Desperate, dont know where to turn.

tom1970

I currently owe in total £30k, 2 loans 15k (owe 8K) and 8k (owe 3K), and 3 CCs 14K.4K and 1K.

i can manage to keep paying the loans but the interest on the CCs are killing me. the only thing i can think of doing is to try and negotiate with the CC company to which i owe the 18k to freeze my interest and pay them a fixed amount each month (£200).I have tried to borrow an unsecured loan for 24k but have been turned down even though i have an excellant credit history they said i did not get enough points, probably due to what i owe.i applied for a secured loan got intially accepted but i am unwilling to go down this route as it is too expensive, my 8k loan ends feb 2008(started feb 2004) and 15k ends jan 2009 (started fan 2005) so after that i could hope to send CC company £800 a month and be debt free by 2010 instead of committing myself to 10 years or more on a secured loan.

has anyone any advice?

JAMIEDODGER

hi tom and welcome to dfw:)

firstly you need to write down everything you have coming in and going out....a SOA, see the sticky by southern scouser at the top of the board on how to lay this out,

you will need to find out the APR's of your debts too.

the link is: here

dont panic, but please dont consider a secured loan!!!!

once you have posted your SOA then im sure loads of DFW nerds will be along to help you:)

JD

nomoneytoday

I think you have already answered your own question
Consolidation bad snowballing good, and renegotiate with your creditors

Good luck

Kevicho

As Jamie said post your SOA, once you have that fully completed you can go through each section looking for savings, better deals and indeed anything you are wasting money on.

It sounds like your credit rating might not be as good as it could be at the moment so id try to get through the next 6 months until you apply for anything again

Good luck with your journey

Kev

tom1970

my main worry is will the CC company go for this?, i know this will adversely affect my up to now good credit rating but to be honest i will not be taking out any more if i can help it. how badly will something like this affect the rest of my financial life?

Kevicho

If you are worried about negotiating, contact either CCCs or Payplan (links to the top of the page) and they will do all that for you

JAMIEDODGER

tom, i think you should be looking at things in a different way. find other areas that you can reduce, leaving more money to pay the cc, as you say loans will be paid off in the next 2 years leaving you to hammer whats left on the cc. this is a much better way of paying it back without adversly affecting your credit rating.

there are many ways to reduce your outgoings, freeing up cash to pay off the debts:)

look at https://www.whatsthecost.com and check out their snowball calculator to see how paying it off this way would benefit you.

credit cards are notoriously unsympathetic when it comes to things like this so its quite unlikely they will stop interest. if you do it the way thats suggested you will save your credit rating and in 6 months or so you might be able to apply for a 0% credit card to move over the remaining cc debt to:)

hope this helps

JD

tom1970

my salary take home £1640 partner £1400

mortgage £760
creche £420
loan 1 £393
loan 2 £197
cc1 owe £14,000 apr i'd say 12+% (MBNA)
cc2 owe £3,800 same
cc3 owe £1,200 14%

electricity £40
gas £40
tv licence £15
petrol £100
car insurance £25
car tax £15
hp loan sofa £70 ends sept 2007
rates £90
food £250
clothes £40

but rough and ready

tom1970

but even if i could rustle up £400 a month this would barely make a dent in cc but i guess thats the price i just have to pay. the more i think of this the more down and depressed i get.just dont know how i have arrived at this point in my life in a state like this.

going to sign off for today, thanks for all advice, hopefully will get head straight come up with something.

Kevicho

yep it is

But dont worry about it, if i were you id go through your last 2-3 months bank statements, then that way you can get a much more accurate SOA.

Also split it up more, into essentials (eg food, council tax, mortgage), utitlities (phones/electrictity/heating) and non essentials and other (insurances/clothing/ etc)

This will help you see where the money is going, and eventually, we will be able to give you a repayment amount so that you can overpay the CC's to get that debt down quicker

Kevicho

tom1970 wrote:

but even if i could rustle up £400 a month this would barely make a dent in cc but i guess thats the price i just have to pay. the more i think of this the more down and depressed i get.just dont know how i have arrived at this point in my life in a state like this.

going to sign off for today, thanks for all advice, hopefully will get head straight come up with something.

Hey its a process, dont be discouraged by the amount of time it MAY take, and we have all been there, some more than others.

Just congratulate yourself on takiong the first step, think of how much better your life will be for you and your family and the great feelings you get as the debt starts to disapear