new year, new start - but how?

aussielovell

sorry please remove thread

mountainofdebt

In view of all the unpaid overtime you do and as you work at home could you not ask your employer to pay for the broadband? If you are paying £55 per month for BT phone use/line rental would it be worth you signing up to the free evening/weekend call offer BT has on at the moment? Also what about using 1899 - see martin's article which will explain it better than I ever could.

Also I would monitor what channels you ACTUALLY watch on sky and see if you can reduce the package.

mountainofdebt

And before anyone says it yes I know its only 39p but if you pay for your TV licence monthly, you won't pay that premium of £1.25 per quarter!

As for ebay look out for low cost/free listing days - tomorrow (29/12) is one

If its any comfort it appears you only need to keep your head above water for another 12 months.....this time next year you will be almost debt free.

SunderlandBlackCat

Hi there

Are you sure you got all your outgoings down? Just at first glance you didn't put water rates/metered bill. Your other utility bills seem quite high to me, are you being as energy efficieant as possible & have you looked at changing suppliers with uswitch? (via quidco of course)

If you clear your credit card balance each month you could switch your credit card to one that gives cashback which won't help that much but if you pay for as much as possible on it you could easily get over £200 back on it over the course of a year on a 1% card - more if you qualify for a card that gives 3% back.

Is your current account working hard for you? Switching to an Alliance & Leicester Direct Current Account (again do this via quidco) will give you 6% interest on positive balances?

Have you checked the terms & conditions of the loans you currently have to see if they allow overpayments or have early repayment penalties? It might be worth applying for a 0% Credit Card that allows you to transfer funds directly into a bank account & then using those funds to pay off one of those loans.

Something else to consider is that its unlikely any savings you have will be earning anything even close to the interest you're paying so it would be more effective to stop paying into the ISA & use those savings to pay off debts. Once your debts have cleared you will have plenty of money to put into savings.

jm28cardiff

Youve got to go out, it seems reasonable

As far as Ebay goes, of course you charge the other person for the postage, and if you work it out first, you can bump up the postage a little bit to cover the Ebay and Paypal fees.

SunderlandBlackCat

aussielovell wrote:

Took me all my time getting a credit card in the first place and dont think i have a good enough credit rating to apply for different accounts inc cashback card. dont want to keep doing damage to my ratings by continious searches etc. My balance is never any more than £200.

There are a couple of handy tools you can use to check which card supplier are likely to accept you for the type of card you're looking for (0% Transfer, Low Life Of Balance, Cashback etc) without putting a search on your credit file.

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/Cards/credit_card.asp (Use the smartsearch with Equifax option)

http://www.moneyexpert.com/Compare-Credit-Cards.aspx?affiliateid=77

Using these sites before I applied has always worked except for Marbles which turned me down flat even though it appeared in the moneysupermarket list. (I now only apply for cards that appear in both lists). All I did after Marbles turned me down was wait until the next month & applied for another card successfully.

My credit file was no oil painting to start with either (still isn't but it's better than it was 2 years ago) but I've always managed to find at least 1 card in each category that did what I needed & I now have an egg money card that gives cashback & a virgin card for 0% balance transfers.

Once you have a card that you have a track record of paying on time even if its not the full amount it goes a long way to boosting your credit worthiness & when I checked my credit score I was told that a factor for my score being low was because I hadn't had enough credit searches on my file.

hypno06

You have got to have a life. I would say that if the money you are getting is "extra" then it is fine to use for having a life! If you start eating into your council tax money etc though then a rethink is required to determine your priorities.

Good luck - doing well so far!

lindsaygalaxy

Hiya
I am in a similar situation as a single mum, with around the same outgoings as you, but earn less money and get less tax credits???
First things i did was cut sky down, i got a new mobile phone contract with orange which costs £35 per month with 500minutes and unlimited texts, plus you get free wireless broadband ( see online promotion was running month ago). To pay off my old contract i sold my old phone on ebay.
Secondly your gym membership is quite high. See if they do one at your local lesiure centre, my one does it for £29 a month. I know its not as nice as a health club one like la fitness ect but it saves money and you still get same benefits.

Thirdly, im not sure how your debts are, but have you looked at 1. Talking to your bank about a better rate, even if it means getting a ne wloan to pay of your old one, or spreading it over a longer period of time to cut the costs 2. Add your car HP to your loan rate, you can always sell your car to get a cheaper one then.
3. Go onto a debt managment plan as they will work out what you can aford to pay back your creditors, but it will afect your credit

roswell

Id stop saving to the ISA and pay what evers in the pot to your highest interest charging debt, cut down sky after all your working 9 - 5 andf have evening viewings and gym .

look at your bills annualy, EG
Sky £37 X 12 months = £444
Gym 58.95 X 12 = £707
Mobile phone £43 x 12 = £516
House phone and broadband £55 x 12 = £660

Your spending £1100 a year just on phones and broadband

aussielovell

roswell wrote:

Your spending £1100 a year just on phones and broadband

OMG, yeah, thats scary

roswell

first off you dont want to put it all in one pot unless you can be really really disiplined not to go spending on the then clear cards.

I wouldnt pay more than you need to on any of the 0% credit you have at the moment as long as its enough to ensure you dont go past the 0% time frame.

The £30 would be best spent on any debt that is high interest eg cataloge etc, your not going to make a massive amount in interest on a isa probably 6 % is the max so your best off using this money to get rid of any debt above the interest you would get on it.

Once you get one debt out the way carry that payment + the £30 to the next highest debt. But make sure you dont go over those 0 % deadlines.