hi i have had my lightbulb moment and need a great deal of help

donny-gal

[/QUOTE]We cant share this with our families as they think we are dong so well financially as we have a nice 3 bed semi, beautiful baby, and my husband has his own franchise and that seems like a lot at our youngish age, we could never let them know as they would be sooooo upset that we have been so stupid with money.i cant believe we have been sooo silly no one else our age is in this kind of situation.

thank you for leeting me say all this![/QUOTE]

Mum's and Dad's aren't daft, they love you! They would be very hurt and upset if you did not share this with them. They probably realise that something is wrong due to the way you are both worrying, but do not know the actual reason. Put your pride in your pockets and tell them, cry with them. They have been your age, and while money was different then, (our first mortgage was £63 per month and nearly crippled us!) they know how hard it is at first. They will want to help, not necessarily with hand outs but by supporting you. Go and see them and share your fears.

fatbelly

CCCS should mention this tomorrow - if you have bank accounts with anyone you currently have a debt with, you should close the account and open one unconnected with your debt

Think you should also check your benefits. With one child you will be getting £17.45 pw CB, so that would mean you are getting £25 pcm child tax credit, and I would expect you to be getting more than this.

thepinkladez_2

hiya everyone!:o
just got off the phone to cccs, and well...

wooooooooshhhhhhhhh (thats the weight lifting off my shoulders- a little bit anyway!)

the nice lady was so so nice. i mean really nice no judgements no telling offs no nothing.

even admitted i had my age on my side with this debt!

we went through everything, plus all the bits i either didnt consider budgeting for or things i needed to budget more money for. she is sending my soa and my budget out so i will relist it all. the government are quite generous in some areas so i think we can cut back in some of those ares, meaning we will have more money to pay debt. again i will list these government guidelines when i get the budget/ soa through in case anyone might need them for their own soa.

she recons it will take roughly 14 years to pay our debt on a dmp, however when we tweak the figures like telephone, sky, mobile, car, she thinks this could take 9years or even less if i tweak the government guidlines obviously keep these the same but save the left over each month to pay extra off.

i am really on a high right now, i feel really great. i really thought we would have to go bankrupt but that doesnt seem to be needed.

as usual any advice on anything would be greatly appreciated!

If anyone wants to ask anything about my cccs app today please feel free to do so, as finally i now have a little bit of knowledge about all this!:o

thepinkladez_2

woo hoo i have cut some of my bills down however i made a slight booboo with the water bill we are currently paying £45 (have some arrears- which only came to light when we moved house so thats why we pay sooo much extra) i said £17.00 pound have no idea where i managed to get that figure from!when i get my budget and dmp from cccs is there somewhere i can alter the figures ie change the £17 to £45 but also add change the ones we have cut down?

is there anyway you can get out of a bt and sky contract and tmobile before its up? we have til june with them?

i have managed to cut the sky package to £25 a month as we have sky+ thats the lowest i can get it.
i have managed to cut some of my phone bill but bt wont lower it (they have actually put it up as we had high call charges in dec as most of family live abroad!) Obviously i will make a huge attempt to bring these calls right right down and as i can, thinking i will start using my free mobile minutes as we get £50.00 worth a month on the contract we are in.

also been looking at cheaper mobile options as me and hubby both have to have one for work but i dont think £25.00 a month for both of us giving us £50.00 worth of calls is a bad deal. any opinions?
if we went on payg that would only give us £12.50 worth of credit each a month, which isnt much when we have to use them for work.

sorry having a big old ramble!!!

also good news for hubby he is going vat registered as he wasnt advised to do so before and this means he can claim vat back on his purchases for work so that should save us £4,000 a year- thats what the nice boss has figured!??

tryhard_2

you can lower cost of calls abroad by using 18185 or 1899; it's really cheap compared to BT. martin has written an article about it

dreamer33

Can anyone help with IVAs. I have read a little about them but am really nervous about even going down this road? I am worried that the house will be affected, only I have two small children.

My husband and I have debt which is leading us to live off the credit card, our debt is in the region of £74K excluding the mortgage. I feel really embarrassed saying that amount. We have been down the road of consolidation loans and that was a nightmare PPI was added even though we said we didn't want it. (never mind been there and got rid of quick)

chocolatefish

Well done OP, you're doing great. While you are on a high, could you consider starting to really plan your meals and shopping? I have found this is the single biggest money saver for us. We plan all meals one week in advance, prepare a list accordingly and only buy what we need. We've probably cut our grocery bills in half just by doing this.

Good luck