Credit card- a good idea to pay off an overdraft?

Willium_Bob_Cole

Hi, I'm a 19 year old failed student starting a new course september to hopefully NOT fail this time around. I live with my fiance, of the same age as me (literally. her birthday is same day as mine). We are quite happy and comfortable but over the year and a half of us living together, some unexpected expenses have come up for which we needed to get a planned overdraft on both my account and our shared account.

I found a 0% interest for 24 months credit card with a 2.8% charge on transfers, would this be a good idea to help solve our debt problems? Although I can't imagine we have a fantastic credit score in which case what else can we do?

currently we are on jobseekers (soon to be income support again when I start my new course) and housing benefit... I'll give as much detail about our finances as I can muster as I imagine you guys can help me more with that info, so here goes:

income:
-We recieve £211.90 every two weeks in job seekers allowance.
-We get £507.68 housing benefit every 4 weeks.
-Our rent is £550 pcm (though we pay 506.32 every 4 weeks which I worked out that we owe the landlord 5.60 per year as benefits pay 13 times in 12 months, I hope I was right on that lol)
-Family members give us a total of £70 per month to help towards some bills (all declared of course)

outgoings:
-water: £12.13 pm
-sewerage: £11 pm
-gas & leccy: £50 pm (this should be a lot less, we were massively in credit on gas and a little in debt on electric, and they worked it out as if we were in debt on gas, so they tried charging over £90 pm, I phoned and they reduced it to £50 which is still more than it should be, and said they would review it in 6 months by which point I should be able to claim masses of credit back lol)
-sky+ (tv & internet): £42.25
-LloydsTSB silver account fee (my account, was told to get this for the lower overdraft interest rates, couldn't get student account as I was/am going to be on a college course and not uni yet): £7.95
-Overdraft interest on my account: about £13.17 pm (overdraft limit of £1000, and at the limit)
-Overdraft on joint account: £5 fee and about £5 interest pm
-food: We used to spend quite a bit on food, buying certain ingredients at waitrose etc, when we got our planned overdrafts in place, we only spent a little more than we could afford now and then, but over time we got lost behind all these luxuries and hence being at the limit of our overdraft. We have now decided to spend £50 per week on food at lidls, though this is difficult barely covers most things, I'm not sure how much a couple should spend on food but we only regularly eat a decent dinner each day, some lunch things like 35p bread rolls with some kind of filling every other day, and the occasional breakfast type thing.

So yeah, help would reeeeeaaaally be appreciated, the main thing is that we want to be in positive figures for both accounts, to stop paying interest on our overdraft somehow, and have some kind of structure whereby we don't spend more than we have coming in so this doesn't happen again (the planned overdraft is a very useful feature when things come up, but we wish to be in a situation where dipping into it from time to time doesnt set us back into a spiral of paying more and more interest).

the site I saw the credit card deal I mentioned is (apparently I can't post links, OBVIOUSLY I'm a spammer ><)

here: http:// www. lovemoney. com/ creditcards/
(remove spaces obviously)

, so far it seems the most effecient method of paying of our £1500 debt, but obviously it depends on whether firstly our credit score is even good enough for one (I don't know how picky credit card companies are considering its a mostly profit from interest business), whether we can get 0% interest for a decent amount of time, and if we can transfer enough to cover the overdraft and future proof ourselves in paying back the credit card.

Thanks hugely to anyone who can offer a helping hand to a couple of paupers in need,

-WBC =]

edit: also thought I'd note, I've started setting £100 aside in a savings account every 2 weeks to cover all bills, which I've just worked out (for the first time including all interest and charges) to be £146.50, more than I thought it was so I'm glad I over estimated the amount I'm setting aside, but it still leaves us hungry from time to time...

Hovel_lady

Can't help with cc question but I would say £50 for food for 2 people is a lot. We don't spend anywhere near that and we have a dog to feed too.
Have a look on the OS (Old Style) board. Plenty of cheap meal ideas and ways to make the pennies stretch.

Happytogetdebtfree

Hi i speak from my own experience dont take the credit card ! it was and will remain the reason i started accumulating debt rather than ridding it its all well and good clearing the overdraft but leaves temptation, instead if your to become a student again some banks with a visit from you and a student card as proof with regestration of course also will put you on to a student current account and this normally means 0% overdraft that way you can pay it off with what you would have paid to your credit card and not accumulate more debt, but of course its entirely up to you ... either way good luck

Willium_Bob_Cole

thanks for your replys, I looked into the credit card repayment and it seems the monthly repayments would be more than my overdraft interest each month, ranging from £125 to £200 a month if interest free for a year. If I got the two year plan it wouldn't be nearly so bad but I doubt I could, in which case that seems like a no go plan, thanks for making me look at it more closely.

