Help Required!

Camperdown

Hello,

I'm hoping someone here can help with what now seems a helpless situation! I am currently in around 16,000 worth of debt which continually increases. My situation is made worse by the fact that I am currently residing in Canada (although I still have a registered UK address), and all of my debt is in the UK so I literally have to send money home each month to pay for it all, which in itself costs money. Making sure I send money in time each month is difficult and has resulted in a couple of late payment charges. I have applied for a few loans and been turned down for consolidation, which I now realise has lessened my credit scoring further. Any advice? Details below (some conversions have been made from $CDN using today's rate of exchange):

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £1,070

Monthly Outgoings (excluding debt payments):

Mortgage/Rent - £245
Phone - £12
Food - £150
Transit Pass - £31
Gym membership -£30

Total: £468

Oustanding Debt:

RBS Loan - original term 5 years, 32 months left. £8156.16 outstanding, APR ?%

MBNA Mastercard - £3220.58, APR 15.9%, limit £5000

RBS Visa - £3736 oustanding. Current APR 0% until Feb 07, then increasing to 16.9%, limit £4000

Halifax One Card - £1315 oustanding, Current APR 0% for another 4 months(?), limit £1700

Brassic

Hi there,

Well done for posting first of all, I'm sure some knowledgeable folks will be a long shortly with some great advice - but in the mean time can you post a full Statement of Affairs (check out the link at the top of the forum) so we can see all your outgoings? You need to include things like fuel, TV, entertainment etc, as well as payment amounts on all the debts.

Good Luck - I'm sure you'll get some fab advice once we have the details!

luis1973

Hi - I won't be much help but I am in a similar situation. Living in South America with UK debts and they just keep mounting and mounting.

Can any of your debts be set up to be paid by Direct Debit to avoid the charges?
I would imagine that most would advise to give up the gym.

CLAPTON

can you edit the post to add the monthly debt payments for each of the debts?

why does making payments from Canada result in late payments..surely you simply need to leave sufficient time for the transfer

you spending seems a little light ..do you not spend anything on socialising, clothes, lunches, dental/medical/optical, holidays/weekends away, newpapers/magazines, heat/light etc

Camperdown

Hello,

Thanks for your replies. Yes of course I spend money on all of those other things too, otherwise life would be a little boring! So here's what my total monthly outgoings are including my debt payments:


Mortgage/Rent - £245
Phone - £12
Food - £150
Transit Pass - £31
Gym membership -£30
RBS Loan - £254.88
Halifax Card - £30
RBS Card - £90
Entertainment/Activites/Going out - £155
Cosmetics/Clothes - £45

Total - £1042.88

As you can see I'm almost at my monthly earnings, and this list doesn't include the payment to my MBNA card which is usually made by transfering balance from my RBS card, or with any spare money I have each month. The above list is what I budget every month. but I always end up supplementing my living somehow... Calgary is a boomtown and a very expensive place to live right now for going out etc.

It's just going round and round at the moment!

Camperdown

Oh, and in answer to the question about transfer... I don't use transfers because they are super expensive and not worth the money having to do it each month. I send a bank draft by registered post to my Mum who puts it in the bank, so I am reliant on post being timely and it clearing on time.

lynzpower

is your bank account a UK one? Can you not pay your bills as a bank transfer online?

climbgirl

lynzpower wrote:

is your bank account a UK one? Can you not pay your bills as a bank transfer online?

Yes, but getting the money from the Canadian accounts to the UK account costs money!

Don't go through your bank to do this, they won't be the cheapest. I send money to NZ a lot and use tranzfers.com for that. The cheapest costs and the best rates. My friend rang them to set up transfers to Spain (not listed on their website and they were quite cool with it). Give them a call and see if they can sort something.

Paying off these debts is going to be nigh on impossible if you're currently spending all of your income on living and going out etc, especially when the exchange rate is working so badly against you. You are going to have to stop ALL going out, gym etc if you want to get rid of these. And try to take on a second job etc to get more income coming in. No, life won't be fun. But the fact of the matter is you owe £16K and are trying to pay it off in Canadian dollars.....no easy task, as I'm sure you're aware!

david_hellier

Hi and welcome. I trust you are enjoying Canada- lucky you!

According to my figures you have £87.03 per week to spend on food, clothes, going out etc. So to prevent further overspend I suggest you keep a spending diary and write this amount (C$199) in it on a Monday and keep track of what you spend by subtraction. If you still don't have enough, all I can suggest is you try and earn more, maybe another part-time job. I'm afraid the control of spending is the first hurdle, then look at ways to cut back/ earn more. Do not use CCs for any more purchases.

Good luck, the figures are as follows:

income weekly monthly
self 1070.00
partner







total 0.00 1070.00 divide by 4.33
£246.92

£246.92 total weekly income

spend weekly monthly
rent/mortgage 245.00
council tax 0.00
elec 0.00
gas 0.00
water 0.00
secured loans 0.00
TV licence 0.00
fines 0.00
phone 12.00
pass 31.00
gym 30.00
loan 254.88
halifax 30.00
rbs card 90.00
















total 0.00 692.88 divide by 4.33
£159.90

£159.90 total weekly spend

Start= income - spend = £87.03 per week

Camperdown

Thank you. Yes I do need to start tracking my spending. At times I know I can go almost a work week without spending a thing, then I go out for dinner and a week's worth of money is gone!

One of my biggest problems here was that you need a credit card for everything here. It's not like the UK where you can use switch to pay online etc, you need credit cards for all of that stuff. So I never got rid of my card for that reason, plus because I am by myself here and wanted the security of having it there in case I needed it, but I seem unable to use it for emergencies only!

So I found another option, a mastercard that works like a debit card. You add money to it and can only spend whatever is on it. But you can use it like a credit card for online purchases etc. I recently got my annual profit share and put some money on there for emergencies (not got my Mum to rely on over here!), so I can now cut up my MBNA card and stop adding to that debt.

I will also look into the transfer option for funds from UK to Canada, easier than sending a bank draft each month!

Willsnarf1983

climbgirl wrote:

You are going to have to stop ALL going out,

you really have to be kidding me, why is there the insistance that just because someone wants help paying their debts that they have to lose their life altogether...surely its just requiring a better awareness of what can be done to pay debt of quicker and acustoming to this

Yes the lifestyle might need to be squashed a little but stopping going out at all is silly and IMO brings people to binge spend after living this lifestyle for a certain period of time

Will