covering each debt, put everything in writing to everyone and use the letters here to try and stop the calls. You'll need that paper trail if you don't intend to do anything with some of these debts for the next 4+ years.

[Deleted User]

Try posting an SOA, and see how much realistically you could have paid off before you start: http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

And then work out what your SOA will be once you start.

D9

binaryuniverse

Heyman wrote: »

I don't get it - if you're moving to Brighton for job prospects, and you manage to find something, it's only that extra step to defer your course for a year whilst living in Brighton giving you the opportunity to clear the debt before you start Uni???

If I start uni in September then I'll move there, if I don't then I'd be staying here for another year.

I certainly don't intend to try and wriggle out of my debts as I've never been about that. I was wondering if there would have been some sort of way I could have come to an agreement with the lenders to pay off later.

Barclaycard are probably the worst of the lenders. They keep passing my debt on to Mercers but then decide to take it back with Mercers claiming they have no record of me so I'm never sure where I stand with them.

Cheers for the advice, I'm taking it all on board. I'm just trying to work out what's best for me right now.