Help Me! I don't know what to do...

lauracusack

Due to a recent change of employment, we are going to be living on £900 or less for the next two months and have been living on less for the last couple. Stupidly I have borrowed money to try to cover the deficit. My partner is getting promoted, so after that our income will increase. I've already contacted my mortgage company about a payment holiday, but they wouldn't give us one as we haven't yet paid off 20% of our property's value (we are new home owners). Instead they will move us on to interest on, reducing our payments from £247 to £201. In SEPTEMBER. We missed the cut off for August. Now I don't know what to do as we aren't going to be able to pay all of our creditors next month and we don't have enough food to last.

Here's what we will be paying out:

Mobile phones - £65
Home phone and BB - £30
Gas and Elec - £110
Unauthorised overdraft fee - £50+
Authorised OD fees - £30
Insurances - £55
Mortgage - £247
Buses - £14
Debts (including a stupid payday loan) - £502
Dog Food for our Great Dane - £60
Pet Insurance - £15
Lovefilm sub - £15 (plan to cancel this)
Open Uni debt - £90

Total = £1268.00

What can I do??

Tixy

Starve the dog - no I am joking I love dogs!

Your gas & elec - how do you pay this? is that the monthly DD payment? Maybe ask to pay in installments or give them a reading and if you are in credit (and you might be in summer) ask them for a refund.

You could open a new bank account elsewhere and have all your income paid into that and withdraw all the funds you can from the overdraft and pay them into the new account- this would then mean that none of your money would actually be used for the bank fees of £80+ for the next couple of months (you could write to them and offer them a token payment of £5) - this is likely to affect your credit rating and you will of course have to pay the costs eventually.

If you do the above you could at the same time not pay the payday loan - they'll try to get money out your old empty account and fail - you can then write to them and offer a monthly repayment you can afford.

What other debts are in the £502? (if not all the payday loan) - maybe you could ask them if you can pay reduced payments for a couple of months.

What have you got that you could sell to raise some cash?

Then have a look at these threads for some really cheap food ideas to have a couple of months of very low food bills - Help! £40 to feed family for the month
and Cheap recipe threads

lauracusack

Tixy wrote: »

Starve the dog - no I am joking I love dogs!

Your gas & elec - how do you pay this? is that the monthly DD payment? Maybe ask to pay in installments or give them a reading and if you are in credit (and you might be in summer) ask them for a refund.

You could open a new bank account elsewhere and have all your income paid into that and withdraw all the funds you can from the overdraft and pay them into the new account- this would then mean that none of your money would actually be used for the bank fees of £80+ for the next couple of months (you could write to them and offer them a token payment of £5) - this is likely to affect your credit rating and you will of course have to pay the costs eventually.

If you do the above you could at the same time not pay the payday loan - they'll try to get money out your old empty account and fail - you can then write to them and offer a monthly repayment you can afford.

What other debts are in the £502? (if not all the payday loan) - maybe you could ask them if you can pay reduced payments for a couple of months.

What have you got that you could sell to raise some cash?

I'm paying by DD but I owe them money as they completely messed up our home move and I didnt realise that I wasnt paying anything for ages. It's direct debit.

My bank puts me into an unarranged overdraft to pay their own fees, increasing my interest to £5 a day.

The other debts are a catalogue which I pay to my aunt, this is the last repayment and she couldn't afford for me to not give her the money. That's £27. We also have a bicycle and a computer on a loan. I haven't even made the first repayment on the bike yet. We got it recently as we were fine financially. It is through my partner's work so I really don't want to bring that into it.

I don't know if I've got anything....

I spend hardly anything on food anyway, but will have literally nothing next month.

Tixy

I would definitely consider opening up a new bank account, if you are frequently ending up in an unauthorised OD the bank may wait for your income to be paid in and then pull the plud and recall your overdraft leaving you with nothing at all to live on.

Once you have a new account you could write to old one to offer token payments for a couple of months and try requesting that they freeze interest & charges.

If you move bank account you could also use this as an excuse to tell the utility company that you are going to have to cancel the DD and set up a new one for the new account (but just take a bit longer to set it up). I know you'll still need to pay eventually but it might work as a stalling technique.

Could either of you ask for an advance from your employers to help out at all?

lauracusack

Tixy wrote: »

I would definitely consider opening up a new bank account, if you are frequently ending up in an unauthorised OD the bank may wait for your income to be paid in and then pull the plud and recall your overdraft leaving you with nothing at all to live on.

Once you have a new account you could write to old one to offer token payments for a couple of months and try requesting that they freeze interest & charges.

If you move bank account you could also use this as an excuse to tell the utility company that you are going to have to cancel the DD and set up a new one for the new account (but just take a bit longer to set it up). I know you'll still need to pay eventually but it might work as a stalling technique.

Could either of you ask for an advance from your employers to help out at all?

Unfortunately the change in employment was that I left my job. The idea was that he was getting put on to full time wages (he was part time) at the same time as I left due to stress. Unfortunately, this didn't actually come off and he's only just got his contract, so no full time pay until September at least. I would get another job but I'm starting college in September so there's not really much I can do.

RAS

You can go out and temp like mad over the next two months?

money_honey

I agree with RAS - I'd definitely suggest temping, you need the money and the good thing about temping is getting paid weekly. At least that would help you in the short term. Good luck with it all.