Im at rock bottom. Please help.

sambodidly

Hi
Im completely and utterley devestated and ashamed that its come to this.

I/we are in severe debt and I know we having been living far beyond our means.

We are £3000 overdrawn, with £2000 on Credit Cards and £6000 loan.

Today, we having nothing left.

We run our own small business but that is struggling too so were in a no win situation.

Please please can anybody advise me of what to do.

Thank you.

sambodidly

I wanted to ask people's advice on IVA or Debt Consolidation?

My business is a LTD company and worried it may affect this or my credit rating too much for the future.

Thank you.

HappyMJ

£11,000 is not a "huge" amount of debt for a couple. It is large but it should be manageable. Get the interest rates as low as possible. Reduce outgoings and increase income as much as possible and make sure you are claiming every benefit to which you are entitled. Tax credits is one. Do they have the correct figures?

sambodidly

Hi HappyMJ

Thank you for your reply.

£11,000 seems massive to me as ive never been in any kind of debt until the last few years :-(

The overdraft is costing a fortune, but is there anything that can be done on that score with the interest rates with banks?

The CC is currently on 0% as ive been as shrewd as possible performing 'transfers' to other CC when the end of the free term comes to an end.

The loan was only took out a few months ago, again, as its 'fixed' is it possible to try and reduce the payments with it being a newish loan?

As for wages, we only pay ourselves minimum was and do get tax credits to 'top it up'.

Thank you for your help.

dancingfairy

Hi -I would get in touch with Business Debtline and see if they can help from the business side of things, does your local council have a business link? local chamber of commerce? any other kind of help for small businesses?
With regards to the personal debts then I would seek help from National Debtline, CCCS or your local CAB. You might have problems with an IVA/Bankruptcy if you are a comapny director or intend to be one but for the amount of debt then you might not want to do go for one of these routes anyway.
A debt management plan may be an option but the debt charities will talk you through this. Whatever you do I'd stay away from anyone that advertises 'a little known governement loophole' or 'the answer to all your money problems' or anything like that - why pay for advice when you cna get help for free from one of the debt charities I've mentioned and also because sadly debt management companies are pretty much unregaulted as far as I can tell so I'd stick with a charity one rather than risk possibly being ripped off.
Best of Luck
df

RAS

How much of this debt is business and how much is purely personal?

sambodidly

Dancingfairy..thank you. Good Advice! I am to nip into our local CAB when they are open on Wednesday and see if they can help in any way. At the moment, my debt outgoings are around £550 per month so I wanted a way to lower this.

RAS, none of the debt is business, its all personal :-(

dancingfairy

Still worth a chat to some business people if you can - you might meet some good contacts, get help with marketing, find out about grants you may be entitled to etc etc.
Also need to make a plan with regards to the personal debt.
df