SOA - Advice Needed Please

0writer

Afternoon,

After a failed consolidation attempt as well as other things I finally completed the online form for Payplan this morning at 02:00 (couldn't sleep).

Payplan called today and went over the details and are due to call me again tomorrow to go through things in depth.

I then decided to do a little research on Payplan on the forums and got a mix of results but some started to worry me and now I don't know if I should go ahead with the Payplan DMP (still to be proposed) or not.

My current SOA:

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £815.00
My second salary - £300
Child benefit - £69.80
Partner’s salary - £400 (SMP)

Monthly Outgoings:

Mortgage - £531
Council Tax - £103
Water Rates - £11
Electricity - £79
Telephone - £15
Mobile - £50
Housekeeping - £300
Petrol - £100
Car Insurance - £45
Car Road Tax - £15
Home Service Chrg - £60
Internet - £14.99

Creditors:

Virgin CC - £5577.60 (£78.97pm) – 16.9% APR
Egg CC - £5951.27 (120.47pm) – 16.9% APR
HSBC CC - £6245.92 (£190.00pm) – 17.9% APR
Morgan Stanley CC - £4206.48 (£85.00) – 16.9% APR
Ikea Store Card - £387.26 (£19.36pm)

Any advice would be really appriciated.

Thanks,

Bestthingsinlifearefree

Hi Owriter,

Is it possible to balance transfer any of the debts as the high interest rate must be hurting.

Could you apply or get any low IR card ?

I make the gap between your incomings and out goings about minus £231 pounds. So there is lots of hope. I am sure that gap can be closed.

Would you not qualify for working tax credits ?

I wish you well.

Best,

vivaladiva

Hi
I agree with Best. Can you claim child tax credit.
Major savings could be made on housekeeping - check out the old style board for loads of help and ideas (you could potentially save £150 per month here).
Is your mobile necessary and can the bill be reduced?
The other biggies appear to be petrol and car insurance - work related? Could you switch insurer.
Loads more people will be along with advice soon.:D

KatrinaC_2

Hi 0Writer,

Just a quick question - what has made you decide against Payplan? I don't think I've heard much criticism on here about them.

Kat

black-saturn

Electricity is quite high at £79. Make a habit of switching things off at the plug when your not using them and only light the rooms your in. Plan what you want to watch on TV and the rest of the time read, talk or play a board game.

Mobiles are also high. Do you both need one and could you try to communicate by text instead of calling?

Housekeeping is also high. Look on the Old Style board for ideas of how to cut your food bill down and clean your house for pennies. I feed 1 adult and 2 children on £43 per month.

Could you do without a car?

You didn't include the TV licence in your SOA.

lynzpower

hi there

Let me have a look here

My current SOA:

Monthly Incomings:

My salary - £815.00
My second salary - £300
Child benefit - £69.80
Partner’s salary - £400 (SMP) (* whats the situ with her going back to work?)
( im SURE you will be entitled to council tx benefit/ housing benefit/ working family tax credit/ child tax benefit. Check out https://www.entitledto.co.uk)
Monthly Outgoings:

Mortgage - £531
Council Tax - £103
Water Rates - £11
Electricity - £79 ( :eek: WOAH how come? we only have electric here, no gas and we spend about 40pcm, with ecotricity- not the cheapest either, check out est.org.uk for energy saving tips, everything off at the wall, nothing on standby and loads of other tips)
Telephone - £15
Mobile - £50 ( why so high :eek: cant you go PAYG, or reduce yur contract?)
Housekeeping - £300 ( for 2 peeps and a baby :eek: well high, you can easily save 100pcm here. Are you using reusable nappies? loads of tips on old style & families board for cutting these costs)
Petrol - £100 ( must you drive ALL of these journeys?)
Car Insurance - £45 ( is this the cheapest you can find, shopped around?)
Car Road Tax - £15
Home Service Chrg - £60 ( i take it this cant be reduced?)
Internet - £14.99

Creditors:

Virgin CC - £5577.60 (£78.97pm) – 16.9% APR
Egg CC - £5951.27 (120.47pm) – 16.9% APR
HSBC CC - £6245.92 (£190.00pm) – 17.9% APR
Morgan Stanley CC - £4206.48 (£85.00) – 16.9% APR
Ikea Store Card - £387.26 (£19.36pm)

All of these are high APRS? have you tried moving them to 0% deals so your payments actually reduce the balance?

Personally I think you ned to look into increasing your income im certain you guys should be entitled to some sort of benefits? Plus there are cutbacks above as I have pointed out.

What have you got to sell? Every penny counts!

0writer

Thanks for all the advice so far everyone.

Although there is sometimes a little left over each month, it gets eaten by HSBC for being overdrawn on my account and they eat alot!

As for things like the petrol, mobile, car insurance they all apply to me only and not my partner. I'm tied in to 18 months with the phone and the petrol can vary between £60 and £100 per month. I run a small company so these things can be high one month and lower another depending on work really.

I can't BT any over the cards as I applied for one or two to try and do this and both got declined, that's when I realised "what the hell is happening" because up until then I was just balance transferring.

The main big difficulty for me each month is paying the credit cards off. I have not missed any payments but it does litterally take every last penny. Knowing that it is only really paying interest isn't helping either. So the main thing for me is to resolve the situation with the cards. I'm constantly trying to bring other things down etc etc and I'm not someone that uncontrolably spends on cards.

The Payplan thing just stopped me in my tracks to question as up until then I thought "hey, good feedback all round, they are going to be able to help". Then I saw things from people saying that Payplan wasn't paying there creditors ontime, missing payments, not returning calls, difficult to contact. That's when I thought maybe it isn't the right route.

Any further advice appriciated and thanks again for all the good advice so far, I am looking into those websites etc.

Millionare

Hi,

Try CCCS, They are very highly recommend , free and they do DMP as well. I only had the phone interviews with Payplan and CCCS and i have to say personally i found CCCS to be better than payplan.

18 month contract dosent mean you have to stay on the same tariff. check the t&c's to when you can lower the tariff with your network if that is benefical.

looks like your entitled to either working tax credits and child tax credits. make sure you apply for this. go the the inlandrevenue site and apply. If they backdate it you could be entitled to thousands!! depending on your history.

all_hours

What's the APR on the IKEA store card? Could you post the credit limits on all your cards.

Phone each of the card companies and ask them to reduce the interest rate. They can only say no.

Have you looked at your credit report to see why you are being turned down for new cards? Do you have any other cards open with £0 balance?

0writer

I switched electricity providers this morning and am just waiting for things to go through.

Also had my telephone interview with Payplan and things seem to have gone ok. I'm just waiting for them to come back to me.

One question I had is that once I go ahead with Payplan, I guess they contact my creditors and take things from there. From that point onwards am I pretty much regarded as a dead horse by every single organisation as far as money/finances etc is concerned? Is so would it be better to try to sort things out myself?

I'm still a little unclear about the Payplan route.

black-saturn

Who did you switch to out of interest?