What to do....

continualdiamond

My fiancee and i wanna take control of our debts, our debts put together total £17750.

Fiancees debts - £6000 - tsb cc card
-£750 - barclay cc card

Mine - £8000 - tsb loan


joint - £3000 overdraft


We can never get good deal credit cards just get those pre approved ones in the post with a pathetic rate. We really wanna shift my fiancees credit card balances around, no interest etc. (just moved so know that at the moment definately wont get any cc as electrol roll info hasn't been updated by council)

Are we best approaching tsb, asking them to lower the apr? or combine all the debts in one big loan with a little bit more to the loan to do some DIY to the house.....need double glazing windows at back of property, new bathroom.

Don't know how to go about it as hate paying more than the minmum and getting only a tiny bit off the balance

tryhard_2

hi! need a bit more info on APR min payment etc.

justruth

One thing you do not need is another loan. There is no harm in ringing both cc providers and asking them to lower the APR, if you want some thing to argue with you could look up their advetised rates and see if they will drop it. So long as you are polite and dont take offence if the answers no, then you're no worse off, and at least you know which order to pay off the debt!

Next thing is to post an SOA so that we can see how you might be able to find a bit more money to pay off just that little more than the minimum. You would be suprised where savings can be made if you put your mind to it.

Kevicho

Hi and welcome to the board

I think that while it is a good start to look at reducing aprs on the debts, i feel you are not looking at the whole picture here.

Start from the beginning, why are you in debt in the first place? What is your current financial situation, are you paying out more each month than is coming in?

Have you completed, as justruth quite rightly says, your soa?

Doing this first gives you all the information you need to start clearing this debt and shows you the changes needed.

good luck in your journey

Kev

continualdiamond

Where will i find the SOA?

The credit cards APR are:

TSB - 14.9% - minmum payment usually around £130 - pay £150 sometimes more

Barclay - 19.9% - minmum payment £20 - fiancee missed 1 payment so they took off interest free period, have wrote to them seeing if can be reinstated, dont like his chances.

Loan is 10.9% costing £216.15 a mth

Overdraft interest is about £20 a mth

We also have to pay back my fiancees Mum, around £1000, she let us buy all our furniture for the house on her argos credit card. Paying this off 1st as card is 25.9%, can afford this as mortgage is 0% for the 1st 6mths, so throwing all money at this balance 1st.

I know why where in debt, bit of a long story but to make it short.

I moved from Australia for my bf,he still lived at home, his parents for whatever reason hated us living at the house, so we had x amount of mths to get out. Moved into a caravan, hated it, so looked to rent some where.

Needed £800 up front (this is where prob started). TSB wouldnt increase overdraft so gave my fiancee a credit card with £4000. Then offered us a loan so we paid off credit card and overdraft. Hence the £8000 loan.

Fiancee kept credit card and added more debt.

Hope that helps a bit, until i find the SOA....

continualdiamond

Cant find the SOA, so i used the budget planner.

Mortgage - £435
Home ins - £9.27
Council tax -£101
Water/gas/electricity - £90 (don't know this for sure as rental had no gas and no water meter)

Food shopping - £45 a week, includes pet food (4 cats/1 dog)
Car ins - £65.03
Petrol - £20 a week



Loan - £216.15
Credit cards - £170
OD interest - £30

NTL - £45 a mth, includes ph call and internet
Tv licence - £11


Income - Fiancee - around £230 a week, varies as is service driver gets paid on units done.

- Mine - Around £900 min a mth sometimes over. I work 3 jobs,all in a school, 2 supply though so get paid when i work so loose these hrs when holidays etc. (example 1 mth id done 34 hrs, another only 20)

We don't put any money away for luxuries as you can see, as we vary rarely have them. If we do want something we look at the bank balance online and decide if its worth having.

I myself am a bit upset about our debts, especially as im so far away from home. My sister gets married this Aug and wants me to be her bridesmaid, i haven't been home in 3 years and all my family 'assume' im coming over for the wedding, but every day it looks more and more gloom that i am not...

Adrasteia01

Hi,
I'm another Aussie living on this side of the world - only in Ireland in my case.

