Thanks to the wife............

piglet6

Hi Barneybeagle

No hard and fast solutions I'm afraid, but wanted to send my best wishes to you and your wife. I admire you for your attitude (you are a great husband!!:T) and I hope that you can get your wife to come here and post - everyone here will be a great support to her - no judgement, just support - and I look forward to being one of many who want to help support her on the way back to DF-ness!

I would certainly try to get rid of the payment protection if you can. Like you say, it can only free up more money to be used for "the better good"!

To be brutally honest, I doubt that anyone will give you a balance transfer for the whole £57,000 at 0%, no matter how good your credit rating is...but I would definitely advise that you try to get a 0% transfer for however much you can persuade them to give you. If you have a good credit rating, somebody should give you a 0% rate for something at least (and anything is better than the amounts you are faced with at the moment!:o). The only thing I would warn about is applying for lots of cards at the same time, as this will attract the wrong sort of attention - giving out the message that you are in trouble and warning lenders against you... I would apply for one, transfer all you can onto it, then give it a week or two and apply for the next one, etc, etc. You may well find that you can transfer a lot of the debt across gradually, but don't try and do it all at once!

I wish you the best of luck with solving this issue and, like others have already said, please keep posting and let us support you as you get out of this situation!

Piglet

all_hours

Hi Barneybeagle

Yes cancel the payment protection on all the cards.

Also ask each card if they will reduce the interest rate.

Apply for 0% or low life of balance cards. M&S have a card with no transfer fee and 3.9% for the life of the balance. The minimum payment is 3% of the balance so you'd need to include this in your figures.

Move what you can off the highest interest card. Then work to clear that card. When it's completely clear ask them if they have any balance transfer offers to make a transfer off one of the other cards.

Post a more detailed SOA so everyone can make suggestions on where you could cut back. Your total income is £3400 a month there will be ways you can cut back and free up some money to throw at the debt.

Ebay whatever you don't use or wear.

lynzpower

As others have siad absolutely cancel the payment protection.

As you wont be paying the debenhams/ other store cards, that finance can go towards your most expensive debt.

You wont get a 0% card i dont think for a large amount, but moving SOME of the highest APR cards will make a massive differnece.

I agree ebaying/ amazoning and slicing back your outgoings is the way to go.

COuld you contact her and ask her to look at this. I cant imagine what shes experiencing while you are away, and It certainly cant be easy for you either. You say she spends 400pcm on bills, its vitally important that 400 is money well spent, ie it cant be got cheaper, or is literally essential.

I found chopping back my outgoings and cancelling things that I didnt NEED really strengthened my resolve to ge tout of debt quicker and created practical solutions out of emotional chaos. getting my head around the differece between want & need is so vitally important for getting out of debt- and witohut doing this, i fear things will be more difficult.

Lynz

themaccas

Hi BarneyBeagle
Welcome to the forum, I've just read this thread and firstly well done for all the support you are giving to your family and if your wife is reading - welcome we're all here to give you as much courage and support too. You have been given some great advice on here but as you have probably gathered there is no easy solution. I personally would advise you to look at transfering the cards to 0% or low life of balance cards however before that happens CANCEL the payment protection and get your wife to be strong with them - they will try all they can to persuade her to keep it! Then she need to ask them for a lower interest rate - they've taken enough off of her already!

We had a high debt when I came to this forum at the beginning of the year and we have a similar income but have managed to substantially reduce our debt. One of the things that really helped was at the beginning we had a couple of months of xtreme moneysaving - worked loads of extra shifts/ebayed our hearts out and cut right back on all spending (we are a family of 5) - grocery shopping for about £35 per week no treats. We planned to live like this for 2-3 years but it is simply not sustainable although we did it for about 2 months. However what this did do was to build up a wad of surplus cash very quickly and so we were able to pay off about 4 smaller debts and so we had a headstart snowballing our debts and things have gone on from there. We also had our bank charges refunded - your wife could check that out, if she has had late payment / overlimit charges applied she could get these refunded for the past 6 years.

Anyhow good luck and keeping posting.

hex2

Just wanted to offer sympathy, and to ask if you have had a read of any of the things about recovering bank charges? If she has been hit for late payments or anything you may be able to get a lump back which would help?

silvercar

From reading on this board, I wonder if it would be possible for you to offer full and final settlements to your wife's debtors. As this is her debt you could approach them and make an offer to clear the debts at an amount much lower than the figures they are quoting. if you offer the payment as a F&F settlement they may jump at the chance of retrieving some of their money. you might need to accompany the letters by your sife's statement of affairs, that would show that she is no way of paying the debts.

newlywed

Some will cancel PPI with just a phone call (Debenhams card) others want a formal letter saying you realise the risks of cancelling blah blah, yeah yeah. Just ring them and ask them how you cancel it, as all my cards have been slightly different. I've just canceled most of my PPI's on cards as it was about £200 a month (one lot of PPI was much more than the interest I was paying).

Alot of mine has increased due to paying all food and petrol bills on my card and not paying any attention to how much I've spent in the month. Now I keep a list of exactly how much I'm spending, doing the OS grocery challenge to keep the food shopping bills down (have more than halved the monthly food bill already).

Get her to write a list of exactly what she puts on her card (if she is still going to use one) and then even if she doesn't show you, she will be enlightened by it!

jenchin66

Barney, a word of earning with Virgin Vie, it is a bigger cas outlay than you realise at first. I did Virgin about 18 months ago. You buy your kit and insurance, but the kit changes every 3 months and most things only sell if you have the product in your kit. You can win freebies based on what your sales are but I found I was spending more than I was really earning. It looks like you are earning loads but you have to buy everything, catalogues and stationary etc. Also if you are paid by customers by cash/cheque you have to pay with your credit/debit card, then pay it off your credit card statment.:rolleyes:

It also involves lots of meetings.

Good luck with sorting everything out.

Jenny

jamtart6

Hiya, I have the same attitude to money as you, and would feel the same sick feeling as I can tell you have if my partner shocked me like that. I think you are great for sticking by her (as I would probably do in that situation), and I agree with the above, you need to get her to adopt a new attitude to money.

Teach her to be a money saver!! I wouldnt know half the tricks of the trade if it werent for Martin and the excellent money savers...my OH who is in debt (student and car) by approx. 10k has now started logging on and takes heed of all the tricks and loopholes Ive been teaching him and he has started (slowly) taking it all on board.

As for practically doing something get as much on a 0% interest card as possible - will your wife be able to get a 0% interest card too? you could get her one (that you looked after!!!)

Get rid of sky, get a cheaper phone/internet deal, ebay, amazon, everything - there are LOADS of ways of saving money.... bulk buying making things yourself.... you just need to learn the money savvy way....(or rather your wife does!)

I personally wouldnt risk your house, not with 2 kiddies...

oops_a_daisy

Hi BB and welcome to DFW. Please try to get your wife to come on here - we dont bite....honestly, and try to get her involved in everything. The only concern that I have with you sorting all of this out is that she will not learn. You are doing the right thing getting advice here and well done for standing by her. As others have said definately cancel the PPI. All the best and good luck - OOPS