at my wits end, any advice?

tom1970

i owe MBNA £18,000, £14,000 on one card and £4,000 on another. i earn £1000 a month i never asked for a credit limit to be raised but i kept maxing out card and paying it off again over a number of years. now i am unable to keep up payments on this. i was thinking of offering them our savings of £4,000 paying off one card and offering to pay the £14,000 off at £200 a month if they freeze the interest, my alternative is to go for an IVA. 2 questions:
1)are they likely to agree to such a deal and
2)will this badly affect my credit rating (not that i care much but wouldn't like it to impact on my wifes)

Cardinal-Red

First things first, I'd use your savings to pay off the debt anyway as soon as possible (unless the savings are earmarked for any essential spending and using them up will make you prone to more borrowing...)

The interest 'saved' by paying off the debt will be much higher than that earned by depositing... assuming you're on MBNA's Standard Variable Rate....

thesaint

You have £4000 in savings and can't keep up with the repayments.
How much are the repayments?

Tom_Saunders

Tom,

I know the feeling it is so easily done hence why I've just got a loan and hopefully will never do it again.........

Do you have a mortgage ? perhaps you could remorgage and py it off over a longer term and at the same type cutting up the old cards ?

Worth thinking about it you can.

thesaint

i don't think transferring such a big unsecured debt to a mortgage is the best thing to do, the house(if there is one) could be repossessed.

CLAPTON

can you give details of you financial affairs including income, details of spending an full details of debts (amount, APR and minimum monthly payments) ..without this details its impossible to give good advice

see for more details

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=107280

tom188

I suggest you repost on the Debt Free Wannabe board where there will be plenty of help and advice available from people in similar positions to you.

Re your credit rating youll probably mess yours up but provided your wife is the additional cardholder it wont affect hers.

nearlyrich

I will move this to DFW please post a full SOA as others have said and I am sure there will be others around to help soon....

lynzpower

tom

I remember you from last week, and can see you had some good advice,

What have you done since then, how has it been going.

How are you feeling? I wonder if you are struggling to see the wood for the trees?