Badly in debt with credit cards.

Tweets_1980

NeverAgain wrote: »

Sell the house and buy a smaller one.

A £1,000 a month mortgage is unsustainable on your income, even without the credit card debt.

First bit of sense I've seen on this thread!

Tweets_1980

You say your girlfriend had control of the finances, how do you know she wasn't ripping you off?

Rich22

No she wouldn't do that, it was both our faults the way we spent money. Looking through the bills it looks as though she only paid minimum payments, and sometimes they were late causing my bad credit rating!

hostie

Could you rent a room out or rent the whole place and then rent a room / smaller place yourself?
Or switch to interest only / cheaper mortgage?

[Deleted User]

Rich22 wrote: »

Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Household Information
Number of adults in household........... 1
Number of children in household......... 1 does the child live with toy part or full-time?
Number of cars owned.................... 1

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 2500 Any way ti increase?Overtime?
Benefits................................ 0 Child benefit?
Total monthly income.................... 2500

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 1015
Council tax............................. 135 As the only adult in the house you'll be entitled to 25% discount. Also ask your council if you can spread over 12 insteaf of the usual 10 months
Electricity............................. 40 Both this and below seem a little bit on the high side, check comparison sites (rg USwitch), and if switching makes sende then go through one of the cashback sites (eg Quidco, top cashback etc) for financial incentives.) Switch things off instead of leaving them on standby, switch the thermostat down on your boiler and heating by a few degrees, use energy saving bulbs, only heat rooms you are in (in winter) etc
Gas..................................... 40 as above
Water rates............................. 19.92 Are you on a meter, or a standard payment, if you're on standard payments would a meter be cheaper?
Telephone (land line)................... 11.25
Mobile phone............................ 10
TV Licence.............................. 10.87 (12.37)
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 12.5
Internet Services....................... 13
Groceries etc. ......................... 200 This is on the high side - meal plan, batch cook, drop brands, try Lidl/Aldi, cook from scratch, only buy what you need etc
Clothing................................ 10
Petrol/diesel........................... 100 Are all journeys essential? Can you combine trips?
Road tax................................ 14.16
Car Insurance........................... 65.17
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 45 Do you actually save this every month?
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 21.5 If this is prescriptions check to see if a pre-paid certificate would be cheaper. If contact lenses, then try to get them online for cheaper
Buildings insurance..................... 50.24 This is quite high, shope around at renewal
Life assurance ......................... 44.37
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 0 IS this realistic?
Total monthly expenses.................. 1887.98

Assets
Cash.................................... 0 MOT/car maintenance cash?
House value (Gross)..................... 250000
Car(s).................................. 12000 Would selling up and getting a cheaper car be an option? You could use the difference to pay down highest charging debt
Total Assets............................ 262000


Secured & HP Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
Mortgage...................... 150000...(1015).....5.84
Total secured & HP debts...... 150000....-.........-

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
OPUS Credit Card...............10500.....175.......0 (this will be £9450 in 6 months time)
Tesco Credit Card..............4343......113.......1.67 These APR's all seem very low - are they accurate?
Abbey Credit Card .............1337......61........2.52
Car Loan Fixd Payment..........9040......280.......8
MBNA Credit Card...............1085......61........2.52
Capital 1 Credit Card..........1000......35........2.84
Barclays Credit Card...........580.......15........2.49
Debenhams Store Card...........1113......61........2.49
Total unsecured debts..........28998.....801.......-


Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 2,500
Expenses (including HP & secured debts). 1,887.98
Available for debt repayments........... 612.02
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 801
Amount short for making debt repayments. -188.98 I think that this can be made up in your SOA - but you will need to cut back even more, or increase income in order to overpay on your debts and make any significante difference to them

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 262,000
Total HP & Secured debt................. -150,000
Total Unsecured debt.................... -28,998
Net Assets.............................. 83,002

Created using the SOA calculator

Hi,

I have amde some comments above - I hope that they'll be useful.

Also, are you in a position to take in a lodger to increase your income?

HTH

D9

Rich22

Thanks for all your comments. I will look into reducing my electric and gas bill and house insurance. The food bill which is currently at £ 200 is for all 4 of us at the moment (me, my girlfriend, my step daughter and our son), which my girlfriend pays for. She is also paying for the petrol, gas and electric and internet. So about £ 400. ( You could take this as rent money). When she does move out these bills will be down to me to pay as I have listed but such things as food costs will be greatly reduced because it will mainly be just me to feed. I currently car share for work. I could take on a lodger when my girlfriend moves out.

The other matter concerning me at the moment is would she be entitled to making me sell the house. The mortgage is solely in my name, and we never married.

bravobeastie

With regards to the house, if it is in your name then no she cannot make you sell the house. She will have no claim to it or any part of it.

BigCraigJohn

Was the ppi all sold correctly and was suitable/cover you completely?. Most was mis sold, and if so reclaim it + interest. Any default charges you can reclaim on the credit cards?. This applies to any accounts active in the last 6 years, might even be able to go a bit more if you can prove it.

Rich22

When you say defaults you mean late payments .....yes. How can I reclaim these back then ?

foxgloves

Car insurance at £65 each month? That's very high. I took exception to my previous insurer trying to increase ours to £30 a month so tried confused.com and found a different insurer and we are now paying about £19 a month for the same fully comp deal. Definitely worth you shopping around. Plenty of rip-offs out there if we don't challenge them.
Downsizing your home might not be a welcome option, but when you've looked into eveything else, you may want to look at this as a possible option. £1000 a month is a big payment to find every month on one income. Also, you've spent a lot on your credit cards, so if you have lots of stuff sitting around that you don't need, is any of it sellable on ebay? I'm just thinking that any extra money you can raise to chuck at the debts is going to be a help.