As for budgeting, I really don't know what to do, we really don't eat much, we've been trying to spend £50 a week for both of us (plus cat food for a couple of cats and temporarily kittens, and the occasional, cheap, expenditure for rabbit and hamster food), but we are now left wwith £2.12 from now until thursday... I really don't know where it all goes wrong, we have a pack of meat most days ranging from £3-£6, so say, £25-£30 a week on meat, and the rest is just vegetables, bread rolls, bread, eggs, milk, and a couple of cheap little bits here and there, very reasonable I feel in means of living but we just can't make the money stretch... I just want a way to be in positive figures again, it seems much easier to budget when the account is over zero, it gets hard to know how much you have spent and have left below that, like, it's hard to tell the difference between -£315.32 and -£486.44 (random example but you get what I mean) without looking through properly. Is it possible to get Lloyds to at least give me 0% interest on my overdraft? As I said before, I have asked and cannot get a student account as my course was/is going to be a college course, and not a ucas register university course (not for another year, that means about £30 a month interest and account charges for a year!)

I'm sure it's not the biggest debt anyone's ever seen, but we can't afford to ever buy things we want as luxuries or go out as a couple or anything like that. I'm quite happy to stay in the flat, but it would be nice to know that we could do things from time to time...

So far, now that credit card is probably out of the question, the best thing I can think of is call nPower and get our electric bill reduced from £50 a month to about £20/£25 a month like it should be, but they told me a couple months ago they couldn't review it until 6 months time... or somehow getting my landlord to let me off rent for a month or two which would kick the daylights out of our overdraft, though it would never happen lol...

anyway, thanks again, I hope there is more someone can suggest to help...

-WBC

thesim

Do you need Sky+? Can you live without tv? That would free up a few bob. What about agency work? Theres shed loads for students!

theoretica

You may not see that you are eating extravagantly, but you could eat much cheaper. £60 per adult per month for all food is often mentioned as a good, and not too hard, amount to aim for. Some people manage on considerably less. This would work out at £28 a week for the pair of you - about what you are spending on meat alone. Why are you buying rolls when you get more bread for your money? The OS board will have many more hints and tips.

Willium_Bob_Cole

the 70 a month we get from family is basically FOR sky, and help towards other bills, sky is mostly for internet for me and mostly for tv for my partner, I kind of can't function without internet, thats why we were offered some money to get it in the first place so you understand...

before my partner and i moved out together, I used to have to budget between 20-30 a week for food on myself and I found it HARD. I wouldn't eat most days, and then I would eat cheaply, with the occasional takeout as it was convenient (and I always got a great lunchtime deal). As I said, we eat meat most days at about 25 a week just on meat (sometimes more sometimes less). The rolls are 35p for two big ones (so one each) which is our breakfast/lunch combined every other day, and is like a cheap alternative to subway. and then just veg, some fruit items sometimes, and the occasional expense for houshold items and pet food... I'm gonna open up a spreadsheet and start working out what is costing us so much, but mostly I want to stop paying interest and get back in the black!

-WBC

edit: also what's this about agency work? I've been looking for work for months now, and with college approaching I've had to be looking for part time only, however my partner is free full time, and we are both willing to work providing; that the levels of/intensity of work don't make it unbearable and then a more depressing lifestyle, and of course that we get a fair amount more money than we do on benefits, otherwise, what's the point? (unless it's a job you really enjoy, which there are seemingly very few of if any at all for people of our age/experience >< )

GeorgieFTB

WBC

You seem to be going in the right direction, the Old Style board will be able to help with ways of cooking... for example do you cook a roast on sunday, pull the left over meat off for a curry Monday, some meat for sarnies during the week and use the carcass for stock to make soup for later in the week... by the way I'm a veggie so I'm not sure if you can't do more stuff with a chicken! On the same note, check out http://www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/ for ideas...

To give yourself a bit of breathing space I suggest you talk to the leccy people, get some of the excess back to pay off some of an overdraft, don't get all of it back just in case...

Keep a spending diary to figure out where your money is going...

Gx

Willium_Bob_Cole

yeah thanks, I've started up a spreadsheet where I can track the cost of everything we buy regularly and make an estimate average of how many we buy per week, so as of monday will be keeping reciepts to put into my spreadsheet (I'm gonna take some money out of the money we had saved for bills so we can live this week, I put aside 100 now and was gonna put aside another 100 thursday when we get paid, leaving us with 200 for bills, when I only just worked out we spend 146.50 on bills, so we're not at death's door quite yet...)

We used to have a sunday roast every other week (she makes a MEAN chicken, shame you're missing out as a veggie ;P ), and she always had a habit of using the bones and leftover meat to make a nice hearty stock and soup, something she enjoys, and yeah it TASTES good, but SOUP IS NOT A MEAL lmao. I will try and arrange reducing the electric bill again but as i said, they told me they wont review it again until 6 months from when i phoned them. I'm sure our usage won't increase in a hurry anyway, when we joined nPower, they gave us an estimate of like 12 electric and 32 gas (or similar), and we dont use gas except for hot water, and we have electric things on alllll the time, and we still used less than we were paying for, the only time we saw an increase was when my brother came to stay with us for a couple months where he was also using his laptop and watching our tv when we were out, since he left its dropped right back into acceptable levels again, and it barely goes up even in winter when we have an electric oil filled heater on and off, as we are in an upstairs flat so it stays pretty cosy most the time =D (we're very lucky with the flat we have, people told us 'dont take the first one you see', the first one we saw was this one and it is fantastic!)

