Deep Breath

Matow

Hi Guys!

I've been on this site before, was awesome for a few months, and then got hit with a lot of unexpected payments exactly at the wrong time.
Long story short, over the last year my 'Money Health' has suffered, and I don't think I have enough to last this month.

All in, that's something that can be dealt with until payday (Last working day of the month) but overall, I want to sort something out.
Pretty much all my outgoings are on a couple of credit cards, a loan (For the car), insurance, rent, bills etc, and i find myself hitting the bottom of my overdraft every month.

I did an SOA last time i was here, which helped a bit, as i spotted where money was going, and i cut down on that etc.

What im wondering now - I'd like to get my credit cards (1200 and 3000 i think) and possibly the car loan (about 4000) and the dreaded overdraft (1700) onto one managable loan, so's i dont miss payments and stuff like that.

My credit rating sucks. I tried to extend the car loan (Which is unsecured personal) but the computer said no.

What options are there to consolidate everything into one massive payment?
I see places advertised on TV (Ocean Finance and the like) but I see that as a no-go. Frankly i just don't trust them.

Based on advice here, imma take a holiday day off work next week so's i can hit up banks and other places during 'Opening hours' also trawl for cheaper car insurance which is due in 2 weeks (The guide on this site has been awesome with regards to that)

(In the long term, I'm moving back to my parents in the next month, which will involve quitting my current job and heading to the other end of the country - Applying for jobs there, but my parents own a business there and i can make enough there to keep me afloat as they wont charge me rent/bills/council tax etc)

.::Ninja Edit::.
My dream is to own a really nice pristine VW campervan. This is what i have a picture of by my bedside, this is what im aiming for. Get debt free and afford that beast.

Bored

Could I ask, are you currently paying off only the minimum each month on the credit cards? If you could work out a manageable budget that allows you to overpay on the credit cards each month you could begin to clear them much quicker.

Consolidation is likely to incur more interest in the long run, in addition there is the risk of running up the balances back on the credit cards and thereby increasing your total debt.

Matow

Its all minimum payments on those cards, and on the loan. The loan DOES allow over payment by double, but ultimately if i cant cover my bills for the month, i cant overpay.

The credit cards will be chopped up and sacrificed to the gods of getting debt free as soon as they are cleared.

On a side note, my ear is hurting from spending 2 hours on the phone repeating the same stuff over and over to insurance companies.. Grrr...

foxgloves

We're debt-free now but before we had the famous 'lightbulb moment' re debt, we did consolidate loans/cards a couple of times. We wouldn't do it again. It was something we did to reduce monthly payments and make things simpler, but the downside was that we took the opportunity to borrow a bit more than we needed 'just to be on the safe side' and the debt seemed to take years to pay off despite the fact that it wasn't that huge an amount in the first place. If we had organised ourselves to pay off our original debts one by one, we would have felt more motivated as we'd have had the pleasure of seeing them gradually disappear, freeing up money to throw at the bigger ones. I expect different people will have different theories on consolidation, but I think the only true winners are the companies that end up with all that extra interest. However 'helpful' their advertising sounds, ultimately, they rely on people being in debt in order to exist so the main people they are 'helping' are themselves.

wix5ie

I recently became debt free and I can see from your situation that it was similar to mine. The only difference was that I had a motobike loan instead of a car loan. I have a car, but I don't need it for work, it's not essential and was cheap!. I had a large overdraft, bike loan and a credit card. My bike loan was not secured on the bike so I sold the bike, made a loss but made enough to pay off the loan, the overdraft and the credit card. Unless the car is essential I would consider selling it. What's it worth? Would it pay off most of your debts including the car loan? If you simply can't sell the car then I would stick to a monthly budget (I did it for over 5 years), leaving the credit card set to minimum payment, forget about the overdraft, but don't increase it and pay the car loan off as quick as you can (even if it takes years). At least it's an asset and you can sell it if you've paid enough of it off to pay off other debts and buy a cheaper car?