If I set out my situation, can you help?

bobbingalong123

Me:

High earning professional - last tax year £55k gross (going up by about £10k per annum). Excellent credit rating (986 on Experian).
Never missed a payment on anything, ever.

Debt:

CC1 - £4350/£4500 (23%) CLOSED
CC2 - £3800/£4500 (20%) CLOSED (both closed recently by me)
Approx. £100 min payment on both

Loan1 - £500/£8000 (£250 per month so only 2m left on this one)
Loan2 - £5k/£10k (£250 per month)

Other significant outgoings:

Rent: £1300 (moving soon so hope to reduce to about £700pm)
CT: £253 (again, hopefully will reduce to about half)

Husband about to go bankrupt so his contribution to household expenses has reduced to nil. I NEED to get a grip on the credit card debt, I'm only paying the min which I know is a recipe for disaster. What's the best way forward? Turned down for a Tesco loan today to try and consolidate...

Thanks in advance for your help!

mrsb83_2

With high earnings like that you should be able to clear all debts within a year. No need to consolidate.

Post your Statement of Affairs if you are having trouble with overspending or if your outgoings are high.

jd87

You pick up about £3200 per month. £1500 on rent and council tax. £500 on loans. Where is the other £1200 going???

tearose

Have you thought about applying for one or two 0% balance transfer deals? I think this would be your best bet, as that is an awful lot of interest you are paying. I was doing the same as you, paying the minimum for years until recently. I recently got a Barclaycard and Virgin 0% BT. I have set up direct debits to pay the minimum whilst I concentrate on clearing other debt first which is still incurring interest. If your loans allow overpayments to be made, then you could concentrate on them first.

bobbingalong123

Well firstly I have to pay 24% of my income to my place of work so that £3200 is actually about £2,400. Loan repayments of £700 takes it down to £1,700, rent and council tax of £1550 = £150 left over. I travel a lot for work so this is EASILY consumed by that and other bills. Easily.

bobbingalong123

What would be good options for me right now on the 0% cards?

djj

Why do you pay 24% of your wage to your employer?

bobbingalong123

They are not my employer. I am self-employed. I pay "rent" to them. It is totally standard practice in this profession.

tearose

It depends who your cards are with. For example, I could transfer Halifax to Virgin and MBNA to Barclaycard. I could not have transferred MBNA to Virgin as they are the same group, or Egg to Barclaycard as ditto.

Virgin and Barclaycard had the longest deals with relatively good balance transfer fee rates respectively so I went with them. Virgin gave me a decent credit limit. Barclaycard did not, but it was still better than nothing (Virgin gave me 5 x as much!).

Even if you are only able to get one balance transfer card, if you transfer the whole of one of your old balances and close the account they may offer you another 0% deal, which you could use for the other one. This happened for me with Halifax.

I'm sure there is loads of info on the best current credit card deals in that section of the forum.

bobbingalong123

Cards are with Barclaycard and MBNA. Will have a read of the deals section. Thanks!

RAS

bobbingalong123 wrote: »

Husband about to go bankrupt so his contribution to household expenses has reduced to nil. I NEED to get a grip on the credit card debt, I'm only paying the min which I know is a recipe for disaster. What's the best way forward? Turned down for a Tesco loan today to try and consolidate...

Thanks in advance for your help!

I hope that you have no joint accounts, or his BR will wreck your credit rating and you become wholly liable for the debt.

And when he goes BR he is expected to make a contribution to household expenses, in line with his income.

He needs to state you income correctly at £42K ish and his income.

Say he earns half that NET, then he pays one third of the household expenses plus his own expenses like clothes.

Get him over to the BR forum with his SOA urgently.