-WBC

katsu

Look at the meal planning advice on the old style forums for how to eat cheaper.

Honestly I will say DH and I spend around £50 a week because he has a medical condition requiring him to eat a Low GI diet which means we have to have low GI everything, such as bread which I can't make or buy for under £1.50 a loaf. We also eat lots of fresh fruit and veg, which is dearer than tinned or frozen, and we get things like expensive museli as it is very low in sugar. I think you should be able to make savings on food. The advice I can offer:

* do you have a local market - good source of cheap, seasonal fruit and veg
* buy porridge oats and eat porridge for brekkie to fill you up - I would put just oats, milk, cinnamon and a handful of sultanas in a pan, heat for 5 mins and you have another meal for the week for around £3 at most.
* meal plan so you can buy in bulk and use all of say a pack of peppers in one week or so, being better value than buying a single pepper one week and another the next week IYSWIM
* use frozen veg like peas to bulk out your plate for pennies
* cut back on meat. Seriously, spending over half your food budget on meat is too much I think (we are veggie and probably around £5-10 goes on quorn food but that isn't all eaten in one week)
* try and buy reduced stuff such as fruit and veg or things you can freeze and eat later. For example for my dinner just now I had some boiled potatoes - 1kg new potatoes reduced to 30p at supermarket (can be kept in an old pillowcase in the cupboard for a few weeks) so <10p for the portion - some frozen peas from Aldi so possibly 20p as I had lots of them, and a frozen quorn "fish burger" that I got reduced a few weeks ago for maybe 80p. A fair size dinner for £1 per person.
* read recipe books in your local library to find easy meals you want to try that don't use too many ingredients.

You will get some amazing ideas on the old style boards, but incase it helps here are some of my favourite fast, healthy enough and reasonably priced meals you can make in 15 mins or less:

* Cook around 25g walnuts (cheapest if bought as broken lumps in supermarket) in a saucepan with a garlic clove (could leave out the garlic) and a bit of oil for a few mins, add a couple of rashers of bacon, chopped up (recipe had turkey bacon strips in it, I use veggie equivalent) and let the bacon cook then pour in a tin of chopped toms. Cook on a high heat for say 5-6 mins. Meanwhile boil some spagetti. Mix sauce and spaghetti. You can serve with some fresh parsley if you have it, and add some extra veggies or serve on a big bowl of lettuce.
* beans on toast type teas, maybe with a fried egg on top - just a once a week thing
* boil pasta and at the same time put some reduced fresh tomatoes under the grill, along with perhaps a reduced fresh pepper or courgette, all chopped up. When the veg is charred and collapsed the pasta is about done too. Mix together and sling on top of another big bowl of chopped lettuce with some cucumber or tinned sweetcorn. You can add a bit of grated cheese or half a supermarket own brand mozarella ball for a treat.

I hope this is some help.

elsiepac

Hi OP

You sound like you are saying some very contradictory things in your posts. On the one hand, you seem very eager and motivated to get your debts down. But on the other hand you are spending £25 a week on meat alone!!! I find that unbelievable - can you not do without, or stretch it a bit, or something?!

The other thing that surprised me was your comments about working. You've said that your partner can work full time and you can work part time due to starting college soon, fair enough, but then you add the caveat

we are both willing to work providing; that the levels of/intensity of work don't make it unbearable and then a more depressing lifestyle, and of course that we get a fair amount more money than we do on benefits, otherwise, what's the point? (unless it's a job you really enjoy, which there are seemingly very few of if any at all for people of our age/experience >< )

I don't mean to be rude but I find that absolutely shocking. Most of us on here are not in the position that you seem to think is 'acceptable' to choose to work. But by your comment it looks like you see work as an optional thing?! I'm sorry but I really don't understand the mindset. You do need to earn your way in life, surely you have to get a job eventually if you're on benefits purely for being out of work? Wouldn't it be better to find a job that you've chosen rather than one they make you take?

You've had some really good advice from the other posters on here, I think you've identified some areas where you can cut down, but you don't seem willing to compromise, especially in saying silly things like "soup isn't a meal" !!! It certainly can be a meal, depends what you do with it! Add potato, chick peas, root veggies, green beans etc to your basic chicken soup and serve with crusty bread - huge meal!!! You need to halve, if not more, your meat intake. Also, meat isn't good for you in large quantities (depending on what you're having) - why not get creative inthe kitchen and go veggie for a couple of days a week. Most people see meat as a luxury not a necessity, and to spend £25 a week on it, especially when you are trying to cut back, just seems crazy.

I'm sorry that my post may not seem as positive as the others, but I don't think you've had your light bulb moment yet, and your attitude still has a lot to change before you'll start seeing a difference.

Best of luck to you

LC