At last I am here!

partridge_pie

Hello All

LBM and SOA time!!

This has taken me years to get to this point but today I have taken a day off work in order to tackle our debt problem. Without blurbing on this is how it stands for me :

Halifax Credit Card £3906 - outrageous APR of 27.5%
Barclaycard £2121 - APR 18.9%
Virgin CC £1272 - APR 1.9% now then 20.9% from Jan 2012
Santander CC £2085 - APR 0% now then 16.95% from Dec 2011
Santander OD £477 - charges about £7.50 per month
Barclayloan £2631 - APR 9.9% loan ends Jan 2012 (£149 pm)

My wifes debts now (!)

Simply Be £450 (APR 27%?)
Next £750 (APR 27%)
Barclaycard £1500 (APR 18.9%)
Capital One £500 (APR 18.9%)
Barclays OD £400 (charged £4 per month)

Joint bank account OD (Barclays) £312 as of today before putting in bill money so will not increase

Joint income is £2769 pm whilst outgoings excluding debt repayments are £1413 pm

My wife's APRs are estimated as she never keeps any statements (she will from now on as I am looking after all our finances from this LBM onwards).

I will not go into why the debt has accumulated but the usual reasons (dont want to repeat what everyone else has put over the years).

I kept all my debt from my wife until recently - she has always been open and honest about hers but her family are like that about cash whilst mine are quite secretive - I am 46 and even at this age my parents would go ballistic if they knew our situation but it is up to us to solve it anyway.

Weight off our shoulders now we both know how the other stands financially.

Any suggestions would be welcome please re how we could arrange the debt better - thanks everyone!

mwddrwg

Wow! Sounds almost exactly like us! Will be watching your replies with interest.

mrsb83_2

Do a full SOA and a Snowball calculator.

Your debts are around £16,500 and you say you have £1300 a month after outgoings to pay towards debt. If that's accurate, you could be debt free within 18 months.

MFWannabe

Hi
Firstly you need to do a proper soa using the template on www.makesenseofcards.com. We will then have a proper overview of all your incoming and outgoings; then we can advise knowing all the facts. We will be able to see where you could make some cutbacks and which debts to target first

blisteringblue

mrsb83 wrote: »

Do a full SOA and a Snowball calculator.

Your debts are around £16,500 and you say you have £1300 a month after outgoings to pay towards debt. If that's accurate, you could be debt free within 18 months.

Especially with a loan finishing in January next year, loans finishing always adds a healthy overpayment to any snowball.

Good luck, you've had your LMB at about the right time, with a careful budget you can be debt free relatively quickly without any additional borrowing if you use the snowball method.

partridge_pie

Sorry folks my loan finishes Jan 2013 not 2012 (typo) - the only possible cutbacks are to cancel SKY (£24pm) and shave some savings off the monthly household products/food bill (£500pm - I know this can be cut back possibly to £450/£425)

Cheers