The Barclays card is definitely high in interest (not as high as the Argos one though). Any chance you could transfer some of the balance to the TSB card if there's room enough on there? (if not, they might increase your limit if you asked them). Either Barclays or TSB could also potentially offer a lower rate for balance transfers than their standard purchase rate - it might be worth asking them about it (at least until you can find alternative cheaper credit).

10.9% on a loan is a lot - and while you could find one cheaper elsewhere, many loans will charge you fees for paying them off early.

My suggestion really would be to try and find a bit more work (either you or your fiance - or both of you)- maybe a Saturday or Thursday night. Also check out sites like https://www.pigsback.com - it's a reward site where you can build up points by clicking on links, doing surveys and joining mailing lists, and then redeem them for vouchers and stuff. While it wouldn't pay your bills, you could get vouchers for boots or bookstores, those kinds of places, and treat yourself or save on things you'd buy anyway. To get extra points, sign up with your fiance's details as well as your own (2 memberships - you'll need 2 different mobile nos and email addresses). I'm on the Ireland site and I've got about 60 pounds worth back so far. There's also quidco (I think https://www.quidco.co.uk). From what I can tell it's a good one but I can't sign up to that one myself because I'm not in the UK.

I'd suggest checking into alternative gas/electricity/etc companies to help lower your bills - check out the info sections on this site and also past posts - many people are in similar situations and posts often contain a lot of useful information.

I also suggest ebaying - it's a 10p listing day today so any listing costs only 10p for the basic listing.. until midnight tonight. I'd suggest having a look at pigsback and quidco and they might even be offering point incentives for joining up to ebay (if you're not already a member) - the Irish site did that for ages.

Regards,
Tamara

CLAPTON

my comments

a. find out where you money actually all goes.

use the budget planner and fill in everything you spend
start a spending diary and write down everything you spend also,
look at all the oneoff and yearly costs...that is everything you will spend over the next 12 months..divide these by 12 and add a line in your budget for each one...
and for each of the yearly figures you need to SAVE each month so you actually have the money when you need it

so for the yearly or one off you need to include car tax, RAC/AA, servicing, allowance for repairs, holiday costs, any plans for the house, clothes, presents, xmas costs etc etc. (if you're going to australia you need to start saving now.

for ordinadry monthly costs you have nothing in for socialising, work related lunches/coffees, any optical/dental/medical, newspapers/magazines, haircuts etc., takeaways


b. forget about new bathroom and windows until your finances are straightened out.

c. stop using credit cards altogether..if you dont have it dont spend

d. rework out your budget and your income on a consistent monthly basis ...its impossible to know where you are with everything mixed up.

for the record you say your income is 1,896 your spending (excluding debts) is only 1,037 leaving a surplus for debt payment of 858 although you only spend 416 on the debts...clearly a lot missing somewhere.


e. as your income is variable , work out an average for your income (say the last 12 months). in months that you have more than the average put the excess in a saving a/c so that in the months with less than average you can withdraw the savings.

f. once you have worked out where you money goes over the whole year, you can really start to take control and see what can be reduce or cut out completely.

best of luck.

continualdiamond

Extra work is out of the q for me at least, 3 jobs is plenty, i work a 40hr week. My fiancee, hmmm possibly, he works his own hrs, as long as its a 8hr day, so hes normally outta the house for 5am.

I like the idea of the reward sites, thanks for that.

Thanks for the advice on filling out the budget planner completely, i didn't do it all right now because we don't manage our money that way, but of course posting here was the whole point to work out where our extra money goes.

Its amazing how you don't realise what you spend it on, until you start recording it.

What do people have to put money away, ie for bills, another bank account?

Id like to put a certain amount away each week so when say water bill comes in, we've got the money or part of it already. Also put money away for other things as well.

justruth

It's up to you how you put money aside for occassional bills etc, I find it useful to put some into an e savings account linked to my current account. When I had a regular income this was done by standing order. CLAPTON has some quality advice, I recommend you go with what he suggests.

tryhard_2

hi
excellent advise by clapton. how's your credit rating? if you could shift the debt to 0% card you'll clear it more quickly. £45 a wk for 2 adults on food can be reduced. look at the old style board on this forum for tips.