£20,000 debt

pineapple

Just to say you can switch to Sky Freesat like I did. Don't just downgrade the package, dump the subscription alltogether. You will lose the sport channels but something has to give. A few years back me and my partner did a cleaning job after work. We would much rather have been relaxing after our full time jobs. It was hard but you do what you have to do. Later we took in lodgers. Is this something you could look at?
I don't think the monthly grocery bill is that bad if it includes non food items. But I don't think you factored in an amount for house maintenance/repairs?
The car insurance seems very high. What are you driving?

*zippy*

A lot of the problem is, is that my bf buries his head in the sand, and he is the one trying to push into a loan now which I don't want to do. Plus whatever spare money we have he seems to squander on lunches and things, and is always right up to his overdraft by the end of the month.

I wonder if it would help him if you got a plan together for the future rather than just living month to month. A financial plan to get out of this debt and a couples plan in what you both hope for in the future. Maybe if he saw that Sky and lunches etc are costing you those plans it will be a bit of a wake up call.

Honestly once you can get your budget to balance its like a weight has been lifted so do whatever you can, sell on ebay, cut spending and try to get overtime or second jobs, its hard, but its lovely to sleep at night without worry so good luck

clearmydebts

I agree with the others. Time to ditch the sky. Your BF needs to know that you just can't afford it at the moment. It sounds like you are trying to cushion things for him but he needs to know the extent of your debt really.

Is a lodger an option? That could free up a few £££ a month to pay off debts. I also agree that 2nd jobs are the way to go. Hope you get the singing job!

redpete

Stitchlover1 wrote: »

Other travel............................ 160 what is this? ifs its communting for 1 of you could you get rid of one of the cars?
This is for when my boyfriend has to get the train, he works in retail and has to travel to different stores. In his usual store he gets the train at £160 a month, but then sometimes he has to drive across the North West

Does he get expenses form his employer towards this extra travelling? If not, why not?

Even if he gets nothing from his employer then he should be able to claim an expense against income tax for travel to anywhere other than his normal place of work. Allowance is up to 45pence a mile (note this is not how much you get but you reduce your tax bill).

Little_Miss_Uni-Debt

Hey Stitchlover,

Just wanted to offer some support, it may seem like a mountain to climb but there are LOTS of things you can do to get the money coming in instead of leaving all the time!

1)Take only cash shopping for one month i.e £150. Try and get as much as you can with this. Shop a brand lower challenge may mean you free up £100 from your budget. Take a strict shopping list.

2)Call each of your CC companies and get an EXACT interest figure for the cards. I know at the moment we have seen what you are paying minimums, APR % rate is the important figure, especially so you can see exactly what the cards are costing you.

3)Sell, sell, sell. Seriously! Put expensive items aside to sell on ebay,gumtree,local paper. Smaller items go to a car boot. If you start getting other streams of money coming in this eases the pressure.

4)How is your current account(s) managed? Are they in credit, does any of your wages get eaten up in bank charges? Check all your direct debits are needed. Its important that your current account(s) are managed well to ensure you are using every £ of your earnings to maximum effect

5)Possibly look into reclaiming your bank charges and any mis-sold PPI on cards/loans. I know these take some time to come back but when they do, it's a huge chunk of help.

5)Evening jobs? They suck, yes. but I did them for 2 years between 2007 and 2009 and cleared £14,000 on my own.

6)Whose names are on the cards? I'd focus on the high MBNA one first. Then if you do an evening job and start bringing extra in, I know it's harsh but I'd pay off the ones in your name first. Maybe this will make your partner realise he needs to jump in and help out.

7)When you free up some income to start paying extra to your cards look at the snowball calculator. http://www.whatsthecost.com/snowball.aspx You'll realise by saving £20 here and there a month just how much you can cut your debt by.

8)I know it makes for painful reading but get the credit card statements out. Understand what purchases made this happen. For example, if you see car repairs, and MOT bills on there, it's important that you physically put aside the money in your SOA for this each month. Often stopping spending on the cards is the hardest bit.

9)Please stay strong and not give into a loan (if for some reason you do find you get offered one. Currently loans for low credit scores are about 17% or 18%. That would take you simply from being £20k in debt to £28k in debt in one stroke. It would also leave the cards free for you to spend on again which just makes you feel its ok to spend again.

10)Keep coming back here!

Make sure you keep us updated!!

foxgloves

It's really important tht you operate as a team here. It can be difficult when one person in a relationship reaches LBM while the other person is still thinking the same old overspending habits can carry on indefinitely. I think you'll find that you'll reach a point where your debt is so big, compared to your income, that no-one will lend to you any more.....then it's the temptation of those horrible payday loan companies & the slippery slope. I think you need to come up with a plan. there's so much good advice already been posted. You are at a point where keeping Sky isn't negotiable. You can't afford it. End of. If you start tackling your debt problem, then there may well come a time when you can pay to reinstate luxuries like Sky. That time very defintely isn't now. You can reduce your Mobile bill easily...there are good contracts available for £15 a month....for 2 phones, that'd half your mobile outgoings. The Old-style forum has lots of good advice about reducing household/grocery expenditure. The major thing is conveying to your partner just how serious this is & that hiding heads in the sand is going to stack up big problems for later, as you really do need to tackle this as a team....and a team that has a plan! In the meantime, as you have spent a lot of money on cards, I'm assuming you must have a lot of stuff, so I second the post about ebaying or carbooting excess stuff. Anything extra you can raise to throw at the card debt is worth it. And remember, (I find this helps me), if you continue with the same behaviour, you can't expect to see different results.

fd1972uk

thehappybutterfly wrote: »

Otherwise, yes - downgrade your SKY package. I pay £55 p/m for TV, line rental and calls and broadband. I know your boyf likes Sports but I think there's enough sport on the telly and if there's something special he really wants to see, can he go to the pub (with a fiver!) or maybe to a mate's house?

You can get all sky services for £38.25 per month, that is Sky TV with just the basic channels (Sky One, Atlantic etc etc), get Unlimited Broadband, Phone calls Free Eve/Wend calls.

Surely your other half can find sports on-line, it ain't the hardest thing to do to be fair.


FD

Stitchlover1

[

QUOTE=thehappybutterfly;45646874]Hi StitchLover

You're not dissimilar to me but it's me who's the spender and my hubby's the careful one. Our debt is about as bad as yours but it's split over loans and credit cards - the loans are much easier to manage than the cc's (too easy to spend on them). 2 of our cc's aren't spent on at all but one of them is and that's the one I need to "step away from". Can I just ask, how did you run up so much debt on credit cards? I'm not going to judge 'cos I know how I did it......

Your mortgage payment does seen high - I pay £286 a month on a £90k - maybe at about 3.5% APR? I noticed yours is 6.9% - hopefully you can get a better deal when you renew. Would it be worth renewing earlier and paying the "get-out" fee to benefit from a more favourable APR?

This might not be good advice but I changed my mortgage to an interest only (without putting a plan in place to pay the capital) to reduce the monthly payments. Once we're on our feet, we'll take out an ISA or something to remedy this. I think otherwise my mortgage would be approx £500 p/m.

Otherwise, yes - downgrade your SKY package. I pay £55 p/m for TV, line rental and calls and broadband. I know your boyf likes Sports but I think there's enough sport on the telly and if there's something special he really wants to see, can he go to the pub (with a fiver!) or maybe to a mate's house?

and PAYG mobiles definitely - Tesco Mobile are great. Top up £10 and get £20 free credit. You can also opt in to a text bundle of £5 for 5000 texts if that's your bag (it is my DD!).

Your boyf needs a wee kick up the rear end to get his receipts in and claim those expenses!! Can he back-date?

I think you've made the right move coming on here - you'll get tons of good advice and a shoulder to cry on! Hmmm, and let me know how you get on reducing your food bill - that's my biggest problem.

Lots of luck and don't despair xxx

[/QUOTE]


Thank you for this reply, it made me feel lots better. I run up the debts by just purchasing things here and there, its so easy to say oh I need this and just put it on the credit card. Its for instances like when you need repairs doing to your car etc and don't have instant cash, and before you know it you end up in a difficult situation like what I am in now. I know you can probably understand where I am coming from

Stitchlover1

Thank you for all of your responses, I have managed to do the below on the weekend....

Save over £20 on my pet insurances
Save £12 on my home insurances
Paid an extra £50 off one of the credit cards from money owed from family (I called in a few debts !)

So im still working on some of the other things, but feeling a little more positive. I also managed to get a second job which will start in September so even though the wage is pro rata I should get around £100 a month extra for 3 hours work on a Monday after my other job. So Im quite pleased about that.

Ive also had a good chat with my OH and he is trying to be more understanding, and knows that I have been bearing a lot of the stress of this for both of us over a long time now, and he needs to share some of the load ! When he is going to be working closer to home he is going to walk whilst its Summer, and when he is nearer to my work we are going to car share. As I am on flexi time it will work out quite well as I will get my hours back too.

With regards to calling my credit cards and telling them that I cant afford the monthly payments, I tried this with Barclaycard and they wasnt very helpful at all and so that kind of put me off asking any of the others really. Virgin Money are usually very helpful tho, and that is the one I have defaulted on in the past.

Also I have about 3 payment holidays available from my mortgage company, and they are fine with me taking them, but that means that my payments would go up in the future - so not sure what to do there really ? Should I take the holidays to clear my lowest CC and some off the others ?

Oh and about the food shop, I went to Asda and did a lot of the "brand drop" stuff and saved quite a bit of money. I got big bag of cheap pasta and big jar of sauce and have been giving that to the OH for his lunch. A lot of the stuff I bought was Asda OB or value brand and I saved quite a bit. The only thing I didnt brand drop on was the cat food - as they are very fussy ! My weekly shop come to £30 this week which isnt bad I dont think ?

Thank you for all of your helpful advice everyone it is very much appreciated

x

flyingguy

Might be worth mentioning to your OH, there are ways of watching sports without watching them on sky.

PM me if you would like some info as I don't want to cause any problems posting on here.